A Horse,
of Course
with Don Blazer
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Three things are evident about those who
want to continue the slaughter of horses testing positive for Equine Infectious
Anemia (EIA).
1. They want to continue making easy money.
2. They’ve accepted the "fear instead
of facts" campaign of federal and state governmental agencies.
3. They simply don’t have much
information.
Veterinarians, as a group and as individuals,
aren’t saying anything about our national EIA eradication program. First
they want to continue pulling blood for Coggins testing. It’s profitable.
Don’t let anyone tell you differently. If it wasn’t profitable
they’d stop doing it. (A couple of people have written to tell me how
cheap the test is. Well goodie, goodie. The last charge I had for a Coggins
test was $45. An annual outlay by horsemen of $314 million for Coggins testing
ain’t cheap. And I can tell you if the Coggins test is a "loss
leader", then they are making up the loss with other charges.)
Veterinarians want to continue making money
from Coggins testing, so while some will tell you face to face the EIA
eradication program is a waste of time and not needed, they won’t say it
publicly and officially.
Well, it’s time they did. It’s time
veterinarians spoke out publicly and admitted there is no significant threat
from Equine Infectious Anemia.
Continued silence by individuals and veterinary
groups is confirmation their only interest is protecting their income.
A veterinarian, responding to an "article
he read," wanted to make some comments on the subject. Did he present any
facts about the number of horses dying from EIA, or the number he treated
annually, or the great threat EIA is to the horse population of this nation?
No!
Basically he whined about how big an investment
he had in his equine hospital and how much time and effort he had to expend
just to be able to do Coggins testing. Then he whined about how much paper work
was involved and how he didn’t agree with every EIA rule and regulation.
Did he offer any changes or solutions to the
problems. No! He just wants to continue the ineffective governmental fear
nonsense even knowing it isn’t going to protect horses from the disease.
Why?
For the money.
Well, it’s okay with me if he keeps doing
the Coggins test. As long as the test isn’t mandatory and the killing of
horses which test positive is stopped.
How does the fear campaign work and why do
people accept it?
It works by using scare words without facts.
Governmental agencies constantly say, "EIA
is a major threat."
But none ever say what the threat is. They
don’t say it kills so many horses per year, because they don’t now
many it kills. They don’t know how many it kills, because it kills so few,
it’s not significant.
Instead, they use fear. "It could be your
horse, infected by someone else’s horse, which suffers from EIA,"
they say. "We have to protect your horse."
So how do they protect your horse? They
don’t, they haven’t, they won’t, they can’t. Instead they
kill your friend’s healthy, useful show horse who has never shown signs of
EIA and who couldn’t infect your horse. They kill that horse to prove
there is a threat, because as long as there is a threat, they can continue to
make money.
Finally, we have those who simply don’t
have any information.
Unfortunately, a lot of them are horsemen and
the rest of them are the politicians who allow this mass murder of horses.
I have talked with a lot of horsemen who know
about Coggins tests, but don’t have the facts about EIA. These are the
horsemen who must make the effort to learn, then educate others. These are the
horsemen who can make a difference.
I haven’t yet talked to a single
legislator who actually knew anything about EIA. I haven’t yet talked with
a single legislator who actually knew his or her state killed horses which
tested positive for EIA. I haven’t yet talked with a single legislator who
even cared.
Why don’t they care?
Because it’s too much effort to care.
When will they care? When horsemen know about
EIA and become a threat.
What kind of a threat?
The threat of horsemen, as a group and as
individuals, saying, "Start caring, or we’re going to vote you out of
office."
For a politician, that’s a threat to their
legislative salary and perks.
That’s a threat worthy of fear.
Click here to find out what you can do to
Stop EIA
Slaughter
Click here to read more about EIA
Stop Coggins Slaughter!
Click here to read
More on EIA
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