RMB Newsletter Vol 6:3 Bad to worse
Dear Reader,
How are you? Hope this finds you wonderfully well and fighting the good
fight against the junk pet-food monster.
This last couple of weeks it’s been hot here in England. Near record
temperatures were reached in London. Record and sometimes heated
discussions were held on three separate days with UK Members of
Parliament about the pet-food industry/veterinary alliance’s callous
indifference to animal cruelty. By the next newsletter I hope to have
some details.
The main item in this newsletter focuses on the British Veterinary
Association and Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons going from bad to
worse.
There are updates on the RMB U-turn Tour.
News just in: Bill and Joy, my much appreciated web-helpers, have posted
the full text of Raw Meaty Bones: Promote Health at www.rawmeatybones.com
Have fun and much success too,
Tom Lonsdale
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RMB U-TURN TOUR
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Already this northern summer my wife Jie and I have enjoyed fabulous
hospitality and fellowship in Holland, Belgium and UK. In chronological
order:
List owner Ester, Roger Verhaegen and helpers made me most welcome on the
VoerNatuurlijk Forum www.voernatuurlijk.nl/forum. Fortunately discussions
were conducted in English on subjects including ‘barf’, ‘prey-model’
and ‘vaccines’. A transcript has been saved at the UK Raw Meaty Bones
site www.ukrmb.co.uk/
On 29 June Roger and Marc Geerinck collected us in Rotterdam and headed
south to Belgium. Martine had organized a wonderful venue in a delightful
village. We dined in style in superb surroundings. Thank you Martine.
After the seminar we talked late into the night. Fortunately Marc and
wife Nadia gave up their huge waterbed so that we could get a good
night’s rest before the journey back to Holland in readiness for the 1
July seminar.
Ineke van Vessem, Celestine Nicolas-LaFarge, Jacky Verhulst and Irene and
Spencer de Wijn (www alles-rauw.nl) worked hard over several months to
arrange talks at the Martin Gaus centre in Lelystad, Holland and then at
Peter Lennertz’s wolf centre in Limbourg-Bilstain, Belgium. Ton and
Marlies Leegwater, friends from volunteer days in Kenya in 1972, ferried
us between the venues in the most glorious summer sunshine.
The Martin Gaus centre contains state of the art facilities. In Limbourg
Peter and his wife have a wonderful rustic hall overlooking green fields
and the town below. Wolves hide in the long grass on the hillside above.
The sponge cake and coffee was excellent.
Good attendance at the three seminars and wonderful facilities are a
tribute to all concerned.
Thank you to all we met and to all who helped behind the scenes to make
our stay a sequence of magic moments.
On 7 July we arrived in the UK and have been staying with Jackie and Vic
Marriott and Stella and Frank Smith. It’s been a fun and valuable time
planning the remainder of the U-turn tour.
With the Wisbech, Cambridge seminar still to come on 6 August there is
still opportunity to take part in the RMB U-turn discussions. (Details at
www.rawmeatybones.com) Debbie Hill attended RMB seminars in 2002 and
2003. In 2004 she organized the Essex seminar and is now hosting the 2006
event. Thanks Debbie for wonderful support.
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UNITED STATES RAW MEATY BONES GROUP www.usrmb.net
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Have you checked-out the new USRMB site? www.usrmb.net Combining
aesthetic appeal with crisp functionality Judy Rivers has created a
wonderful resource in the fight against the pet-food/vet alliance.
For the future Judy will need lots of help and, I should say, lots of
money to further the campaign. If you live in North America please give
generously –- pets, people and the wider environment need to escape the
pet-food tyranny.
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BVA and RCVS GO FROM BAD TO WORSE
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Part of the Raw Meaty Bones campaign involves standing for the council of
the Royal College of Veterinary(RCVS)
http://www.rawmeatybones.com/elections.html. The RCVS is the regulatory
body for veterinary surgeons in the UK whose function it is:
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• To safeguard the health and welfare of animals committed to
veterinary care through the regulation of the educational, ethical and
clinical standards of the veterinary profession, thereby protecting the
interests of those dependent on animals and assuring public health.
• To act as an impartial source of informed opinion on animal
health and welfare issues and their interaction with human health.
--------------------
Effectively, then, the RCVS is the official body responsible for the
parlous state of the veterinary profession in the UK. By standing for
election there is just a chance other vets will get to read about the
issues and start to take notice. In each of the past nine years I
received around 9 or 10% of the votes cast. This year the figure slipped
to 7.5%. No other candidates mention the pet-food fraud so it seems UK
vets are becoming less interested in putting their house in order.
When thanking the voters in a letter to the Veterinary Record, Journal of
the British Veterinary Association, I also mentioned the RMB U-turn
briefings for members of Parliament:
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Dear Editor,
RCVS Election
Thank you to all supporters at the 2006 Royal College of Veterinary
Surgeons election —- the tenth election highlighting the junk pet-food
superstitions gripping the veterinary profession.
Eventually we shall win through. We must never give up. In the words of
the late great J K Galbraith: ‘In all life one should comfort the
afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and
especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.’
In October 2005 the British Veterinary Association, speaking about raw
meaty bones, stated that there is ‘an ongoing debate within the
veterinary profession’. In March 2006 the UK Raw Meaty Bones Group
invited seven British veterinary schools to give validity to the notion
of an ‘ongoing debate’ and host discussions on the nutritional and
medicinal benefits of natural foods for domestic and wild carnivores. Not
one veterinary school accepted the invitation. (See Campaign Diary
www.ukrmb.co.uk)
Undaunted the UKRMB Group press on because, unlike the veterinary
authorities, many Members of Parliament have indicated their willingness
to discuss the five facets of the pet-food fraud. On Wednesday 12 July
2006 there is to be a two hour briefing for Members of both Houses of
Parliament. For details please see www.rawmeatybones.com. Please, for the
benefit of pets, pet owners and the wider community, encourage your MP to
attend the briefing.
I welcome your comments and shall be pleased to meet colleagues during
the European 2006 Raw Meaty Bones U-turn Tour.
Tom Lonsdale
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Unfortunately the British Veterinary Association appears contemptuous of
Parliament, BVA members and the wider community. Martin Alder the editor
of the Veterinary Record wrote:
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Dear Tom,
Thank you for sending us your letter.
Traditionally, we publish 'thank you' letters from candidates standing in
the RCVS Council elections as a courtesy to those candidates. However,
with space being limited, and having already published the manifestos, we
need to keep them short. As for a number of other candidates, we will
therefore be shortening your letter, and plan to publish the first two
paragraphs only . . . I trust you will find this acceptable.
Yours sincerely,
Martin
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President of the British Veterinary Association, Dr Freda Scott-Park and
the President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons supported the
Veterinary Record decision to keep British vets in the dark.
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Letter from President of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons
2 June 2006
Dear Mr Lonsdale
I write in reply to your letter of 29 May 2006 which I received by fax on
1 June 2006. I am also aware of e-mail correspondence which you have
copied to the College in recent weeks in connection with the way in which
the Editor of the Veterinary Record has responded to a letter you have
submitted for publication. The decisions of the Editor are not matters
for the College and it would be wholly inappropriate for the RCVS to seek
to influence them in any way.
Members of the BVA and the profession generally may receive information
about developments at Westminster: through a variety of media sources,
including veterinary journals (other than the Veterinary Record),
national newspapers and magazines.
Yours sincerely
Mrs Lynne V Hill MVB MBA MRCVS
President
-----------------------------
Letter from President of British Veterinary Association
30th June 2006
Dear Mr Lonsdale
Thank you for your letter of 29th May 2006.
As with all previous BVA Presidents, I do not seek to influence the
content of the Veterinary Record, which is rightly the responsibility of
the Editor.
BVA members and other veterinary surgeons can obtain news of developments
from various sources, including other veterinary publications, more
general publications such as magazines and newspapers and parliamentary
websites.
Provided the nutritional needs of the individual animal are identified
and addressed and provided health and safety protocols, e.g. food hygiene
guidelines are followed, we as a profession have no objections if owners
wish to provide their pets with alternative diets.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Freda Scott-Park
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Censorship and suppression are only part of the British Veterinary
Association/Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons endeavour. They either
facilitate or encourage British vets to capitalize on the epidemic of
junk food induced disease:
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OFF THE RECORD, NEWS FROM THE BRITISH VETERINARY ASSOCIATION,
Volume5 Issue7 July/August 2006
HOW CAN PET SMILE MONTH BENEFIT YOUR PRACTICE?
Pet Smile Month can benefit both pets and veterinary practices according
to Bob Partridge, the event’s organizer. [Member of the Council of the
RCVS] This year a £1 million TV advertising campaign is planned to get
the healthcare message out to the pet-owning public. Pet Smile Month is
excellent PR for the veterinary profession —- but, he says, you have to
take part to benefit.
The promotional activity will encourage pet owners to visit local
participating practices to receive a free dental health check for their
pets, by either a vet or trained member of staff. In addition to
providing recommendations on dental treatment, preventative health will
be discussed and the client will go home with a free dental-health goody
bag, containing helpful leaflets and samples of products that can help to
reduce dental disease.
BENEFITS
So why should you give your time for free? The advertising allows the Pet
Smile message to be spread across a wide range of pet owners. Signing up
could bring new and lapsed clients back into your practice.
Since 80% of cats and dogs over the age of three have dental disease, all
practices should benefit from the increase in dental work required. Other
long-term benefits will include being able to offer this new pool of
clients other preventative healthcare measures, such as vaccinations,
wormers and flea treatment.
As in other areas of veterinary medicine, prevention is better than cure
and Pet Smile Check-Ups are a fantastic opportunity for you to discuss
preventative dental care. If your staff can successfully communicate the
importance of tooth brushing, dental chews and specialist dental diets,
this could be a new long-term source of revenue for your business.
CHANCE TO WIN A NEW DENTAL UNIT
Hopefully your ‘ops’ list will be brimming with dental work but you may
be wondering how your old scaler will cope with the increased workload.
Well, it may not have to. Pet Smile Month has teamed up with Kruuse (UK)
to offer a prize of a high tech dental unit worth £3000 to one lucky
practice. Every Pet Smile Check-Up survey form returned will be placed in
the draw. To make things easier, survey forms can be submitted online
this year.
HOW TO REGISTER
Return your registration form, or download details from the vet area at
www.PetSmile .org. Demand will be high and early registrants will receive
priority in the allocation of goody bags.
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For more details about the Pet Smile propaganda campaign, funded by the
Mars Corporation the company responsible more than any other for the 80%
of pets suffering dental disease, see the UKRMB ‘Conspiracy’ page:
www.ukrmb.co.uk
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We welcome copies of correspondence/emails/faxes for possible inclusion
in future RMB Newsletters.
Please circulate, distribute or reproduce this newsletter as you wish.
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The Raw Meaty Bones Newsletter is published by:
Tom Lonsdale
Rivetco P/L
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Australia
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Email: rivetco@rawmeatybones.com
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