Within the last month, Purina donated $4.5 million dollars to Cornell University, University of California, Davis and Colorado State University. Last year, Kansas State University announced a “partnership” with Hill’s donating an undisclosed amount.
In Purina’s press release the company stated: “These three new programs build on Purina’s decades-long history of supporting veterinary schools and students and promise to offer exciting scientific and nutritional advances to help our pets live long, healthy lives.”
With the Hill’s/Kansas State partnership, a Kansas State associate dean stated: “we are celebrating an improved standard of education for our students and services for our clients.”
But are these donations a true “improved standard of education” for veterinary students?
Or are they producing a biased/incomplete veterinary education?
In 2009, medical school students at Harvard brought to light a similar incompleteness to their education. From a New York Times article at the time: “In a first-year pharmacology class at Harvard Medical School, Matt Zerden grew wary as the professor promoted the benefits of cholesterol drugs and seemed to belittle a student who asked about side effects.
Mr. Zerden later discovered something by searching online that he began sharing with his classmates. The professor was not only a full-time member of the Harvard Medical faculty, but a paid consultant to 10 drug companies, including five makers of cholesterol treatments.
“I felt really violated,” Mr. Zerden, now a fourth-year student, recently recalled. “Here we have 160 open minds trying to learn the basics in a protected space, and the information he was giving wasn’t as pure as I think it should be.”
Is this same “violation” happening in veterinary schools? Students with open minds who are trying to learn in an assumed protected environment, but is the education they are receiving ‘not as pure’ as it should be?
Personal opinion: Veterinary students need to closely examine their potential vet school’s conflict-of-interest policies. Full disclosure of faculty’s ties with industry should be required prior to admission. Students should be leary of any veterinary school that will not provide this disclosure and leary of any school that is heavily partnered with a pet food manufacturer or veterinary drug manufacturer.
From the personal experience of friend Kelly Bone (Facebook Group Saving Pets One Pet @ A Time), Kansas State University shared her pet food testing results – WITHOUT HER PERMISSION – with the pet food manufacturer. “When my dog, Duncan died from Science diet, we sent the food away to K-State for testing. K-State sent the results to Hills and copied me and my lawyer on it. Do you think there is a conflict of interest?”
Absolutely.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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Dianne Miller
December 17, 2024 at 1:44 pm
Has anyone seen this? https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/product-safety-information/dear-veterinarian-letter-notifying-veterinarians-about-adverse-events-reported-dogs-treated-librela
Maggie
December 17, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Dianne, a good friend who is an excellent, highly experienced evidence-based vet and clinic owner (with an active ER) told me that she no longer allows vets in her clinic to prescribe Librella without her reviewing it to think about other options. She also strongly suspects, based on the manner of effect and her clinical experience, that it “activates” Degenerative Myelopathy in German Shepherds who carry the gene. It shouldn’t be given to this breed!
Tom Kirby
December 17, 2024 at 1:53 pm
My personal impression is that this is actually much worse that you speculate. I’ve seen vet school handouts about pet nutrition that were created and branded by big pet food companies. That means that the vets’ knowledge of pet food is being directly filtered by these companies unless the students go out of their way to obtain more objective information on their own.
Bethany
December 17, 2024 at 2:02 pm
What struck me about this article is that all the schools mentioned are Land Grant Universities (LGUs). Recently, I was hired to produce a report on the influence of meat, dairy, fish, and egg industries on human nutrition courses at colleges and universities. I found that LGUs are heavily influenced by these industries because of their ties to government subsidies. As a result, LGU nutrition programs are outdated and push unscientific and unhealthy industry agendas. The same large conglomerates that make up Big Pet Food also promote meat, dairy, fish, and eggs. In this case, Purina, which is owned by Nestle. As such, the health of both humans and nonhuman companions is being compromised by industry influence through LGUs.
Kelley
December 17, 2024 at 4:51 pm
Just wondering why Hills shouldn’t be sent the results when their food was the problem?
Susan Thixton
December 17, 2024 at 5:56 pm
The results were the property of the pet owner who paid for testing, and the decision to share with Hill’s should have been the pet owners – not the lab.
Alex
December 17, 2024 at 5:49 pm
All I’ll say, is that as a current veterinary student, I can confirm that Hill’s, Purina, and Royal Canin all sponsor not only free pet feed for students, but also a ton of events, etc. On top of that, these are the ONLY pet food companies that have any relationship with our College of Veterinary Medicine, and there are certainly never any other brands mentioned in the rare lecture that mentions anything about nutrition.
Bob
December 17, 2024 at 6:32 pm
What bothers me is the naivete and/or disdain exemplified by many vets concerning pet food. How hard is it to look up “by-products” in a pet food and find how bad it is for animals? It’s like obstinate negligence. I sometimes have to use low quality food, not because I want to, but because I can’t afford real food.
Carol Ann Kutz Gehret
December 17, 2024 at 7:13 pm
I’m at a loss as of what to do to? This makes me sooooo angry!