Tuesday 9 October 2012

Another vet posts bad info?

From time to time I point out how even vets get taken in by the misinformation about ragwort and today it seems we might have another example.

Today we have  this from twitter

 Dr. Anna Russau ‏@WarrentonHWorks 
What do you know about Ragwort? http://fb.me/2eC0Gbah7

and this is how Dr Russau describes herself on twitter

Dr. Anna Russau
@WarrentonHWorks
Warrenton Horse Works, PLC is owned by Dr. Anna L. Russau, DVM, a graduate of University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Virginia · http://www.warrentonhorseworks.com
It is rather ambiguous as to whether she actually believes the stuff on the website, but I would assume that she wouldn't post it like this if she didn't.

The problem that I have is that the website concerned is very familiar to me and I as someone who has studied ragwort in detail for many years believe that some of the things that it says are as nutty as squirrel droppings.

It exaggerates the risk. It posts nonsense about animals breathing in seeds. It uses exaggerated statistics.
It claims that ragwort seeds are spread widely on the wind when we know from the data and the mathematics that they don't and oh yes, it gets things wrong about UK law too.

Regular readers will be familiar with this site. Someone at Edinburgh University mentioned it before on twitter.
So for full details look at my previous posting. I described it then as "bonkers" and "tripe".

Perhaps Dr Russau would care to correct any false impressions she may have made?





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1 comment:

  1. It is so sad tgat people don't use their critical thinking skills, breathing seeds, tssk, when you manage that then you get pneumonia. Ragwort seeds are so big as rice. I am happy I can sneese ;-)

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