About Cam4Animals
Promoting CAM for animals
CAM4animals promotes the appropriate use of Complementary and Alternative Medicines and treatments as part of a fully integrated veterinary healthcare system. We aim to provide animal owners, along with veterinary and other animal health professionals, with balanced information about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in order to do the best we can for the health and wellbeing of our animals.
Raising awareness
Our campaign has heightened awareness of holistic health for animals through our use of social media, magazine articles and flyers.
We now also do our best to signpost consumers to an appropriately trained professional.
What are we concerned about?
CAM4animals supporters are reporting that it has become more difficult to get appointments with their CAM vet due to an increase in public demand.
We are particularly concerned that new vets are discouraged from exploring the wealth of complementary and alternative options available.
If this continues and results in a reduction in the number of holistically trained vets, then the veterinary sector as a whole will fail to meet the rising demand from their customers for access to fully integrated healthcare for their animals.
How did we start?
We grew out of a concern for the future of this care when the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) released their Statement on CAM, including Homeopathy, in November 2017.
We were worried that no discussion had taken place between the RCVS Council and their CAM veterinary stakeholders, yet the Council implied that there was insufficient evidence and research behind many of the successful and regularly used CAM modalities, despite growing evidence to the contrary.
Resulting from this, new vets are now actively discouraged from exploring or choosing to learn more about the wealth of complementary and alternative options available to them and their patients.
What is our current stand?
CAM4animals does support conventional medicine as part of truly integrated veterinary care. We believe that CAM modalities should be freely available to animal owners to enable the most appropriate option, or blend of options to be selected from the spectrum of care available.
Each individual animal is a unique case in his or her own right and deserves a treatment plan that is the best it can be. Increasing the range of options available within that plan is of great potential benefit to the animal concerned.
This choice is of real value, for example, when caring for:
- Animals needing integrated care such as ageing animals or those in pain where a combination of drugs and /or treatments like acupuncture or hydrotherapy along with suitable nutraceuticals may be of benefit
- An animal with a drug intolerance or who has not responded to conventional treatment
- An animal responding well to alternatives with no clinical need for drugs
- A horse or dog who competes and is banned from having certain drugs
- Farm animals especially on organic farms
- The environment by minimising the use of antibiotics and chemicals
Who are our supporters?
Our growing list of supporters include:
- Animal owners
- Farmers
- Veterinary surgeons
- Animal lovers
- Veterinary nurses
- CAM practitioners
- Wildlife conservationists
- Animal rescues
We are unique in being the only consumer-led organisation promoting the use of CAM in veterinary care.
