Dolan Media Newswire Story
Subject: Teeth-floating battle turns ugly in Oklahoma Senate
Pub: Journal Record Legislative Report
Author: M. Scott Carter
Category:
Sub-Category:
Issue Date: 03/31/2010 Word Count: 74
Teeth-floating battle turns ugly in Oklahoma Senate
by M. Scott Carter
Dolan Media Newswires
© Dolan Media Newswires 2012.OKLAHOMA CITY, OK -- Veterinarians opposed to a legislative measure that would allow unlicensed equine dentists – also known as teeth floaters – to legally practice in Oklahoma came out swinging hard this week, running a full-page newspaper ad against the proposal.
The ad – which appeared in Monday’s Oklahoman newspaper – claims Oklahoma would become the first state to legalize possession of drugs that could be used for abortions and date rapes should the teeth floaters’ bill become law.
“Don’t let the drugs to treat her horse be the drugs used to rape her,” the ad said.
Featuring a large photograph of a young woman unconscious on a horse, the ad says House Bill 3202 would allow “a horse owner to ask anyone, who could be a sex offender, drug dealer or gang member to legally pick up, possess and transport dangerous prescription drugs. There would be no oversight that the drug is delivered and used on an animal or person.”
Norman veterinarian Joe Carter – one of the vets who funded the advertisement – said the effort has generated hundreds of e-mails and telephone calls opposed to the bill.
“We’ve had an incredibly positive response,” he said. “It’s been overwhelming.”
Carter said the ad was necessary because House Bill 3202 is bad policy that has been rammed through the Legislature.
“It was shoved through,” he said. “No one knew what was in it. There was nothing requiring a background check. It’s a huge deal and this is a really heavy-handed approach.”
The ad is the latest shot fired in an ongoing war between veterinarians and the unlicensed teeth floaters.
Since 2008 both groups have waged a two-year struggle to change state law and allow teeth floaters to legally practice equine dentistry.
The problem, Carter said, occurred when legislation evolved to include other forms of animal husbandry, including reproductive services.
“I’m very pro-teeth floater,” Carter said. “In fact, I’ve used teeth floaters at my clinic. They’ve been around forever and they’ve been illegal forever.”
And the only ones who got in trouble, Carter said, were the ones who needed to get in trouble.
“When it came up, we all agreed to a compromise,” he said. “We all agreed that what they needed to do to be legal was demonstrate they had education, take a competency test, pay a $200 licensing fee, have liability insurance and do continuing education every year.”
That proposal, Carter said, was negotiated by state Rep. Lee Denney, a Cushing Republican. Denney, a veterinarian, said she hammered the deal out last summer.
“It’s got a long history,” Denney said. “We had two interim studies last year. House Bill 2752 had language that we’d talked with the tooth floaters about. It was something we could all live with, grandfathering the ones in that are currently here for a year, then asking them to come under the purview under the board of veterinary examiners.”
Despite the agreement, she said, that didn’t get a hearing.
“We’re not trying to restrict what people do to their own animals,” Denney said. “But when someone holds themself out to be a professional and take money for something they are not trained to do that, to us, becomes fraudulent behavior.
Denney said the bigger concern is the drug issue.
“With technology the way it’s gotten, so many of these procedures require the drugs we’re talking about. So now it’s become a drug diversion issue, because most of these teeth floaters like to work with power equipment,” she said. “And if you’re going to work with horses and power equipment, you must use sedation; horses are very skittish animals.”
Anti-abortion groups echo the veterinarians’ claims.
Michael Jestes, executive director, Oklahoma Family Policy Council, said his organization believes HB 3202 “warrants the Oklahoma State Senate’s most serious and thoughtful consideration because uncontrolled access and possession of dangerous abortifacient drugs, even those of the veterinary kind, could likely pose an unintended and demonstrable threat to the unborn, to children, and to women across Oklahoma.
“House Bill 3202, if approved, may invalidate some of the hard work that you, the members of the state Legislature, have accomplished to protect innocent human life for Oklahoma families,” he said.
Not so, an organization representing the teeth floaters said.
In a media release distributed this week, the Minnesota chapter of the Institute for Justice said veterinarian groups are trying to scare lawmakers.
“An ad taken out by four vets in today’s Daily Oklahoman seeks to scare legislators into keeping in place government-imposed requirements that anyone who files horse teeth for a living must work under a vet to practice their trade,” said Lee McGrath, the group’s executive director. “The ad spotlights pop diva Britney Spears’ alleged misuse of Clenbuterol as ‘diet pills’ that played a role in her ‘documented breakdown in 2008’ and warns about Ketamine (known as Special K), a tranquilizer that can be used as a date-rape drug.”
Neither of those drugs mentioned in the ad are used by horse teeth floaters, McGrath said.
“Furthermore, the legislation would do nothing to increase the drugs’ distribution,” he said. “What HB 3202 does do is increase the ability of horse teeth floaters to practice their trade. That is what the vets who took out the ad really oppose: competition for even the smallest part of their practices.”
The legislation, McGrath said, was based on a study by the House Agriculture and Rural Development Committee that showed that horse owners “overwhelmingly prefer having the freedom to choose who works on their horses’ teeth, that horse teeth floaters have not caused any serious injuries, and that there is a serious shortage of large animal veterinarians in Oklahoma and the rest of the country.
“The study also concluded that horse teeth floating is an animal husbandry procedure akin to farriery or dehorning cattle, and that opposition to horse teeth floaters is driven by economic reasons and not legitimate health and safety concerns,” he said. “ Notably, veterinarians routinely dispense drugs, including sedatives, to farriers, horse owners, and others – but the four sponsors of the lurid advertisement opposing horse teeth floating are not calling for any changes to that law, despite their sensationalistic claim.”
McGrath said the bill is about the freedom of horse teeth floaters in Oklahoma to earn an honest living and the right of Oklahomans to choose the person they think is best qualified to float their horses’ teeth.
“We trust that neither the state Legislature nor Governor Brad Henry will be deterred from passing and signing the bill by these baseless and frankly offensive scare tactics,” he said.
Carter said the vets’ opposition to the measure has nothing to do with freedom, but instead, is about the drugs being used.
“It’s not about the teeth floaters,” he said. “It’s about the drugs. This is bad policy. It will cause abuses that shouldn’t be taking place.”
House Bill 3202 was cleared by a 10-0 vote in the Senate’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. The measure now goes to the full Senate for review.
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