[Wylie's Mom]

[CONTINUED]

If you’re a cat lover, you may be wondering if things are any better in feline medicine. Sadly not. There are even fewer studies on cats, which suffer from a number of mysterious conditions that are hard to treat. Particularly distressing is feline gingivostomatitis, a severe inflammation of the gums that occurs when the immune system overreacts to plaque in the mouth. “It’s a terrible thing,” says Karen Langeman, who runs the Porte Veterinary Hospital in Campbell, California, and sees one or two cases each month. Eating becomes very painful, and some cats have to have all their teeth pulled.

What triggers this exaggerated immune response is unclear, although it’s most common in cats with viral or bacterial infections. And without a good understanding of the cause, vets can do little but try to ease the symptoms with corticosteroids and painkillers.

Mysteries like these could be solved by more research, but how can we get vets to pay attention to the studies that have been done? It would help if professional bodies took a strong evidence-based stand. Sadly, the American Veterinary Medical Association flunked a test of its commitment to scientific principles in January, when its governing body voted down a resolution rejecting homeopathy as an “ineffective practice.” The association’s Australian and British counterparts already discourage homeopathy because of a lack of evidence for therapeutic effects—not to mention the absence of a good explanation of how the extremely dilute solutions used in homeopathic remedies might work. Yet the AVMA’s leadership feared the resolution was divisive, and argued that evaluating specific therapies isn’t its job.

You and I can also make a difference, by pressing vets to consider the evidence that does exist. I’m not suggesting repeating my exercise of digging into the research literature; that’s heavy-going, even for someone who makes his living writing about science. But we can keep our vets on their toes by asking better questions. “Very few of my clients come to me wanting to know what my rationale is for doing what I’m doing,” McKenzie says.

So ask your vet why they think the drugs your animal is being given will work. We’re going to have to confront our own psychological biases, here: research shows that people prefer confident advice, sometimes even when we know those giving it have been wrong before. And good answers to these questions will inevitably be hedged with caveats about the small number of studies that have been done, and their limitations. If all you get from your vet is a bland assurance that they’ve been doing this for years, and see great results, get them to talk you through the scientific evidence. If they can’t do so, that should be a warning sign: It might be time to look for another vet.

Our companion animals do great things for us, improving not just our psychological well-being but also our physical health through knock-on effects like reduced blood pressure. The least we can do in return is to challenge vets to base their decisions on the best available science.

Kaleb, buddy, we owe you one.