Today Monday 15 January 2018, a small delegation of campaigners, whose numbers were limited by the police, led by the British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons (BAHVS) handed a petition to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) calling for the retraction of its November 2017 statement on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including homeopathy, which it says is a de facto ban.

The petition has gathered over 15,000 online supporters in just 10 weeks (4 times that of a contrary petition in a much shorter time) and the CAM4animals campaign has brought together animal owners, farmers, vets and CAM practitioners from across the country.

“This statement has been imposed without consultation with clients or any of the vets who use these treatments. We are deeply disappointed that the RCVS would seek to undermine its own members whose independence and livelihoods are at stake” said BAHVS President, Chris Day, an holistic veterinarian with over 40 years’ experience.

The delegation which included representatives of the Society of Homeopaths, the British Homeopathic Association, Homeopathic Research Institute and the International Association of Veterinary Homeopaths as well as farmers, veterinary nurses chiropractors and pet owners handed the petition to RCVS president, Prof Stephen May to impress on him the strength of feeling about this unwarranted attack on both veterinary clinical independence and owners’ freedom of choice in treatment.

Their message was that this de facto ban on first line treatment with complementary and alternative medicines has serious implications not only for holistic vets whose businesses are threatened by their own professional body but is of real concern to organic farmers who rely on alternatives to reduce antibiotic usage and for animal owners whose animals who rely on CAM therapies.

BAHVS spokesperson and veterinarian, Ilse Pedler, said, “We are disappointed that RCVS continues to ignore the concerns of its members, farmers and the general public. Public support for CAM and homeopathic vets in particular has been overwhelming.

Vets practising CAM therapies have animal welfare as their priority but this will suffer if the public feel discouraged about asking their vets for complementary therapies. In a recent communication the RCVS confirmed that it has no evidence that CAM has caused harm to any animal to date. They are also ignoring peer-reviewed evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy and CAM in specialist journals such as Homeopathy by top publisher Elsevier (which also publishes The Veterinary Journal and Veterinary Science), all of which could have been provided by the BAHVS, had they been asked to do so. Incredibly they were not consulted at all.

BAHVS members are all trained as vets first, then as homeopaths and many conventional vets also offer CAM treatments to clients.  However homeopathic vets are particularly targeted by this move.  They are small in numbers but in great demand because clients actively seek out CAM therapies as part of integrated veterinary care or when conventional medicines fail or produce unacceptable side effects.