Untested surgical procedures

Veterinary professionals' response to CMA report

“…Since then, the subject has been debated at two BVA Animal Welfare Foundation (AWF) discussion forums: ‘Clinical excellence or over treatment?” in 2019 5 and ‘Are uncontrolled treatment innovations detrimental to welfare?” in 2021 6 . Numerous other papers have been published in Vet Record 7,8 and elsewhere 9 on the subject of over treatment.…”

‘We need ethical review processes for extreme clinical companion animal practices’

“…WHERE statutory legislation does not provide clear answers for individual clinical cases, the issue surrounding what can be done to veterinary patients and what should be done for them is as much an ethical issue as it is a legal one. A recent letter from the ‘EthicsFirst’ group expressing concern about the morality of the surgery to attach four prosthetic limbs to a dog exemplifies this; 1 while it wasn't conducted in the UK, it illustrates the ethical and legal difficulties in the ‘grey area’ surrounding the interface between ‘recognised veterinary practice’ (RVP) conducted under the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 (VSA) and ‘experimental veterinary practice’ (EVP) conducted under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (A[SP]A). Such cases, along with cases where ‘extreme clinical companion animal practice’ is used to keep animals alive beyond the point of medical futility, can give rise to legal and ethical concerns among the veterinary teams involved, resulting in ‘moral distress’.…”