A Horse, of Course with Don Blazer

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.

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