An initial response to the Arizona Mirror article. There are many problems with the article, not all of which are detailed here. For additional background please refer to the previous open letter pleading with the Mirror to do a better job. There will be more to follow here and on the future blog, The Carnival of the Animal Doctors.
There are many inaccuracies in Evoy's article, including his depiction of my Cody's death and my experience with the board, but perhaps the worst is that he seems to misunderstand the purposes of this group or this site. This website is not here to help pet owners make better decisions about what vet to visit nor do we collectively favor any of Kavanagh's past legislation. I personally find most of his efforts nothing less than disrespectful of the dead. Nor would I classify myself as a "vet victim" as in my view the victims are the pets themselves, animals with broadly the same intelligence and awareness as a very small child, yet consigned to a medical system closer to a network of unscrupulous automotive mechanics. Your politicians helped make it happen when they created their regulatory environment, and they keep doing it because it makes the veterinarians happy.
The records we have are not large enough to form a valid statistical sample about any particular veterinarian, anecdotally it's unlikely for most people to even bother filing a complaint, and not every complaint is necessarily valid. The records are posted here to show what is considered acceptable medical practice by the veterinary profession and to raise awareness about the entirety of the system to which you routinely entrust the lives of some of your family members. To rely on these records as a way to obtain a good result is no better than a gambler who erroneously believes he has a "system" to defeat the house. Nor can you rely on the AAHA accreditation, itself classified and copyrighted, despite Evoy's shoutout; Ms. Foulks, the protagonist of his story, lost her dog at an AAHA-accredited hospital and the AAHA found no cause to do anything about it. Again, it's a poorly-researched and poorly-written article that mostly serves to promulgate one person's grievances and lend some coverage to a questionable Arizona politician who uses pets as a prop.
Malpractice suits are not the solution to the problem nor the intention behind this site. Evoy quotes Gail Mason, an expert witness often hired to prop up malpractice cases, as bemoaning the number of unnecessary tests run on pets; yet this expert seems to have an interesting notion of science, providing a testimonial for "The Master" of "Eastern medicine including acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine" when she's not helping pets or testifying against other vets. To be sure, veterinary clinics, like any business, exist to make a profit, and at least anecdotally, many of these cadres seem to constitute the biomedical sciences' runner-ups as well. But it might be worth noting that in human medicine, fear of malpractice suits has been considered a major driver toward defensive medicine, overtesting, and overtreating, yet the article seems to suggest that more and bigger winnings will somehow make the situation better. What's called for are not more lawyers and expert witnesses but more actual doctors and nurses. My little Cody had very good luck with a British veterinary surgeon in California, but then again, he once presented a poster session to neonatal surgeons back in the United Kingdom, and he used the same equipment used to operate on babies. Who's cutting on your furbaby? Would a lawsuit make them do a better job or become a better person?
Senator Kavanagh, Arizona's most humane legislator, also gets a mention. To the extent that his bills regarding the veterinary board would make a difference, it's largely a smokescreen that would only benefit a few particularly vocal persons without actually fixing any of the underlying problems. What is the "fair market value" of an old and sick pet? How is falsifying records already not covered by prohibitions on unethical behavior? Why would the responsible veterinarian for the premises not be accountable under current statute if an uncertified person kills a pet? Based on my limited interaction with him and his coterie, I don't believe they have any particular large-scale understanding of the issue, though I do believe they're willing to use others' dead pets to advance their own goals. And given that pet-friendly persons and organizations often play an outsized role on the board yet vote no differently than the others, it should also be noted that Kavanagh is himself heavily involved in the humane environment and has a decidedly different notion of animal rights than Joe Sixpack. One of his more humane proposals would even have made it even easier for the government take away and bump off your pet without a trial—in effect, doing it P'Nut style despite his Republican registration.
Nor are Evoy and Kavanagh correct in the assertion that progress is mostly blocked by Big Meat or the animal industry. The regulators on the state veterinary board are appointed by the governor and approved by the Arizona senate. Arizona law also makes a clear distinction between pets and livestock, much to the chagrin of the horses who met an untimely end on the wrong side of that line. The issue is that most of this conduct is acceptable to the veterinary community and the government doesn't care enough to do anything about it. At one point the state veterinary board actually had four people with ties to the Arizona Humane Society serving concurrently but only one representing the livestock industry. Their track records weren't all that different. In Arizona's own Kaufman v. Langhofer, amicus briefs were filed on behalf of the Arizona Veterinary Medical Association, Animal Health Institute, American Animal Hospital Association, American Kennel Club, American Pet Products Association, American Veterinary Medical Association, Cat Fanciers' Association, and Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council by the same law firm. It's worth noting that many meat-forward countries already have laws on animal sentience, yet Arizona's dead and maimed dogs and cats are somehow the direct result of the political influence of Arizona cattlemen?
