I completely agree that concrete facts are much more effective in any discussion. At the same time, I'm bound to report what people within the industry are saying regarding the topic. A big part of this discussion is being driven by the VPAs, which I touched on in the first article. The first article is intended to provide an overview of the discussion. Subsequent articles will tackle the results of the survey, as well as other more in-depth coverage of issues such as the VPAs. There are a number of issues surrounding the VPAs that make it extremely difficult for anyone to change. I can't go into a great deal of detail because the subsequent articles haven't been published yet. However, the biggest problem with changing those laws is that the VPAs are written by vets. Legislatures give them wide latitude when crafting them. Another issue is: Who is going to spearhead the efforts to change the VPAs? As detailed in the first installment of the series, vets have a powerful lobby, two members of Congress, a congressional caucus and plenty of money to burn. Farriers have no money, no lobbying power and no money devoted to protecting the trade on Capitol Hill, nor in the 50 state legislatures. That is one of the reasons, Mr. Lawrence, why some farriers are calling for licensing. Is it necessary to go that far, though? Others aren't sold on it. They believe that farriers can make a difference without licensing. We shall see.
Isn't it interesting that people have given up on the law - the law doesn't matter - what matters is who has the most money to bribe the politicians and law makers. The VPAs should be challenged on constitutional grounds. The only constitutional basis for veterinary licensing is for the protection of the human food supply. The only reasons vets ever got licensed in the first place is because the human medical doctors didn't want to lower themselves to the task of monitoring livestock, poultry, ect. under their own licensing scheme. The constitution only allows individual liberty to be regulated when that liberty has the potential to affect the health and welfare of other citizens. Lawyers, medical professionals, electricians, plumbers, barbers, etc. are all licensed to protect HUMANS. Animals have no constitutional protection. The vets have gotten away with protecting their turf because nobody has ever challenged their administrative law on the constitutional guarantee of liberty. Even when animal owners organizations have asserted their "right" to hire whom they see fit to care for their livestock, then have never taken their challenge all the way to a full constitutional challenge - because the vets give up just enough to placate them.
It seems that you are arguing two completely different issues, Mr. Bloomer. The VPAs explicitly dictate what is considered veterinary medicine. In many cases farriery and horseshoeing are not exempted. Some states prohibit a farrier from treating an abscess or a bloody hoof crack. Others don't. However, that has no bearing on the ability of an owner to sue a farrier for failure to follow a vet's instructions. What we're talking about is whether a state with strict VPAs that doesn't exempt farriery and horseshoeing can prosecute a farrier for practicing veterinary medicine. That is the state's discretion, which could be heavily influenced by a vet who is bent out of shape over a certain case. I'm not sure whether it matters that no farrier organization officially commented on the latest VPA. The vets have not demonstrated a willingness to change the VPA. At the same time, they aren't enforcing it either. Could that be why no farrier organization has pushed the issue?
I couldn't agree with you more, Mr. Bloomer. The Constitution has suffered greatly in recent years. Unfortunately, the voice of the electorate have been effectively eliminated when it comes to legislation thanks to the special interests and their deep pockets. Politicians only seem to care what voters have to say when it's time for re-election. Otherwise, they only pay attention to those who are willing to line their political war chest.
Whether or not vets are willing to change the VPA doesn't matter as long as farriers refuse to organize and focus their attention on challenging the vets. Most of the farriers who favor licensing are mostly interested in excluding their competition from the trade. The more exclusive a farrier organization is, the less chance they have of getting enough members to mount an organized challenge in a given state. You want to see a vet practice act get changed in a hurry - have all the farriers in one state go on strike for 2 weeks - preferably during the peak of show and riding season. Any horse owners that complain, tell them to call their vet to get their horses shod or call their state representative and bend their ear. That's how you take ownership of your trade, not by organizing in order to exclude folks deemed not qualified by some arbitrary standard. But that will never happen because the licensing proponents want the exact same thing the vets want - power to exclude whomever they deem undesirable or detrimental to their business interests.
Sorry Tom, striking didn't work for the horseshoers; at least not since 1907. The JHU tried that, in peak season, in Fl and nobody cared. At the time, there was more money in horse flesh at the track than at the horse show grounds and more spectators at the track too
Tom, and whoever else is reading I don t think that a strike by hoof care providers would ever get off the ground but if enough/some hoof care providers began to tell the owners and trainers for whom we provide services about the laws as they are written ,I believe a grass roots swell might emerge. Again I don t see licensing as a viable answer and further I don t see many of the vets that I work with as public enemy #1, matter of fact ,I see them as allies in this because they , for the most part, don t want to shoe horses. In this type of strategy a single hoof care provider become a multitude of voices..... and it could start the team approach, kinda like when we are faced with a hoof problem , owner, farrier,vet, barn help when working together give the best chance of getting the job done, each time ya piss off one of the team members to where they do not want to participate, it increases the chance of the plan not working. Lets face it, often times we have a horse handlers attention for 15 minutes to a number of hours, depending what we are doing, times how many stops per day, should be plenty of time to pontificate the story as we see it and ask them to be a part. As a farrier , if I have 40 customers and I got 10% of them to pass the word and or write a letter, there would be now 5 folk yakking bout it! And we all know us horse folk love top yak! But if we put our efforts into attempting to strike, we now could make enemies of the horseowners and others, and after all is said and done, the VPA laws are still on the books as written, if we attempt licensing,and the VPA laws are on the books, they would still be law. The organization as I see it is that the facts of the matter be presented to the team, and an encouragement be presented of how to send a letter to the state legislature to amend the VPA laws. That amending will need to be done via a qualified legal team not by some internet hoof care providers but that would come down the road Ray
Ok, so no strike . . . strike that. So Ray, who would you have as the team leader? How about Obama? He's going to retire soon.
