Politics and Policy

Pet owners are lining up for services — great! — but what if we can’t meet the demand? Either way, we need to root out bad vets and figure out where we stand on CBD.

There’s something special about a new decade. The view is longer — 10 years, of course — and generational change lies at the heart of many conversations. If you doubt this, think about the veterinary profession on Jan. 1, 2010, and today, and then list the companies, practices and people no longer with us or […]

The flourishing import market poses genuine health threats. Certifying large commercial U.S. breeders could be a worthwhile solution.

Mark the summer of 2019 as when the United States finally took seriously the issue of how many dogs, mainly puppies, were being allowed into the country illegally each year and the perilous condition of their health. To understand the situation, we need to step back and understand where we’ve been. A 2015 Moore Information […]

New York lawmakers approved the first statewide declaw ban and, along with New Jersey, is looking at imposing rules on groomers. Who’s next?

2019 is a watershed year for politics and the pet care industry. Issues that drew scant attention for decades have caught the public eye or, better yet, the eager eyes of politicians wanting to tap into the surge of interest in pets. New York and New Jersey are prime battlegrounds for the issues of declawing […]

The veterinary world looks a whole lot different than it did 15 years ago. That’s a very good thing.

When I first worked on veterinary and animal welfare issues, back in 2004, two things were clear: I’d move on to other venues when the microchipping coalition wrapped up and we abandoned the silly notion that microchips and scanners for identifying lost pets should use proprietary technologies. No chance of me becoming what my kids […]

Much has been accomplished to this point. Now it’s time for lawmakers and state and national organizations to step up.

It’s time for a checkup. Not for my pets, but for a certain item called veterinary telemedicine. Every reader of Today’s Veterinary Business knows that you cannot attend a local, state or national veterinary meeting without seeing telemedicine on the agenda. It’s been that way for the past 2½ years. The NAVC’s January conference, VMX, […]

As legislators in three states ponder awarding non-economic damages to pet owners, the veterinary profession needs to get to the bottom of what is troubling nurses.

When we talk about threats to veterinarians and access to veterinary care, nothing is more dangerous than legislation that authorizes the recovery of non-economic damages. This troublesome idea has been around for decades, but state courts have done the heavy lifting to maintain the status quo in California, Texas, Georgia, Oregon and Vermont, to name […]

What does the pet health care industry want to do about acute shortages of veterinarians and nurses?

The last public debate about the number of veterinarians in America took place more than four years ago in Denver at the American Veterinary Medical Association annual meeting. I won’t forget it for two reasons. I debated three people: Drs. Paul Pion, Jim Wilson and Dennis McCurnin. A one-on-three debate is always interesting. But what […]

National and state officials see veterinarians as part of the solution to the opioid crisis. The industry’s role in prescribing and dispensing controlled substances is likely to come under greater scrutiny.

Requirements for veterinarians who handle opioids and other controlled substances have generated a flurry of activity in legislatures and a bevy of articles in trade media. While state VMAs regularly update practitioners about what’s expected and about state pharmacy board deadlines, I can help by laying out where things stand, or are heading, and look […]

As 2019 approaches, several critical matters — from the Fairness to Pet Owners Act to opioid abuse to telemedicine — remain unresolved.

It’s October, schools are back in session and politics are in full campaign mode with the off-year elections. Here are notes and updates on most of the items we’ve been following all year. 1. Fairness to Pet Owners Act This bill has hung around Congress since September 2010 and still hasn’t gained a hearing in […]

The advent of telemedicine has brought a new focus to the veterinarian-client-patient relationship and its diverse definitions and interpretations.

Two terms rarely, if ever, were mentioned together in veterinary meetings or publications prior to January 2016: telemedicine and the VCPR. What changed in 2016 was the North American Veterinary Community’s launch of the Veterinary Innovation Council and the American Veterinary Medical Association’s national working group on telemedicine. Since then, the veterinarian-client-patient relationship (VCPR) has […]