Does anyone with any veterinary training moderate the pet health questions board on this site?
Question by M N: Does anyone with any veterinary training moderate the pet health questions board on this site?
I’m a veterinarian and checked out this forum after being directed to it by a pet owner. While some answers are sound medically, there are others which are very misleading and wrong which could lead to serious medical complications and even death.
Best answer:
Answer by DRAFT DOG
No. People can give whatever advice they want and people can choose to take whatever advice they want.
No one seems to care if some of the advice is bad, or even dangerous!!!!!!
Of course the main concern of many of the people posting on here is to AVOID the vet. They clearly do not want to spend ANY money on taking the animal……so if some nimrod is telling them “burnt motor oil” is the cure and will save them $ $ $ , (even if they KNOW deep down that it is WRONG) they will take that advice to avoid spending ANY $ $ $ !!!!
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I state to people all the time they are going to cost someone thier pets life. However; yahoo deletes those answers and suspends your account. Many times the people start to think because of the thumbs up and thumbs down and voting its legit. Its NOT. People ask question chose best answer to what they want to hear. Its become a big losing game
There is a problem of people getting on here to ask questions no one can see or do anything about and people still give useless opinions to “ease” the questioner. There are also the opposite a dog sneezed and the answer is go to the emergency vet.
Many questions are “trolls” just trying to get a rise out of people and it works everytime.
Don’t get yourself to worked up. It doesn’t matter if you are a vet or not. They will report you for wrong answers and being “rude” not telling them what they want to hear.
I wish that Yahoo would appoint an expert to monitor each board, but then I guess it becomes “ask the doctor (or lawyer, or carpenter, or whatever)” not “Yahoo answers”
I, too, am appaled at the number of not only slightly incorrect answers that are given, but downright dangerous ones. And, sadly, sometimes when there are 20 correct answers and one really, really bad answer, the bad answer is chosen as “best answer” because it is what the asker wanted to hear.
(“Oh yeah, go ahead and keep that baby raccoon you found. Who’s going to know? It’s just staggering and slobbering because it’s a baby – it’s not sick! It will be a great pet for your kids!” “Don’t listen to anyone who says chocolate will make your dog sick! My dogs have always eaten chocolate, and it never hurt any of them” “Don’t feed your bird rice – that makes them explode!” “Don’t clip your bird’s wings – that is cruel!” etc.)
There are some of us on here who try to give good answers, backed up with links to websites so the asker can see that we are not pulling the answer out of thin air, that the information is good – but somehow, I get the feeling that the idiots who know nothing and are more than willing to share their misinformation with the world are the ones who are listened to the most.
No.. but I am ok with that…
firstly people should NOT ask or answer medical emergency questions and NO VET would give out medical advice to somebody without seeing the animal anyhow….
vets do have different opinions so if a vet was going to moderate the questions they might eliminate some according to their adjenda… which is wrong
eg topics like declawing – many people here will post that declawing is wrong, and in fact illegal in some countries but a vet who does get money for declawing might have a problem with these kinds of responses
also food – most people here are smart enough that we know sometimes vets reccommend crappy foods (like Science Diet) because they make money for selling it… a vet who sells this food might take offence to this info getting out….
a vet wouldnt have time to sit here and monitor the questions.
you can report stupid answers – and have them removed… I personally think when people ask a question that needs a vets attention…they need to be told SEE A VET.
No. Many answers are either totally off the wall, or downright dangerous, like douse your dog in kerosene or used motor oil for mange. No clue if that’s supposed to work for demodectic, sarcoptic, or both.