Seeing Past Scientism’s Nonsense
The Dangers of Following the Party Line
[Note: this was originally published in April 2016, long before COVID-19 stole the news cycle]
Sally vaccinated her bull terrier pup in December. It was easy to remember the date, as it was right between Christmas and New Years, and Skipper was eight weeks old that week.
What happened in late January made Sally swallow hard, and realize she’d caused what could be a life long problem.
Skipper, the happy go-lucky pup, had started chewing his feet.
And his rump. And he was now scratching his ears and his armpits.
Damn.
Allergies? In a 12 week old pup?
Who was now “due” for another round of the distemper-parvo-combo-wombo vaccine?
Some of Sally’s friends did this with their pups, and it was just understood that Sally would, too.
She never thought much about it.
But now she was digging through Google furiously, and the word “vaccinosis” kept popping up.
And “vaccines and allergies” brought up a bunch of pages.
Gulp.
Proof? N = 1
Sally began to see that she was far from alone. Others wrote about having similar experiences.
Skipper had followed a common pattern holistic vets had been noticing and calling out for decades: illness after vaccination, most commonly “the itch,” usually rears its ugly head about a month after vaccination.
The naysayers like Dr. WhiteCoat would say the vaccine had nothing to do with the allergies that followed.
So-called skeptics (who are actually misusing that word, meaning open minded and questioning norms) are quick to jump into the argument.
They’ll shout “correlation does not equal causation!” and “Where are the studies to prove it?”
Sally saw it with her own eyes.
Then read and heard many others’ experiences that corroborated hers.
And she wasn’t buying scientism’s shrieking arguments.
The number of subjects in her study was 1. This is known as “n = 1” in science statistics.
But when she took into account how many she read about that had had similar experiences, including the many holistic vets’ reports, she knew in her heart that “n” was in fact many, perhaps thousands.
That’s “evidence based medicine” that trumps any number of published studies done by vaccine manufacturers who stand to profit by publishing favorable findings for their vaccines.
Scientism: A New Religious Doctrine?
We live in dangerous times.
Dangerous because a vocal and irrational faction of people, often with vested interests, seek to control how you raise your animals (and kids), and how you choose to partake in healthcare and disease avoidance.
Western medicine is now fully mechanistic.
Somehow, it’s left its spiritual/metaphysical origins and arrogantly rejects the thousands of years of wisdom that it sprang from.
The shamans, the herbalist crones, the native peoples who cured their sick and learned how to prevent illness holistically?
All of these roots have been denigrated to the trash bin conventional medicine reserves for things that don’t fit their current materialistic paradigm.
Things that can’t be patented and profited from to the tune of billions of dollars.
Ideas that counter the well-oiled machine based on ignorance and pure greed.
What is scientism?
My human homeopathic colleague, Dr. Larry Malerba defines it well:
“Scientism” is a term that has been applied to Western science’s tendency to consider itself as the only valid way of describing reality and acquiring knowledge. Far from objective science, it is riddled with a self-imposed form of materialistic and mechanistic bias. When it inappropriately and clumsily attempts to impose its restricted worldview upon domains where it has no business meddling, it can no longer be considered legitimate science that is practiced with an awareness of its boundaries.
It instead begins to resemble an ideology not unlike a religious form of evangelism. Again, it is more than a bit ironic when conventional medicine attempts to belittle some alternative therapies as “faith-based.”
Like any good faith, the church of medicine stands on the authority of its sacred texts. The randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial is the gold standard that assures the purity of church doctrine. The sacred studies are the only source of true knowledge; all other forms of knowledge are held to be inferior. Upholders of the faith frequently quote from the sacred texts in order to disprove and discredit heretical viewpoints.
The conspicuous incongruity here is the ever-changing and fickle nature of medical research studies, which frequently contradict one another and are commonly sponsored and funded by the very corporate interests that stand to gain from that research.
Hence the true authors of the modern sacred texts increasingly turn out to be the underwriters of the medical-industrial complex.
[emphasis mine -ed]
How Scientism Fails Society
This short sighted deeply biased view expects you to ignore the long history of healing that was responsible for our very survival as a species.
Much like fundamentalist religion, scientism attempts to shut out opposing views and does so, ironically, in the name of science.
Science has its roots in inquiry. The attempt to understand how Nature works.
The open minded inquiry that brought us to understand the earth was neither flat nor the center of the universe. (Though Galileo was roundly censured for such heretical thought, even way back then).
Scientism argues that, without double blind studies, nothing is real or can be trusted.
So, when your dog or cat starts to show allergy symptoms a month after a round of vaccinations, the vaccine is exonerated as there are no studies to “prove it.”
When your bright, precocious child who has met or exceeded all of her developmental markers suddenly withdraws, starts rocking in place and no longer interacts with you, and this came after a vaccine event, you are told “research proves vaccines don’t cause autism.”
It’d be one thing to have to suffer these illnesses alone and learn from them for your future health decisions, but scientism goes much farther and, with the blessings of Big Pharma, goes on to make vaccinations mandatory!
God help those California citizens trying to take back their rights as parents to decide whether they want to allow their children to be vaccinated or not.
Paul Offit, MD argues for more vaccines at younger and younger ages, and has well known ties to the vaccine industry, clearly profiting for his outspoken stance.
It doesn’t stop with medicine.
Globally, Big Oil industry backers like the Koch brothers have been called out for seeding doubts about climate change for the past decade!
The media no longer seems interested in digging for the truth of the stories they cover, instead taking the easy road of buying into and supporting scientism’s harsh stance.
How to Think Critically and Take the Path Less Traveled
You know the saying airports have now? “If you see something amiss, report it to the authorities.”
Well, you may not have authorities to report it to, but if you hear something that just doesn’t fit for you, don’t accept it at face value. Especially if it’s coming from main stream media or those with financial interests in what they espouse (like Dr. Offit).
One of my favorite “thought bytes” from Dr. Malerba came after the Disney measles outbreak was spun into a frenzy by scientism’s media tools:
Let me see if I can follow the logic here. The supposed reason fully vaccinated individuals are getting measles is due to exposure to unvaccinated persons, and the solution is to vaccinate them with the same vaccine that has failed to provide protection to those who have already received the vaccine.
And to top it all off, those who question this logic are dismissed as selfish people who don’t really understand science. Is it me, or is this just a lot of crazy talk?
The best advice I can offer is to hang with those who aren’t buying scientism’s false arguments. There are many more of us than you might know.
Subscribe to their email lists, join our pack, so you are regularly dosing yourself with another reality besides that of Fox News and Donald Trump and the so-called skeptics (who are anything but open minded).
When you are a lone voice amid the media fed chatter of our day, it’s very hard to make sound decisions for your animals or your kids. Both, of course, depend on your healthy choices.
Refusing to Support the Machine
Finally, as always, vote with your pocketbook.
If you are still taking your animals to a vet in the 60% of my profession who are recommending annual revaccinations, take your business elsewhere.
Why fight that battle?
Decades of research by immunologists without a profit to make from it have revealed that the annual vaccination nonsense neither works nor is safe for your animal.
Same with your pediatrician.
Getting pressured to vaccinate your kids amidst your awareness of the parallel rise in childhood vaccination and the twin growing epidemics of autism and allergies?
Take your dollars elsewhere.
None of my kids were vaccinated, and our physicians were either chiropractors or homeopaths.
They got out and played in the dirt (without the curse of antibacterial soaps) and they ate natural food and stayed healthy, compared to many of their peers.
Who to Believe?
I’ve had a few emails and/or comments saying, in essence, “I read so many opposing views, I just don’t know who to believe.”
My best answer: take your time, dig in and learn all you can, but don’t neglect your gut feelings.
You rarely have to make a quick decision when it comes to healthcare for your animals.
Anything short of a life threatening injury or disease (rare) affords you time to explore and talk to others to get a feel for what sits right with you.
Remember, common sense is getting less and less common as the years go by. If you’re only hearing one side of any story about what you should do for your pets and horses, start seeking out other opinions.
There are people in the comments on this blog who have been walking the Natural Path for years now, some on their second or third generation of dogs who’ve seen both sides of the “prevention” question.
If people are urging you to partake in more of the “prevention machine,” be sure to ask them how long their animals have been living and in what state of health.
Another eye-opening question: “How much do you spend a year on veterinary fees?”
Those are great questions to help you decipher between these very different realities:
- “Hey, be like me because I feel threatened by those who are choosing a different path!” VS:
- “I’ve been there, done that, and my animals paid a horrible price for following Dr. WhiteCoat’s recommendations. We are so happy now and our animals have really bloomed from following a more Natural Path.”
Let us know in the comments if you’ve run up against scientism and had some good answers and experiences from choosing to do things differently.
I have never given my dogs flea/tick/heartworm because my gut said something wasn’t right with this. I don’t think I ever had them jabbed with a wombo combo. If I did, it was early on in dog ownership. It was the day the vet wanted to put my now 13-year-old Pyr on prednizone for her horrible itch and crabby science kibble. I ended up allowing, sadly, the one round of prednizone. I went home and did some research. I looked at every ingredient in kibble and researched it. I also knew she couldn’t stay on prednizone. I didn’t know about homeopathy at that time but managed to get her well on just raw. That was my slow journey to get to Dr. Falconer’s fabulous courses. What an eye-opener and my sight has never been clearer. I’m not working to fix my rabies miasm dog. Slowly but surely.
He he, I do what Dr. Will suggested…I fired 3 vets, I have a good Clinique for tests if need be, and smile. What I find amazing is Where is the intelligence that we have lost, from following such science? How dichotomous, don’t you find? There is a war on illegal drugs, yet it’s the legal ones the pharmacy company sells that will really do you, and your pets in? Keep writing those articles Dr. Will. If your site went down, it’s because you dared to tell the truth:) Kudos & hugs from me and my hounds:)
Thanks Juliana. You likely will have seen the recent news that “medical mistakes” with such drugs is the third leading cause of death in the US. And you can bet all those drugs came to market with “scientific studies” proving safety and efficacy.
I was absolutely astonished a few months ago when a new customer came into my store (holistic pet retail – emphasis on nutrition). He had been referred by a – gasp! – emergency clinic vet who had diagnosed his 14 year old dog with a metastasized cancer. She told this customer that there were 2 options. 1) chemo (she shook her head “no” while saying it) and 2) come to my store to see if we can at least help some way nutritionally with quality of life (while shaking her head “yes”). Dr. gave them 6-8 months, and right now, we’re at month 5, with dog happy and more energetic than ever. Food as medicine…
So true. I had a Great Dane that had cancer at 2yrs old after a rabies shot and Lepto vaccines. I refused the chemo and started feeding out of Dr. Pitcairn’s book – thinking we’ll just enjoy those months with good meals and lots of fresh air. She lived 7 more years. A far cry from 6 months.
That experience will never make a double blind study.
Nice, Diana, great place to start and much good to be accomplished. And hard to refute experiences like Tricia brings up, right? Seven more years was just not real, perhaps? Or “spontaneous remission?”
We know better, studies or control groups or not.
Y’all inspire me!!
Hey Dr Falconer,
Quick question for you- I don’t vaccinate my dog anymore for anything, but she does go to day care 3-4 days a week where she is around lots of dogs who I assume are getting their vaccinations. I’ve done titers and my dog is good, but is there a limit to how many times a dog can be exposed to a virus say from a newly vaccinated dog’s feces and not get it? Just wondering. I may be over-thinking. My dog’s been fine so far and we’ve had some cases of giardia in the kennel recently.
Hey Peter,
This guy should be immune for life, and will only add to that immunity with each (semi-) natural exposure he comes across. The goal is building him up and letting his innate intelligence see the foreigners for what they are, and mounting an appropriate response (not over reacting or under reacting). Knowing all you’ve done for him, I think you can rest easy that he’s capable.
Carry on, good man.
I was curious about human vaccines and what was being said. This is from 2008 so I’m not sure it they still put the mercury in vaccines. Very interesting. I shall read on.
http://vaccinechoicecanada.com/health-risks/brain-neurological-injuries/the-truth-behind-the-vaccine-cover-up/
Is mercury the issue with vaccinations for dogs/cats?
Hi Donna,
Only to a small degree, but yes, mercury (and aluminum, and formalin) is part of the problem. The more difficult part, the part that brings on often life time suffering (called chronic disease), is spelled out on this page: You Want to Detox a Vaccination? Think Again.
Thanks for your thoughtful attention to this area. It’s a big one.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts. I too have a couple of stories.
I had been searching for a specific breed of dog for quite some time. Contacting a number of breeders etc., well, finally, one breeder told me of a littler that was to be available from another trusted breeder. I called the other breeder (she was the top veterinary for the entire state of (I don’t want to bash her). To make a long story short, I only gave my puppy vaccines until she turned one. (I didn’t know any better then.) When I met our holistic vet, she turned me on to feeding raw and not vaccinating. To this day, this poor 7 year old dog has issues with ear infections. We have tried (at least) 10 homeopathic remedies, adding supplements to her food, cleaning the ears, etc.. poor girl. There are times when my SO hollers at me that if I don’t get it taken care with antibiotics he will take her to the (conventional) vet. I know that if he takes her there they will force vaccinate her, which is the last thing I want for her. I truly believe that the poor girl, having come from a breeder with the job she had, is suffering from severe vaccinosis from her ancestors…
One more story: A couple of years ago our other younger dog was a little listless. She just didn’t want to really do anything or eat anything. Our holistic vet was out of town learning continuing education so we couldn’t get a hold of her. We ended up taking the dog to an emergency hospital. They took blood, said everything was fine, and she should be back to normal within a few days. About 4 days later she was not doing well at all. My SO took her to the conventional vet and they were going to take x-rays, and happen to ask if she has been vaccinated. SO said no, and all hell broke lose! They took a stool sample and everyone suited up in hazmat suits and started spraying bleach all over and cleaning. The poor girl had parvo. They told us our options were very dim and expensive, including spending the week at the U Vet hospital, a lot of vomit, a lot of diarrhea, etc. She was sent home with a bag full of meds, IV’s, supplements etc. It was about 7PM that I finally got a hold of our holistic vet. I told her what they had given her and what was in the “goodie bag” and she told me to get to her office right away for a couple of remedies. I got home around 10PM and started her on the remedies. (This was on a Tuesday) I kept in contact with the holistic vet every day, sometimes going back to her office for a different remedy. On Friday of that week the conventional vet called me to see how the dog was. When I told her she was out in the back yard running around with the other dog all she said was, “What?” I repeated my statement. She said, “Oh. Okay. Glad she’s well.” THAT’S IT! No, “Wow, what did you do?” No, “Holy shit, that wasn’t expected!” NOTHING of the sort. She just hung up! We actually figured out that she got the parvo from a newly vaccinated puppy that had gone duck hunting with us! Hhhmmm.
(Sorry to be so long winded)
Hey Kathleen,
Chronic ear problems are one of the toughest things even seasoned homeopaths deal with. Nothing easy about it. My condolences, and yes: vaccines a large part of the “why” here.
Parvo: nice victory with remedies from your vet! No amazement from Dr. WhiteCoat? Meh. Unfortunately, par for the course. You and I are happily amazed, her? Not expected.
Carry on. You’re on a good path now, at least, and have curtailed further damaging “prevention” practices. Bravo! That in itself is huge, and will pay you dividends in every future animal you bring into your life.
Thanks, Kathleen, two good stories. The first highlights how difficult it can be to cure chronic disease, even for experienced homeopathic vets! Far better to “prevent the prevention” from falling on the patient from Dr. WhiteCoat’s hands. That’s what’s causing the chronic disease in the first place.
The second story was a great “catch” with a couple of remedy changes, but again, far better to prevent parvo naturally. Not all cases are saved in natural treatment. I outlined how natural prevention looks in this post: Prevent Parvo and Distemper Without Vaccination
One of my patients recently took her dog to the vet (middle of the night, so couldn’t contact me) in an emergency. The vets did many tests and would have started treatment without a result had she not put her foot down. Many diseases were discussed. Finally, it dawned on her she was the cause – she had given her dog a commercial flea preparation (which contain neurotoxins) when her dog was itching badly (turned out from ants, not fleas). When she told the vets, they didn’t really want to believe her, but reluctantly did after the dog recovered. They would never have come to that conclusion themselves and the dog would have been given steroids, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, just as a starter.
