Comment by bovinegambler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bovinegambler | Hacker News Reader

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Hey, just by the way, it seems your characterization of the outcome with regards to vets at animal shelters is not correct. It's kind of the opposite. It starts on page 41 of the PDF (second link). The problem was: "Recent court decisions prevent the State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners from regulating shelter veterinarians or veterinary medicine practiced in animal shelters."

"Strictly interpreted, the statutory exemption means anyone who practices veterinary medicine in the context of animal shelters and rescue groups is exempt from the Veterinary Licensing Act, including standard of care measures and use of controlled substances. The impact of the decisions is already having an effect on the oversight and regulation of veterinary medicine in Texas, as the agency has begun to close all complaints against shelter veterinarians, declaring them non-jurisdictional based on the decisions. Taken to the extreme and assuming the Act does not apply in the context of shelter medicine, animal shelters and rescue groups would not need to hire licensed veterinarians. If the Act does not apply to the care of these animals, any person regardless of training, education, or qualification, and regardless of their criminal or disciplinary history, would legally be able to practice veterinary medicine on shelter and rescue animals."

The recommendation from the Sunset Commission was therefore for the legislature to change the law to make sure veterinary medicine at rescue clinics WAS regulated.

Since I'm familiar with the details, here is what happened:

1. Texas Vet Board sued a very well-known shelter vet in Texas to revoke her license. Without getting into too much detail, the crux of it was that they wanted to hold shelter vets, who are all on very limited budgets, to the same standards as private vets. The irony is that, if shelter vets can't meet those standards, the Texas Vet Board is OK with just euthanizing the animals. The irony was brutal: "We want you to be held at a certain standard to protect the animals, but if you can't hit that, just kill them."

2. The vet countersued, saying there is a specific carve out in law for owners to treat their own pets, and legally shelter pets have been relinquished and are owned by the shelter. She won this case.

3. During the Sunset Commission hearings, the panel went hard after the Vet Board, basically saying they were harassing shelter vets for the sole purpose of trying to protect their own power (similar to the "everyone who draws a map needs to be licensed" BS in this post), while meanwhile they had a severe problem with not tracking and handling substance abuse issues by some vets. 3 of the Vet Board members ended up resigning because the Commission basically said "you suck".

4. Now, the situation that remained after the court cases was, as you pointed out, there was no more regulation of shelter vets. I think a lot of folks, including shelter vets, think this is not ideal, but they are very wary of being regulated by a board with very different goals (which are, honestly, protect the fees that vets can charge) from the goals that shelter vets have. So there has been some discussion since then about what level of regulation is right for shelter vets.

FWIW the status quo has remained the same - shelters legally own the animals in their care, and thus, as owners, shelter vets are not regulated by the Vet Board for the care they give their animals.

I only read the quoted text not the source link, but I dont see a reasonable basis for the recommendation inference you are making.

The commission is just stating the facts. I don't think they are advocating any change in law. (again from the quoted text).

The fact remains that state veterinarian boards were going after shelter practitioners, the court then gtanted shelters relief - on the basis of the Act - then the Commission generated the post-mortem on the Act.

There seems to be no recommendation from the quoted text?

Well, open up that PDF :)

The whole thing is just three and a half pages, starting on page 41.

On page 43:

"Recommendations

5.1 Request the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, and Rural Affairs and the House Committee on Agriculture and Livestock to take action to clearly define the scope and limits of the statutory owner exemption in the Veterinary Licensing Act." It goes on...

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