[Felvtalk] Vaccines and General Health Knowledge...

[Rachel Dagner]

I think we need both natural and conventional. After all if your
cholesterol is high and you lose weight and change your diet and eat some
oatmeal everyday it is likely that you can bring it down without spending
your life of drugs. Right? There is merit to including vitamins and
supplements and the healthiest food you can put in your body and into that
of your animals.



*From:* Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org] *On Behalf Of
*ROBERT CHAPEL
*Sent:* Thursday, June 09, 2016 5:00 PM
*To:* felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
*Subject:* Re: [Felvtalk] Vaccines and General Health Knowledge...



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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