Please, Take 1 Minute & Do Your Part to Reduce Animal Suffering
The campaign against ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+).
I usually avoid sharing negative news. This one is different because there is something we can do about it — and it only takes a minute.
As a result of avian flu, millions of animals are currently killed by overheating. This is euphemistically called “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a practice used in the poultry and pig industry.
Simply put, VSD+ means overheating animals until they die — which can take many hours.¹
And yes, this type of death is as horrific as you imagine it to be.
Despite their oath to prevent animal suffering, leaders at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) have endorsed this practice: AVMA’s guidance currently approves VSD+ for the killing of chickens and pigs in “constrained circumstances.”
According to Veterinarians Against Ventilation Shutdown, this has highly problematic consequences:
“The AVMA’s depopulation guidelines are understandably considered the industry standard for those seeking guidance around depopulation. Unfortunately, various industry voices have construed the guidelines to justify using VSD+ even for foreseeable backups of healthy animals during COVID — and have pointed publicly to the guidelines as justification. AVMA’s silence on this matter has allowed this tragic misapplication of the guidelines’ apparent intentions to flourish.”
Over one thousand veterinarians have already called on the AVMA to reclassify VSD+ as “not recommended.”
How to Take Action:
You can message the AVMA leaders here and ask them to stop supporting this cruel practice (it takes one minute or less):
P.S.: Please also share about this campaign via email and Social Media.
[1] Smith P, Crabtree H, Bird N. Perfecting the pig environment. Nottingham, England: Nottingham University Press, 2009: “In the United Kingdom, a case study involving swine that experienced a ventilation failure event showed that 100% mortality was not achieved within that particular barn design, even after 16 hours.”
Animals deserve our care:
