The following are excerpts from communications that have transpired over

the last 6 months that will give you some insight into what is happening at
this very moment in the veterinary profession in Alabama, and why you
MUST take part in it THIS WEEK.


This is an email to the East Alabama VMA sent last week:

Please take a good look at this picture, what do you notice?? or what do you not
notice? is this normal? please read on, explanation at the end of the email.
University of Florida vet school students and
veterinarians work to spay and neuter cats
as part of Operation Cat Nip on Wednesday,
August 10th, 2011
Doug Finger/Staff photographer
Published in The Gainesville Sun

Dear Colleagues of the EALVMA,

This is where we are due to the ALVMA proposing to come up with a Spay/Neuter bill
this year. The problem is the political environment that exists in Montgomery. We all
know that Speaker Hubbard has tried to throttle us in the last 2 sessions and Sen. Del
Marsh is adamant about a very liberal spay/neuter bill. Considering what the
legislative leadership desires, it will make no difference if we all agree on the
perfect bill, the Speaker and Senate Pro tempore will get the bill in
conference committee and will make into what ever they want it to be. (J ust
look at the School Accountability Bill). Sen. Del Marsh has repeatedly told us
he will not accept means testing in a bill. Dan will come to us (East AL VMA) and
ask for a position vote on a proposed bill for approval, the ALVMA wants to make a
decision on a bill to be proposed at the Executive Board meeting on Oct. 19th. We have
to vote NO bill at the local level to send a NO vote to the EB meeting. I have personally
been to other VMAs with the attached information, Please come to Thursdays meeting.

The EALVMA met 10-9-14, where Dr. Horne spoke with extreme passion about not
changing the Practice Act. The vote was unanimous to not change the practice act at
this time.
Commentary on the picture in the previous email - This is a picture of no less than 14
cats ALL currently under some form of sedation/anesthesia and strapped to boards to
be moved to a surgical table. No anesthetic monitoring before or after surgery, no
obvious cardiovascular support. Questionable sterile technique. This is the standard
protocol required for a "Low Cost/High Quality" S/N practice to operate. This is how you
perform 40 procedures per day.

A statement overheard from a veterinarian at the EALVMA meeting. "if the ASBVME
came in and caught me doing surgery like this picture I would be strung up from the
nearest tree".

Is this what we want our profession to be known for? Do these animals and their
owners deserve this deplorable level of care? Is this a standard you would be
comfortable with in your practice? This is what our ALVMA will be buying us if they
propose ANY legislation. THIS is OK with them.

The following is an email with a list of questions received from a vet in
Mobile last month and the response:

From September 12, 2014
Hi Buddy,

We had a meeting last Tuesday night and J ohn Hammond was in attendance. He
discussed the non-profit clinic issue and said the ALVMA was writing a bill and would be
finalizing the details of it at the next meeting of the executive board on Oct19th. He
said that the ALVPOA had members that would be in attendance working on it and that
it was going to be supported by both groups. I am concerned about a few things. He
said the new practice act bill being written to allow non-profit groups to own clinics (i.e.
subsidized clinics) would let them keep patients up to 36 hours, allow treatment of
parasites, and allow rabies vaccination. I do not think any of that is necessary to reach
the said goals of reducing pet overpopulation. The bill would include means testing
which is good. However when I asked what would be included to allow proper oversight
to insure the clinics were adhering to the law, such as regular audits, inspections, etc.,
Dr. Hammond had no answer and looked at me like I was silly to think it was
necessary. He said the bill would require the clinics to have a "medical supervisor", but
my question to him was if he really believed such a person would be autonomous, or
would they basically be a figure-head that bows to whatever the CEO of the non-profit
says to do. The fact is that the people who have illegally operated such clinics have no
respect for the law and our profession and cannot be trusted.

He discussed Charles Franz and Robert Pittman's lawsuit and basically made Franz out
to be a saint and Pittman to be a silly fool causing the ALVMA to waste money on legal
fees.

He also went on and on about how wonderful the Emerald Coast convention is and
what a great thing it is that the ALVMA sponsors it. It seems like that is the most
important thing to the powers in charge. I think priorities are being misplaced.

I would love to have the opportunity to hear another view and to know what
information you, Dr. Pittman, and others may have concerning these matters. We need
to get a dinner meeting together down here for local vets to attend and possibly get
better informed.

The response:

Thanks for this email. I have heard from several individuals concerning Dr. Hammon's
meeting with the Mobile VMA and his message. Let me make one thing very clear!!!,
ALVPOA has not been invited by the ALVMA to help write a bill, we do not have a
representative on the committee nor have we been asked to send one. Dr. Hammons
stated that Dr. Lewis Benefield and Dr. Dan Kuykendall represent ALVPOAs interest in
this so called bill writing. Dr. Benefield, has had zero contact from the ALVMA about this
bill or committee. The ALVMA Executive Board (EB) has not even been informed that
this bill is even coming to be presented to them on October 19th, (personal
correspondence with EB members) Dr. Kuykendall, the East ALVMA EB rep. has in the
past been an ALVPOA member but he has not been designated as our representative of
ALVPOA nor has he asked to be one. I have not been asked by Dr. Ken McMillan the
ALVMA Legislative Committee Chairman (Dr. Dan Kuykendall is a member of this
committee) nor Dr. Hammons to provide any input nor discussed a bill, Dr. Wm.
Bledsoe (Immediate Past President of the ALVMA) did not ask last year either. I was
contacted by Dr. McMillan about basic tenants for a bill last year and we agreed on
basic principles but I told him we would have to have direct input to support any
legislation. Due to current ASBVME hearings and 30 charges filed against Dr. Margaret
Ferrell of the Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic (Irondale), the closing of the North AL S/N
clinic (Huntsville) by its veterinarian who fled the state in fear of prosecution by the
ASBVME, the conviction of Dr. Wm. Weber, the vet of record of the Alabama Spay
Neuter Clinic (Irondale) by the ASBVME, ALVPOA does not support changing the
Practice Act at this time and will not consider changes until all the hearings and
proceedings have been completed. Below is a copy of the correspondence between Dr.
McMillan and ALVPOA last year. I feel certain you will reach the conclusion that I have
reached. I conclude that Dr. Hammons has either lied to the MVMA, been grossly
misinformed, or doesn't understand what is going on. I really don't think Dr. Hammons
is purposely lying but I highly suspect he has been intentionally misinformed by certain
individuals within the ALVMA leadership. Below is the entire sequence of events with
the original documentation.

Sincerely, Buddy Bruce, DVM
We (Buddy Bruce, Ronnie Welch, Robert Pitman, Eric Lewis and J ohn Rice) all went and
met with this VMA, (Mobile) and now they know and understand the truth.


The following is an email correspondence between Ken McMillan and Buddy
Bruce back in December of 2013:

Please look this over and get back to me if you have any questions.

I would really like to have the profession find common ground and move this forward in
2014.

Merry Christmas.


Best wishes for the New Year.


KLM

ALVMA's POSITION December 2013:

At the state meeting in J une, Dr. Bill Bledsoe created a task force to try solve
the spay/neuter issue that has created such a controversy within our profession for the
last several years. Task force members included Ken McMillan, Chair, J ack Goodman;
Bill Sternenberg; Dan Kuykendall, J oni Sonmor. This group was selected to try to
assure that all viewpoints on this issue were represented.

These clinics could be operating in violation of language in the practice act. The task
force defined our mission as follows:

Develop key points and language which will have broad support within the veterinary
profession to be used to create a single bill to be introduced in both Houses to allow
501c3 organizations to own limited service veterinary clinics providing spay-neuter
services only to dogs and cats.


The task force spent many hours on the telephone, exchanging e-mails and in face to
face meetings. We reached out to many members of the profession both inside the
state and across the country and worked closely with the attorney at the AVMA who
deals with issues facing state associations.

