It's been raining so the pollen levels are decreasing, and hopefully
we'll get a stronger or longer rain to make the air much cleaner here.
Nothing like getting a good and needed rain...
 
Anyway, what I was trying to get across is that I don't think that Bob
was going after Mary.  I think that he was tackling the sorts of people
who go for whatever is cheapest instead of providing vet care, and he was
going after the sorts of huckstering that has happened in the past when
miracle cures were offered.
 
He left here a while ago according to a post he wrote at the time so I
don't think that he was even aware of Mary or of the things that she
has done well.
 
Mary has been open to new ideas and to accepting when hypotheses don't
pan out as per her willingness to learn that the chromium thing did not
fare well in a recent overview of multiple studies, and her willingness
to learn from a vet's post that Pau d'Arco has been connected to lowering
of blood glucose levels in ferrets, something that can be dangerous for
animals who are prone to insulinoma.  She has posted lists of herbs that
have special precautions so that folks can avoid them.  She has over and
over said that a vet's care is the most essential thing to have and that
people must clear such things with vets first, and she has said that it
is the responsibility of people to make sure that ferrets are treated
with known effective meds and she said that in relation to the standard
meds (drugs) which she has pointed out that she herself also uses.  She
is anything but closed-minded and she has been fair in terms of
mentioning down-sides as well as uses.  I can not say that I agree with
the structural premises behind some of the alternative constructs, but
that is neither here nor there, since I do willingly use such approaches
IF the treating vet thinks that they may be useful for a given ferret
even though the majority of the treatments we use here are standard ones
(drugs) with fine results usually.  I find Mary to be breath of fresh
air after hearing too much of miracle cures through the years, and I
expect that other folks who handle their approaches as miracle cures
are as bad for her as they are for anyone else, since they tend to make
people forget that there are people involved in herbs who do read the
resources and look at the full picture (both bad and good).
 
Anyway, I think that both have useful points to make, and I think that a
simple misunderstanding may have happened and hope that it is cleared up
(which is possible since both parties are intelligent folks who like to
learn) rather than blown up.
[Posted in FML issue 3932]