A call for scrutiny of the veterinary profession

The veterinary profession wields significant influence over food systems, public health and farmed animal welfare. And yet, argues Steven McCulloch, it lacks any meaningful scrutiny. Far greater accountability is needed to protect animals, people and the planet.

In The Republic, Socrates posed the enduring question: “Who will guard the guardians?” His concern was profound: how do we scrutinise those in positions of authority? Modern democracies answer through institutional checks and accountability: executive, legislature, judiciary and a free press.

We might ask a parallel question of veterinarians: who scrutinises the veterinary profession? While veterinarians do not govern societies, they exercise significant delegated authority over food systems, animal welfare and biosecurity policy.

Before addressing the question, we must first appreciate the scale of the profession’s influence. Veterinary expertise underpins and legitimises national policy on food and farming, biosecurity, animal welfare, and antimicrobial use. Veterinarians hold key roles within international organisations such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).

Decisions in these settings affect billions of animals and have profound implications for climate, biodiversity and public health. These policy decisions are shaped not only by scientific evidence, but by the professional culture of the veterinary community, which has close relationships with the farming industry.

The veterinary profession therefore holds enormous influence over the future of human and nonhuman life.

The responsibilities associated with this influence intersect with today’s most serious crises: climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse, antimicrobial resistance, deforestation and zoonotic pandemics. The veterinary profession therefore holds enormous influence over the future of human and nonhuman life.

And yet, when we ask the Socratic question, “Who guards the veterinary profession?”, the answer is stark: nobody.

Why is there so little scrutiny of veterinary policy?

Two broad factors explain the fact that there is no serious scrutiny of veterinary policy around the world.

First, internal scrutiny within the profession is minimal. In many countries the veterinary profession is largely self-regulating, and professional regulators typically focus on individual conduct rather than policy positions of national veterinary institutions. As a result, institutional positions adopted in the wider profession’s name receive little internal challenge.

And national veterinary institutions, whose policy positions shape and legitimise government decisions on food and farming, are often guided predominantly by veterinarians working in livestock production. Most of the profession, working with companion animals, tend to defer to these views.

Second, external scrutiny is weak. NGOs, journalists, policymakers and the public generally defer to veterinary expertise, treating it as neutral, scientific and independent. This contrasts with fields such as human medicine, where policy and practice are regularly scrutinised  through parliamentary inquiries, government oversight, investigative journalism and civil society organisations.

But deference becomes dangerous if veterinary policy supports farming systems that cause serious and predictable harm. This can happen when that expertise is shaped by structural proximity to the agricultural industry. And much veterinary expertise in livestock systems is influenced by close professional and economic relationships with farming clients.

Consider the following two policy examples to illustrate:

1. Meat reduction and veterinary leadership

Intensive livestock agriculture is a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic disease risks and animal suffering. Globally, the EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission recommends 50 per cent reduction in red and processed meat by 2050 to safeguard human health, food justice and planetary boundaries. In the UK, the Climate Change Committeerecommends 35 per cent reduction in meat consumption by 2050.

While veterinary institutions do not control meat consumption levels, they do play a key role in shaping and legitimising food and farming policy through scientific authority and advisory roles to governments.

For these reasons, I have argued that national veterinary institutions should support quantified meat-reduction targets to protect public health, animal welfare and the environment. Yet across the world, no national veterinary association has adopted such targets, despite overwhelming evidence that reduced consumption benefits public health, climate stability and animal welfare.

This reluctance to engage with demand-side change raises questions about whether veterinary institutions are sufficiently independent from industry interests. While veterinary institutions do not control meat consumption levels, they do play a key role in shaping and legitimising food and farming policy through scientific authority and advisory roles to governments.

2. Pig tail docking in the UK: a legal ban in principle, widespread practice in reality

Tail biting in pigs is an unnatural behaviour caused by not providing sufficient space, environmental enrichment and other key welfare needs. Across the world, rather than adequately improve housing conditions for pigs, industry regularly amputates tails to prevent biting.

In the UK, legislation prohibits routine amputation (“docking”) of pigs’ tails. Docking requires veterinary certification and is permitted only as an exception after environmental improvements to prevent biting. Despite the legal framework, around 80 per cent of pigs continue to have their tails amputated. This raises questions about the enforcement of welfare law.

The persistence of widespread tail docking despite legal restrictions suggests that structural pressures within the system may be undermining the law’s intended protections.

Indeed, the UK government has recently acknowledged the persistence of this problem. The 2025 Animal Welfare Strategy for England notes the high prevalence of tail docking and commits to working with industry and the veterinary profession to reduce the practice.

Growing dissatisfaction within the veterinary profession

Across the world, the veterinary profession has supported intensive animal farming, providing legitimacy to government policy. As evidence of the harms caused by intensive farming has grown, dissatisfaction within the profession has increased.

In the UK, the Progressive Veterinary Association (PVA) formed in response to the British Veterinary Association’s support for badger culling, part of the UK government’s bovine tuberculosis control strategy, despite independent scientific evidence questioning its effectiveness. The PVA mission is to provide a progressive voice within the profession “irrespective of corporate or vested interest”.

Caring Vets emerged in opposition to intensive farming policies in the Netherlands. And in the US, Our Honor was established in reaction to American Veterinary Medical Association policy on ventilation shutdown, an inhumane slaughter method to kill pigs and poultry through heat or suffocation.

A call for scrutiny of veterinary policy in the public interest

Across the world, do veterinarians believe agricultural industry interests and cheap meat should take priority over public health, climate change, species extinctions and farmed animal welfare?

And in the UK, do veterinarians believe the profession should be providing certification to amputate 80 per cent of pigs’ tails, despite legislation prohibiting routine docking? Pigs are comparable to dogs in terms of emotional and cognitive complexity, and docking masks the reality that their welfare needs are not met in modern intensive systems.

A “yes” to either question seems inconceivable. Yet institutional support for intensive farming, high meat consumption and widespread tail docking continues to define veterinary policy and practice around the world.

For this reason, as a veterinarian and political scientist, I call for far greater scrutiny of the policies and practices of my own profession.

Within the profession, I urge veterinary colleagues to seriously scrutinise the policies of national veterinary institutions which claim to represent them. These bodies speak in our names, and they derive their authority and legitimacy from our collective expertise.

And if the policies of national veterinary institutions contradict scientific evidence or ethical responsibilities, we should be willing to challenge them publicly through debate, media engagement and participation in representative bodies.

Outside the profession, NGOs, journalists, academics, policymakers and the wider public must treat veterinary policy with the same critical scrutiny applied to other powerful institutions. Veterinary expertise is critically important, but it is certainly not infallible.

Veterinarians are not omniscient. And just as Plato warned, guardians must themselves be guarded. For animals, people and the planet, the stakes are simply too high.

By Steven McCulloch

Steven McCulloch is Research Fellow in Veterinary Policy at The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience within LSE’s Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. He is also part of the LSE’s Global School of Sustainability. His research focuses on the policies of national veterinary associations on farmed animal welfare, sustainability and meat reduction.

This article has been published on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog.