08/04/2022
Veterinary qualifications and years of experience do need to be acknowledged and respected. And many vets don't have much nutritional training and are accepting what pet food companies are telling them to sell their products. Pet fooled is a fantastic documentary on the billion-dollar commercial pet food industry that has been allowed to mislead vets, pet stores, and people at the expense of our pets' health. Knowledge is power.
This was first posted by Wheaten Health Matters in the US, so thanks guys for highlighting it. This isn't the first of these we've seen...and it's not just the US. In fact, we've seen coms from the top advising veterinary groups in the UK advising the same.
Asides the fact it must be a nightmare for this clinic when determining which of their cat clients consumed fresh prey items 24hrs before attending their clinic, does it not strike anyone as utterly insane that vet clinics today are trying to segregate any pets fed fresh food because of a COMPLETELY UNSUBSTANTIATED "danger" they pose to not only staff but I guess the other sick dogs who are all somehow better protected from, assumedly, Salmonella poisoning, as a result of them receding dry food?!! Particularly when you consider... (studies where cited available on request):
🤭 dry food is significantly more likely to be recalled for Salmonella than raw (35 times more so in the US, by weight, based on FDA figures for recalls from 2010-2018, not sure what it is in the EU/UK as recall figures are not collated)
🤭 dry food in the US has poisoned significantly more humans (132 from 2006-2016) with Salmonella than raw (who poisoned ZERO in that time, according to the literature), half of them toddlers under two years of age (albeit these don't work in dry-promoting vet practices where all this danger appears to be localised...)
🤭 unlike raw dog food, authors have isolated the same species of drug-resistant Campylobacter jejuni as found in a dog fed a dry diet in the same house
🤭 two colossal, peer-reviewed, life time, safety review studies, incorporating tens of thousands of raw feeders, 100,000's of dogs and many millions of meals, show raw is a very, very safe thing to do (such safety studies have never been conducted on dry feeding...imagine)
🤭 studies report owners of dry-fed dogs with GI issues enjoy 85% recovery on raw
🤭 studies show raw fed dogs, now free from all the ultra prucessed junk and chemical preservatives, benefits gut flora balance (and therefor GI issues?!)
🤭 studies suggest raw dog food appears to heal leaky gut issues
As we see with this warning letter below, this apparent threat is never, ever, ever referenced, only the fact that raw meat MAY cause an issue, which is true. It MAY (and they will share studies to that extent).
Its just evidence of this actually happening in a population to some degree is never shown. All we have is those pesky safety studies suggesting it appears to be a very, very safe thing to practice (they always forget to mention that bit...), not to mention the word of hundreds of raw-promoting vets and millions of pet owners worldwide.
Again, just like DCM lie both the FDA / dry industry peddled to stunt the growth of more natural / grain free pet foods (successfully, albeit they are still 50% of the US pet food market and growing), not a single jot of useful evidence is used or even needed for apparently evidenced-based vets to jump on board and spread these lies, just this anecdotal nonsense from vested interests.🤭
While fear is an effective strategy in the short term, this approach will work against vet clinics as it serves to immediately alienate 20% of their clientele who see such messages as a red flag that the clinic in question is not keeping abreast of the latest science - what other products might they be promoting without doing their due diligence?
Either way, expect this to get a lot worse before it gets better.
[The fact Orijen, Honest Kitchen and (barfs-in-mouth) Fresh Pet is on their "dangerous raw" list tells you all you need to know about the amount of research these health professionals put into their scaremongering. I bet my bottom dollar this came from a Mars-owned clinic - they do own more than 2000 US vet hospitals, more than 50,000 US vets on the payroll and own all the US veterinary diagnostics, after all.]