[Felvtalk] Vaccines and General Health Knowledge...

[ROBERT CHAPEL]

I applaud Amani's very nicely delineated defense of Vaccines and her 
pointing out how many people who are anti vax ( and dare I say wedded to 
" all natural " cures etc) more often than not have a sub standard 
understanding of immunology, Micro Bio and even basic physiology.....  I 
am not a huge fan of the medical 'machine' in america but the fact that 
it is BIG business should not obviate the fact that there are MANY 
individual MD's and Vets who do their level best to practice well and 
ethically and who DO know quite a bit more than we do even if we do not 
always like the conclusions they draw.  Silly people who are fond of 
saying that " The Doctors don't know what they are talking about" can 
seldom be seen avoiding these same uninformed professionals as soon as 
something goes amiss with their health.( Then , of course, fail to 
follow the advice they are given...don't improve and blame it on the 
fact the the " Doctors don't know what they are talking about" : )    We 
run that risk here as well.... Vets are businessmen/women and the world 
of Vet medicine is rapidly changing in the same direction as Human 
Medicine...Vets are incentivized in group practices to sell services AND 
medications and don't always predicate their decisions on what is best 
for the patient or owner..THAT is why it is SO important to NOT run from 
Vet to Vet...  find one that you basically trust and stay with them!!  
Same with MD's....  Even if they are under pressure to " sell " most 
decent people will allow the long term relationship to count for 
"something" over time and modify their approach.  Most importantly try 
to learn all you can to discourse _ intelligently_ about your animals 
disease process so that you can somewhat impassively evaluate the advice 
you were given by a vet and determine if he/she was simply not paying 
enough attention to your concerns, or fully grasped them but reached a 
different conclusion....   The Vet I saw the other day who really did 
give a careful examination to my Yogi had no investment in me OR my cat 
but was a professional and did what needed to be done....prescribed 
sensibly
( which resulted in very clear improvement for my cat) but did NOT want 
to prescribe Winstrol I believe because he could not keep the script in 
house ( ie...can't get his hands on it and can't make a profit on it)
The other vet in the same practice that I saw showed no signs of the 
same profit motive, WAS willing to prescribe Winstrol but gave my guy a 
FAR more cursory examination( eg...didn't even use a tonometer to 
measure Intraocular Pressure).. and recommended against using the very 
drugs that were responsible for my guys improvement......   Who is the 
better vet??   I don't know...  I know that I have to decide on someone 
with whom to develop a relationship and I could go broke running from 
Vet to Vet until I find one that I trust right out of the Box...  ( 
BTW....EACH one of the Vets mentioned were recommended to me)..
Sorry for the length of this "rant"... hope it wasn't an imposition...   
The brief " take away "...  We are the advocates for our FeLV kitties 
and we owe it to ourselves and them to be as scientifically informed as 
we can be ... Sadly todays " professionals " are sometimes not a lot 
different than the Deli clerk who has been instructed to routinely go 
over when you ask for a "half pound"......  I am old enough to feel a 
profound sadness at this dilution of the meaning of professional.....  
Now we really DO have to keep both eyes open
until we know our " professional" well.
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