This was not an easy process, but we feel we have developed a compromise that is in
the best interest of the public and all stakeholders. A report was presented to the
Alabama Veterinary Medical Association Board meeting on October 12. Below is a
summary of these key points we would like to see incorporated into a bill to be
presented in the 2014 legislative session.



Services allowed.
Spays and neuters of dogs and cats.
1 year Rabies vaccination at the time of service for pets that meet the minimum age
requirements as provided by applicable state law.
Intestinal and external parasite control administered at the time of service only
Antimicrobials and pain medications in the perioperative period only.

Limitations

Means testing.
o Limit services to those people who receive some form of government support
(Medicaid, etc) and bonafide humane societies and rescue groups.
Allow exceptions for grants with specific, time limited qualifiers; e.g. breed or zip
code focused programs. 1

o Outpatient
o No animals shall be hospitalized outside normal office hours.

Oversight provisions for 501(c) (3) corporation.
o A special spay/neuter premise permit will be required.
o The bill must clearly provide the Board with control over the 501 (c) (3) entity, the
veterinarians employed by the facility and the premise permit issued to the facility.
Reporting requirements.
Reporting requirements should be simple, easy and limited to only relevant information
that would benefit the ASBVME and the public.
Additional detailed information must be readily retrievable if the ASBVME has cause to
investigate a clinic just as it must be for all practices.

After hours and surgical complication arrangements.

Service contracts with a full service veterinary facility(s) to provide for treatments of
postoperative complications must be in place.
Services must be provided during regular hours as well as after hours.
This facility(s) must be within a reasonable driving distance of the surgical facility and
any regular pickup points from which animals are transported to the surgical facility.
All clients must be provided with discharge instructions detailing aftercare, potential
complications and how to recognize them, contact numbers of the full service veterinary
facility(s) contracted to provide follow-up care and a copy of the medical record.


1 Some grants obtained by the spay/neuter clinics target a breed of dog (e.g. Pit
Bulldogs) or a particular geographic area often defined by zip code.


ALVPOA's response:

Good morning Ken,

I and the ALVPOA board want to thank you and the committee for giving ALVPOA an
opportunity to comment on and discuss your committee's bullet points. The Task Force
Committee's bullet points or position is very similar to ALVPOA's position last year of
SB25 with the addition of means testing. I would like to report back to you and
respectfully submit ALVPOA's response. The simple answer is, we will not support any
changes to the practice act, however; please read our complete response, reasoning
and explanation below.

We at ALVPOA have discussed the ALVMA task force bullet points and have an
unanimous vote to take the following position: "we support the ALVMA bullet points on
their face value, but respectfully will not support any changes to the Practice Act at this
time. Until the ASBVME has had sufficient time to conduct its due diligence in regards to
the present status of 501c3 ownership or other legal issues in question, the Practice Act
should remain untouched. In light of this position, ALVPOA would agree in principle to
the ALVMA position statement but will not support any changes in the Practice Act
regarding 501c3 ownership at the present time or upcoming 2014 legislative session.
Given the current state of the ASBVME investigations, we would oppose any changes to
the Practice Act until the ASBVME has completed or exhausted its legal obligations to
perform its legislated legal duties as a regulatory board in the state of Alabama.
ALVPOA reserves the right to complete review before rendering final opinion on any
proposed bill language or before we can endorse any final draft legislation. We will not
give blanket approval until we have had ample time to review the documents
completely and request input to any proposed legislation, the same courtesy we
extended to the ALVMA last year".

Buddy Bruce, DVM
This litigation continues today and will for some time to come.
Do we really want to tell low income or indigent individuals that their pets
deserve a lesser standard of care than is practiced in our practices and
veterinary schools by creating a 2 tiered veterinary medical delivery system?

I ask the you not approve any changes to the practice act at the present
time. Send your ALVMA representative to the ALVMA meeting on October
19th with instructions to vote NO on ANY proposed legislation to change the
Alabama Practice Act.