Tom, you can pick a leader, what i m going to try is to start telling my shoeing/trimming customers, and asking them to write a letter to Massachusetts legislators to amend the law,to save some time I m going to request that Jeff provide me with the Ma. version of the VPA law. so that on follow up visits I can show the copy to theses customers, and inform the farrier supply houses in these parts to have a look as to how it might have an effect on them and their customers. I might have a pre drafted letter with me that I might ask these customers to sign so that it can be forwarded to the legislators . But that s getting ahead of myself. And I d encourage others to take the same actions and /or if they have ideas of action to please bring them someplace for discussion. That said, Jeff, would you ,if you have it conveniently, forward a copy of the Massachusetts law concerning this issue,thank you in advance. Ray
I followed the link for the Massachusetts Veterinary Practice Act, but it gave me a "Page Not Found" message. I'll see if I can find it elsewhere.
Thanks Jeff, I got the same but hoped that since you had the 9 states that did not include farriers I was hoping that you had the others that did at hand. I d appreciate it if you find the MA. law ,even the # before I do to pass it on. While searching I found an article about a farrier in Arkansas a farrier , Jim House, who happens to be a State legislator also and back 7 or 8 years ago he got the horseshoeing part of the bill removed. That s why it is not in the VPA of that state,ie not a question. I m going to try and reach out to him for some info/guidance in this area and I would suggest that you inform the farriers who are talking and rumbling about this to follow his lead. Thank you Ray
Ray, this is the reason you need to get your political hat on and run for office. Then we'd have a red headed voice in action.
Jeff Cota was kind enough to forward to me the MA. VPA because I kept getting a 404 computer message. Thanks Jeff. Having requested Jeff s permission to post it here on the forums I will as soon as Mrs. Steele is here to help me out with it.(paste and copy I ll be going to Danny Wards at the end of this week and will try to bring a hard copy with me in case some one wishes to read/discuss it there. www.animallaw.info www.animallaw.info/statute/ma-vetenary-registration-veterinarians 58 Ray
It appears that the bottom link is missing some information. That's probably my fault when I sent it to Ray. The correct link is: https://www.animallaw.info/statute/ma-veterinary-registration-veterinarians#s I'm not a lawyer, so I want to avoid legal interpretation. What I will point out is that often there are exemptions included within the legal verbiage that can be confusing. A perfect example is the Florida VPA that I posted earlier. I keep going back and forth on this in my own mind. Florida will not respond to my attempts to clarify its interpretation of the VPA. Upon re-reading it several times, as well as other VPAs from around the country, it's possible that there is sufficient language in the Florida VPA to at least argue that farriers are protected because of the bolded passage below. However, it's much more subjective to make that same argument with the Massachusetts VPA. It reads: When reading "to test the presence of any disease," the passage is written so broadly that it makes me wonder whether it's even legal for a farrier to use hoof testers without the direct supervision of a veterinarian. I have put exemptions 6 and 7 in bold face for two reasons: 1. Number 6 is exceptionally broad. Are farriery or horseshoeing included as part of accepted livestock management practices? I cannot find the definition within this VPA. This very well could be the legal loophole for farriery or horseshoeing. Yet, is it written so subjectively that it could be possible to be argued either way in a court of law? If it can be argued that it protects farriers, a lawyer would have to investigate case law and present whether precedence has been established. 2. Where number 6 is ambiguous, number 7 is explicit. It specifically prohibits receipt of payment for services defined as veterinary medicine or surgery. That doesn't necessarily mean, though, that number 7 is influenced by number 6, or vice versa. It's important to note that according to the attorneys and other experts whom I have communicated with, there is no instance in which farriers are being prohibited from doing their job. However, there is a record of equine dentists and massage therapists who have been issued cease and desist orders by veterinary boards in a number of locations.
Jeff, thanks for the clarification and for taking the time to post . To me, and I m certainly not a lawyer, why have the ambiguity at all? I ll be stopping to see my son the solicitor ,on the way to Danny s and after several Guinness and a bit of Jameson and or the like, I ll try to quiz him about this, but just shy of receiving a bill for services. thank you again Ray
You're welcome, Ray. I'm not sure about the purpose of the ambiguity. If I had a guess, I think it serves at least two purposes. 1. To write it so broadly that it hopes to avoid unintended consequences. 2. To protect their own interests. I'm sure your son has a much better explanation. Enjoy your visit with your son and at Danny's. A lot of people have told me they plan to attend the clinic. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun.
Kind of like politics - muddy waters gives a person(association) room to move without being seen, or the old C.Y.A. in case of any kind of legal mess.
Read Supreme Court ruling on FTC v N.C. Board of Dental Examiners. Read the Federal Trade Commission's guidance to the states in regard to this ruling. There will be no licensing and the vets will not be inclined to hassle farriers using VPA's. Farrier associations will no longer promote licensing, nor will farriers that formerly supported the idea of licensing. The legal landscape just completely changed for everybody.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150329-column.html These links have pretty good explanations of the rulings/ legal concepts. http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/...deral antitrust laws when it prohibited nonde