They never look for causes…
Amazing, isn’t it? How mindset can make such a difference: “We sell the same flea poisons, we believe in them, therefore, this patient couldn’t be poisoned. Those products are safe!”
Meanwhile, the patient has no other reason to be so sick and eventually puts her liver to work and recovers.
If all the drugs had been added to her current state of intoxication, how would she deal with all that?
Will —
We all so appreciate your newsletters and your taking the time to keep us informed and abreast of the latest in alternative methods and especially homeopathy. Your thoughts on veterinary care are enlightening. Thank you, too, for your honesty and sharing of your personal life, and for the wonderful pictures you take on your walks. Please always take time for yourself … take time to heal and regroup … we will wait patiently for your return! –Patti
Will, an excellent article. It is a cultural crisis. We need to turn away from our fascination with materialism and reductionism and begin to look directly at what is happening.
Thanks for posting it.
— Richard
Amen, Richard. Thanks for stopping by.
Doc, glad to see you back. I loved this article as it reinforces everything I feel is wrong with medicine today. Thank you!
Also, I took Bella to a new vet in Capitan, NM. She was awesome, I was so worried about telling her I only wanted a heart worm test and a general blood test to see how Bella was doing. I told her that I wasn’t vaccinating Bella any longer. She knew about the rabies titer testing. She was totally with ‘us’ and I was so happy to find her!
BTW, Bella’s tests were negative for heart worms and great measures on her blood tests. She is healthy and vibrant! She did suggest I give her a probiotic and I told her I was giving her the Transfer Factor. Perfect she said!!
Thanks for your wisdom and knowledge, Dr. Falconer. You are the best!!!
I got both my dogs titer a couple of weeks ago and my vet said they are so very healthy. I am a very proud mother I was telling all my friends about their test result and all about you. All my fur babies are healthy and I haven’t done any flea and tick protection on them or heartguard they are all natural. After reading your ebook on Vital Animals don’t get heartworms I knew I was on the right track and I have told so many of my co-workers and friends about you and passed out your web address. I truly hope they wake up and take care of their dogs/cats they way mother nature intended them to be taken care of. Thank you Dr. Falconer for sharing all your wonderful knowledge with us so we can take better care of our dogs and cats.
Good for you, Sherry. Just please be aware that, when those titers finally fall, that doesn’t mean the immunity is gone! Review this page to make that understanding firm in your mind. And, you can save your money on further testing, in fact. You have established that they’ve got immunity. Done. No more titers are necessary now.
All the best to you and your animals.
Once again, great article Dr. Falconer. You can’t believe how pissed off I get with all this so-called “scientific” BS! I’m tired of it. All I see on TV are ads either for more meds for humans, and God I hate all the commercials for Heart Worm pills, chemical damn flea tick & mosquito meds, all the horrible processed dog & cat foods from the Pet Food Industry. I wish I had the money to do my own ads on TV so I could educate people more about the horrors of ALL dry kibble & most canned foods and definitely of all HW & chemical flea tick & mosquito products. Teach them more on complete raw diet feeding(that has been around for 40+million years for our pets wild ancestors) and 30,000+yrs for domestic dogs & 16,000yrs for domestic cats. I’m just so sick of it and it is actually starting to drive me crazy :)lol but seriously it is driving me crazy. Thanks again for everything you do. Keep up the good work. I will hate the day that you retire and that we don’t have you around anymore. Hopefully that won’t be for a very long time
Two stories.
#1 — Summit was diagnosed with osteosarcoma June 1/11. Despite homecooking and raw feeding him for the previous 9 years, I wasn’t as knowledgeable about alternative treatments as I am now. By pursuing conventional medicine I opted for amputation June 13/11. I lost him Sept 16/11 — to a bacterial infection caused by — CHEMO. His sacrifice led me straight to the natural path.
#2 — As I was sharing a Facebook feed about supporting the body with nutrition rather than lining up for measles vaccines, a young gal (she might be 19 at this point) I’d coached stepped into the debate telling me that surely because I was vaccinated for measles, I should know how important it was…. blah blah blah. I cut her off at the knees: “Not only was I not vaccinated, but neither were any of my childhood friends or relatives. We all had the measles and lived to tell about it. I don’t ever recall in 12 years of schooling, ever hearing of someone dying of measles.” No comment in return.
