This is just what educated pet owners need (NOT!), another Veterinary Association supported by Big Pharma and Big Pet Food instructing Veterinarians how to assess nutritional needs of our pets. The following is the highlights of the newly released AAHA (American Animal Hospital Association) Nutritional Assessment Guidelines for Dogs and Cats.
The goal of the AAHA guidelines are stated as “Awareness of the importance of nutritional assessment of dogs and cats; Guidelines for nutritional evaluation of animals to promote optimal health and response to disease; Evidence and tools to support recommendations.” You can probably guess there is much in these new guidelines that educated Petsumers won’t agree with.
The AAHA guideline lists “raw, homemade, vegetarian, unfamiliar” pet foods as a “Unconventional diet” and is listed as a “Risk Factor” for veterinarians performing a Nutritional Screening on clients pets.
The AAHA guidelines do provide information to Vets should they suspect a pet became ill due to a tainted or spoiled food. Their guidelines DO suggest veterinarians contact state feed control officials, but they DO NOT suggest veterinarians report the issue to the FDA.
Under ‘Evaluate any unconventional diet, whether commercial or homemade’, the AAHA guidelines state “Evaluate additional risks of raw meat diets. Pathogenic bacteria may cause gastroenteritis and can be shed in the feces for up to 1 week after ingestion of contaminated raw meat. If an animal that has been fed a raw-meat diet is hospitalized, evaluate the risk to hospital staff and other hospitalized animals.”
In closing, the AAHA guidelines stated “Nutritional assessment is an important aspect of optimal animal care.” Yet not one word in their guidelines mentioned nutritional assessment of common pet food ingredients that violate Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or chemical preservatives linked to serious illness, BPA in pet food can linings; a multitude of known pet food concerns were again, ignored.
If we are not careful and watchful of Veterinary organizations, those of us (educated Petsumers) that feed ‘unconventional diets’ might even be banned from particular veterinary hospitals because of our pet food choices. The warning of this possibility occuring in the future was provided in the AAHA ‘Evaluate any unconventional diet’; “If the animal that has been fed a raw-meat diet is hospitalized, evalute the risk to hospital staff and other hospitalized animals.” Keep a close eye out there; ‘they’ are fighting Petsumer education in many different ways. (Raw meat diets are not the only ‘unconventional diet’ perceived by Veterinary organizations, it is just the only one various groups have been aiming at of late.)
By the way, AAHA lists Pfizer, Hill’s Science Diet, and Merial (among others) as sponsors. To read the full AAHA guidelines, visit http://aahanet.org/resources/NutritionalGuidelines.aspx
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author, Buyer Beware
Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
PetsumerReport.com
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