The Letter

Dear AVMA Board of Directors,

I am writing as a concerned member of the public to express my deep disappointment in the newly updated AVMA Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals, particularly your continued endorsement of ventilation shutdown (VSD) and ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+).

These methods are not humane. They are mass killing by slow suffocation and heatstroke.

Animal Outlook’s investigation into industry funded research at North Carolina State University revealed exactly what VSD and VSD+ look like in practice. In those experiments, hens were locked in small boxes while airflow was cut off, heat was raised and, in some cases, carbon dioxide was added. As conditions worsened, the birds writhed, gasped, panted, staggered and threw themselves against the walls before collapsing and dying from heat and suffocation — while researchers calmly watched, took notes and sat in front of fans with bottled water.

Animal Outlook also obtained documents under Iowa’s Open Records Law—and their legal team successfully challenged the redactions—revealing how VSD+ was used at multiple chicken facilities in response to bird flu outbreaks. In some barns, birds were subjected to between an hour and a half and nearly five hours of VSD+, and many birds endured and still had to be killed by other methods.

It doesn’t take a veterinary degree to see that this is cruelty.

Yet in your new depopulation guidelines — used by government agencies to shape policy during emergencies and disease outbreaks — VSD and VSD+ remain endorsed for the mass killing of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and pigs. This gives powerful corporations a green light to use one of the cruellest methods imaginable and call it “acceptable” because the AVMA says so.

I am also aware that many veterinarians strongly oppose VSD+. A Veterinary Information Network poll of more than 3,000 veterinarians found that only 1.1 percent believe VSD+ is ethical and humane. When the vast majority of your own profession rejects this method, it is alarming to see it still legitimized in AVMA guidance.

As a member of the public, I expect veterinarians — and especially the AVMA — to stand for compassion, science, and integrity, not for the convenience of industrial animal agriculture. Endorsing methods that slowly cook animals to death behind closed doors is not what most people understand “humane” to mean.

I urge you to:

• Remove VSD and VSD+ from the AVMA depopulation guidelines
• Commit to phasing out extreme mass killing methods that cause prolonged suffering
• Align AVMA policy with the veterinary oath and with public expectations for genuine animal welfare

Please revise these guidelines to reflect true leadership in animal welfare and to restore public trust in the veterinary profession.