And a bonus story: My friend knows I have not vaccinated my dogs in 5 years. There are rabid raccoon scares in the news. “Are you going to get them vaccinated?” he asked. I replied saying if the antibodies from the shots they were given before they came to me aren’t good enough, another shot for good measure isn’t going to help. They either have antibodies or they don’t — and so far we know the Rabies Challenge Fund is up to 8 or 9 years of documentation stating antibodies are still present. One dog took down a skunk last fall. I disposed of it without a word. The first reaction of authorities would have been to quarantine — the second would be to vaccinate. Rabid or not — who knows? The dog is fine.
Sadly, the more this information is forced upon those growing into the system (and apparently even those that have lived in it for decades), the less critical thinking is involved. Yes — common sense is becoming an increasingly rare commodity.
Thanks Joanne, good stories. I, too had the measles, doubt if there was a vaccine, and what part of the Disney measles part did your friend miss? Well, how about how many of those coming down with the disease were vaccinated beforehand?? Oops. Didn’t help much, did it?
I fear for those who take comfort in getting all the vaccines they can. They’ll unfortunately not have anywhere near the immunity that comes from actually contracting the disease and beating it. Like all my childhood friends and I did. If the virus is going to be more deadly today, that’ll be more likely true in the vaccinated population, sorry to say.
Wait a second… The concept that ONLY double-blind studies work according to “science” is not acceptable. Double-blind is great. Let’s not dismiss it (unless it is done in-house or by labs that are paid off…
You can get a ton of valid information through other modalities. Hey… Have there ever been studies about the efficacy of parachutes? Why does our government permit their use when jumping out of planes? I think common sense and a history that something is effective is very important. Parachutes DO in fact work despite the absence of double-blind research. Hmmmm
Hahaha, good call, Janie. I didn’t go into it, but most drugs that are assumed safe and efficacious lack these very studies, amid widespread use. Aspirin, for example.
And then there are the many drugs that had the studies that had to be forced off the market because they were causing serious side effects! Bextra comes to mind.
My dogs are free of vaccines, tick/flea/heartworm treatments and eat raw. I was a skeptic in the beginning but it’s amazing what research and education do. I took the Dogs Naturally course and I am so happy I did.
People are so quick to go along with Dr. Whitecoats without questioning or doing research just like I used be like. After the itching of one dog and the great loss of weight of another dog, I had to do something on my own as I was getting no support from my vet other than more Prednisone and keep my other dog on enzymes and wouldn’t redo a blood test.
Thank goodness for the good vets such as Dr. Falconer who make such common sense and freely share it. It makes me so confident in knowing my decisions are right. My dogs have never been healthier.
As for vaccinations in humans. I find it funny. People get the flu shot and then get the flu. Authorities say, oops, they can’t catch all strains so keep working on more vaccines to catch more strains.
My sister refused to be flu vaccinated when she worked as an accountant in an old age home. All seniors had been vaccinated. Management would not let her work unless she got the flu vaccine so she didn’t work until this outbreak went its course. It makes no sense as Dr. W. says.
They’ll never keep up with mother nature. Mother nature outlive us.
I constantly direct people to websites such as Dr. Falconer’s. Thank you, thank you.
I’m inspired by your journey, Donna. There’s nothing like really healthy changes in your own animals, right there under your gaze and touch, to verify that you’ve made good choices. Guessing you’ll not wait for a double blind study to prove what you already know.
Keep up the good work.
My worst problem is finding an holistic vet. There aren’t enough of you!
Agreed, Kate, even fewer homeopathic ones. The solution is to find someone who works by telephone, which many of us do. If you can describe symptoms (and you likely can, and get better and better as the work continues in homeopathy), a remedy prescription can be arrived at.
Visit my Resources page (top menu) and slide on down to the AVH list there. Search allows you to seek 1. Practitioners using mostly or only homeopathy, and 2. Those who offer phone consulting.
Until we get more vets trained (happening as we speak, through the Professional Course), that’s the way to get animals well.