Even having a public dialogue about these issues is difficult because of the shoddy reporting and epistemic closure that generally occur regarding the topic. Evoy's own article and a similar effort at the Arizona Republic (that was killed by the editors there last year under highly unusual circumstances) are particularly good examples of the problem. Evoy spoke with many people, including a former floor manager at a major Arizona pediatric facility, a Tucson-area Latina who advocates for pets when she's not trying to raise awareness about the Arizona family court system, and a deaf woman who had interesting experiences with a future investigator as well as the investigative committee. Despite being shoo-ins for coverage in a left-leaning outlet like the Arizona Mirror, none of them made the cut, and that's not even counting those who didn't want to speak to another reporter after the prior debacle with the Arizona Republic. Nor does he mention that he's had a memo from the state veterinary board for months—one that I personally obtained and sent to him—suggesting that board staff knew several investigators were effectively unable to do their jobs for quite some time and needed to be gracefully retired. Instead the article focuses on one or two cases, expert witnesses, lawsuits and damages, and a shout-out to a politician often shoehorned into pet-related articles run by the Arizona Mirror. He notes that the board accused me of killing my own pet, but ignores that it occurred shortly after I filed a large public records request with the agency and repeatedly made it clear that the agency was biased, so I suspect it was likely retaliation by the then-chair. Evoy did, at least, focus on one of the people I indirectly put him in touch with—none other than the protagonist, Staci Foulks, who reached out to Evoy herself after my recommendation.
The poor coverage also hinders public understanding. For example, Evoy states that I criticize Nikki Frost for dismissing about 80% of complaints. Sure, not because of the percentage, but because of the content as well. But she's no worse than any of her colleagues. He does, however, ignore that Frost even being on the board demonstrates how truly corrupt the state government is with respect to board appointments. The position she holds was actually carved out for veterinary technicians from a previously-created public member position. What's even more interesting is that the person who held the role before her, Julie Mumford, the very first appointee for the new role, came from the same Prescott veterinary clinic as Frost. The clinic itself was co-owned by Steven Dow, a former veterinary board member, and also had connections to Kenneth Skinner, a former president of the state veterinary association. Dow's son, Cameron, was also a vet who ended up inheriting the clinic with his wife, Amie, and she went on to start vet clinics with Frost. Cameron also ended up on the investigative committee, then quit, and was replaced by his dad, Steven. Nobody on the board thought any of this was odd, and better yet, neither did your former governor or any of the senators who approved Frost for the job or voted on the enabling legislation that gave Mumford a gig. Your elected officials literally do not care who they appoint to many of these boards, yet in many respects, these boards are more powerful than your elected government.
Some of you may ask what should be done if Kavanagh's lawsuit-positive legislation and questionable reforms aren't the answer. On that point I can only speak for myself. As I told a concerned citizen some months ago, the long-term solution to the problem over decades would involve replacing the veterinary system with something else. Much like a failing company or department can be saved by identifying the people who made it fail, then using them to keep the lights running while coming up with a plan to show them the door, we as a society could choose to do the same here. We probably won't. But if we wanted to, together, we'd start with the veterinary board because it's where all the various forces at work—political, professional, cultural—intersect. Eastern Europeans managed to defeat Communism and South Americans managed to dispose of juntas, and I suspect with effort Arizona could do with fewer bent regulatory boards. I believe there is a need for standards and regulation, particularly in life-critical sectors like health and aviation, but after what I've personally seen, I'm left-libertarian enough to suggest the number of modern-style regulatory boards should be approximately zero.
One way to have fewer of them is to make sure nobody wants the job. Right now people want to be on the veterinary board, and that needs to change. Suppose you let PetSmart know you don't shop there because of Robyn Jaynes or say you no longer support the Arizona Humane Society because of Melissa Thompson? Suppose you and your friends let Nikki Frost's vet clinics know you won't be doing business there? Or Cameron Dow's employer, or wannabe board member Amrit Rai? Should you be scared of Midwestern University's vet school given that it was largely set up by Brian Sidaway back in the day? And not just them! Just go down the whole list and politely let them know, or maybe even stage a flying picket with a few friends during the week. Make sure people know that you don't trust your pets or your dollars to any institution that has any connection to a past, current, or prospective veterinary board member. As board members they're also public figures, so perhaps they'd show up in advertising with their horrible track records. You can't run a board if every veterinarian in the state fears for their reputation such that they'd refuse the job on the spot. Do I think enough people would do that? Never. But it would do more for pets than all the lawsuits and wacky legislation ever could.