Ms. Margot Slade, Editor/Senior Director
Consumer Reports
101 Truman Ave., Post Office Box 2015
Yonkers, NY 10703-9015
 
We had always been happy that "Consumer Reports" is proud to usually have
unbiased reporting (coming up short in relation to computing too often).
So, what happened that your self-control went so completely out the
window in your article on veterinarians?  That wasn't a consumer report,
and it sure wasn't a report on ways to keep animals healthy.  If anything
it read more like an editorial from some of the less reputable cable TV
"news" shows.
 
I guess that if people consider animals to be disposable then that report
may be useful, but people who view them as "things" rather than living
beings usually don't have animals and those who do have a tendency to be
the same people who get arrested for animal abuse.  Is that your target
audience?  I think that you owe the majority of your readers an apology
and a re-do which focuses on getting the best care for the money spent
rather than focusing simply on minimizing cost -- an article done with an
understanding that these animals are not disposable recreation purchases,
but non-human family members to most who share their lives with animals.
 
We have found a number of vets whom we consider more competent than many
MDs, being just as picky (and therefore satisfied) with our choices of
each.  Also for each it is essential for the client to be aware of the
signs of health, to maintain a level of continuity in sharing records
and care, to use specialists when needed, to do surgery and pathology
as needed, etc.  Being careful has allowed us to keep some four footed
family members, many of whom have been rescues with medical problems,
alive with serious conditions such as Complete A/V Heart Node Block,
Insulinoma, Addisons, Cardiomyopathy (both cases of dilative and
hypertrophic), Anaphylactic Shock, Thromboses, Gastric Blockages,
Lymphoma, etc.  so I suspect that you can guess that we typically
consider the money we have spent on our veterinarians through the decades
to be cash well spent.  Physicians for humans find such conditions to be
challenging, and the animal hospitals (and, yes, they are hospitals) and
veterinary doctors have been marvelous when tackling such conditions,
even to the level of one vet arriving in our home during an icestorm to
create an emergency set-up on our dining room table (complete with IV
hung from the chandelier) to help a badly deformed little creature who
had joined our family and had stolen our hearts.
 
Please, your readers, we non-vets and veterinarians alike, deserve
better than such a deeply offensive article and so does the reputation
of "Consumer Reports".
[Posted in FML issue 4188]