All the best to you and your furred ones!
I ran into my old vet, Dr. WhiteCoat, on Sunday at the town transfer station.. He asked me how my dog was doing, because he’s seen us walking around town, and I told him great, never better. I wanted so badly to tell him what I did to solve my dog’s issues, what him and his staff could not figure out, but I bit my tongue. In my last few appointments with his clinic (he just opened up another clinic in the neighboring town), his staff made me feel irresponsible and that I was being a bad dog parent by choosing to stop vaccinating my dog, not give pesticide Flea/Tick and Heartworm preventatives and feed a raw diet.. I am so glad I got out of there. I walked in there recently to get my dog’s medical records and you are immediately bombarded with advertisements for HW preventatives, Frontline and Advantix, a TV playing the HW life cycle, bags of prescription diets.. And the vets there can be quite mean in their comments if you don’t blindly follow everything they say. Ugh..
I agree! And for further scare tactics Dr. Whitecoat’s office has that nasty jar of heartworms sitting on the counter. One look at that and people line up to buy the meds!!
Jackie, I learned recently that many or most of those jars were provided by the drug salesmen, and originated in stray dogs in Mexico! Amazing marketing device, just not representative of reality.
Oh, Peter, I’m ever so glad you stepped away from such a toxic environment. At some point, let them know why you fired them. It’ll be a good reality check, if they can hear it (a big IF, admittedly).
Me too.. I have been thinking about calling and asking if I could sit down and tell them how I fixed my dogs GI issues and helped her become healthier but I know they would disagree and question and judge me. I mean I hardly am at the vet ever anymore. I don’t buy any of the products they sell so If all their customers were like me they wouldn’t make any money period. But isn’t that technically a good thing? Having healthy pets? and I never go into a PetCo or PetSmart unless I need a new ball or something. The really frustrating part Dr Falconer is that when I try to spread awareness or explain how I got my dog healthy, and my protocols and lifestyle choices, I get called an extremist and that I’m whacko and paranoid. I share info because I was once someone who blindly followed every word my vet told me, let scare tactics control my decisions. I don’t want others to go through that. I spent every night reading online for hours. Researching. Talking to people and doing my homework. I didn’t always make the right decisions but I figured it out and now I’m an advocate. An information sharer. My dog is proof. I have receipts from my Old vet and Tufts for hundreds and even thousands of dollars, it didn’t get me anywhere.. But when I share my story and what I’m doing now which is simply just feeding real food instead of food-like products and making sure everything is natural and organic as possible. I get weird looks because “my dogs have been eating kibble and using frontline and getting vaccinations yearly and we use chemically treated lawns and our dogs lived long healthy and happy lives, so you’re saying I’m doing everything wrong and my dog wasn’t healthy?” People literally become defensive. it bothers me. Especially the people who have had major health issues like cancerous tumors, heart attack a and such but they continue their ways and are so closed minded and stubborn..
Choose your audience carefully, Peter. They’ve got to show interest and want more info. If they don’t, you’ll just be shaking their trees and yes, they’ll be upset.
You have zeroed in on the heart of the problem with conventional health care, both human and animal. “Scientism” (or it could be called the “science shield”) has enabled the powers-that-be to get away with murder. It has so brainwashed everyone, we don’t even trust our own intuition anymore.
When I mentioned to family members that I was taking a pet health course that includes homeopathics, I was immediately challenged with “there’s no scientific proof it works” as well as follow-up emails from google searches debunking homeopathy. One family member was trained as a registered dietician over 35 years ago and will not even visit the possibility that alternative nutritional practices might have some validity unless it’s written up in a scientific journal.
I agree with you, Dr. Falconer, that we have to be willing to take a stand for what we believe in, for the sake of our health and that of our pets. Even if it means we face opposition or even ridicule.
Thank you for doing what you do to spread the word!
Thanks Nancy. The pseudo-science cloud that hanging over us now can really throw common sense under the bus, can’t it? It’s become as if nothing is real or valid w/o a double blind research paper that you can Google!
Sometimes taking a stand is best a very private thing. Sometimes it’s got to get out there. You really have to judge where either option will take you and decide what helps you stay more sane.