I am entering my third decade of studying ragwort this year so I thought to make a new posting illustrating why I believe that people should not necessarily believe that a veterinary diagnosis of ragwort poisoning is a correct one and why I can prove that hysteria exists and that it plays a part in some of the poor diagnoses that we do see.
I have over 1200 followers on twitter and a number of them are academics working in ecological areas. There are several professors there. These are not people who have been fooled by poor science. The ragwort issue is bedevilled by falsehoods and even made up nonsense. I can and have solidly proved it. People with the requisite level of education can see this and listen to me as a result.
The first thing I would say is that nobody, no vet , nobody can be sure of ragwort poisoning.
I am prompted to write my honest opinions here, as I often am, by something that someone said on twitter about a vet being sure that a ragwort poisoning was likely.
No one can be sure after the poisoning has occurred unless they poisoned the animal themselves. This is because there is no test that can distinguish it from poisonings by other substances. most notably toxins from invisible moulds in feed like hay.
The first point to make about this is that it isn't me who says this. It comes from several veterinary textbooks written by world renowned veterinary professors, who have said this on the basis of the evidence. It is vital to remember in science that it is the evidence that counts not who says it. but I think we can be pretty sure that modern university level veterinary textbooks will be correct.
I have gone further than this of course. I am not going to baffle the readers of this blog with a complex explanation of what the biochemistry says, but in essence, it says that the compounds concerned have the same effect because they react with DNA molecules in the same way causing the same effects at a submicroscopic level. We know this to be true not from the authority of experts but from the much better authority of the biochemical evidence.
You can read more on my website here, https://www.ragwortfacts.com/ragwort-poisoning-no-test-can-confirm-ragwort-poisoning.html
I have actually gathered more sources and more information, which I have yet to add to that page.
The other interesting point is that I didn't discover this initially for myself, My first port of call all that time ago was of course veterinary text books. I didn't discover this because in wasn't in the text books that I read at that time. It may be this that stops vets taking it into account as it seems they weren't trained to look for it. It is we know a more modern discovery. It was the case that at one time that it was believed that Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids the toxic chemicals present in ragwort had a definitive microscopic test but even this was only first published in the literature in the 1950s. I found out about this because a colleague attended a meeting where a researcher and veterinary professor was speaking and asked him if there was anything else which produced those signs and was told there was.. I then gathered information from the scientific literature to explain this.
I don't blog often but it is worth reading my previous entry here from last summer where I go into a bit more detail about this and describe an encounter with an equine vet who just did not know the subject thoroughly at all and is likely as a result misdiagnosing cases. Equine vet gets it wrong on ragwort.
I will however restate a quote I made there from the latest scientific research which shows that ragwort poisoning is not as common as has been believed.
"Outbreaks of hepatic disease are common and once often were suspected to be caused by pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) toxicosis, although more recent evidence suggests that PA toxicity is far less common than generally suspected."
Ragwort is often said to to be the cause without proper investigation anyway, even before investigation was possible.
One of the people who helps me with my research sent me an article from 1947 before we had the idea of microscopic examination confirming things, which subsequently was proved to be false anyway. It was in an Irish newspaper. One farmer was suing another who had sold him a horse saying it was in good health when it wasn't. It died shortly afterwards from what the article calls "Cirhosis of the Liver", which is a reasonable description I suppose.
The vet who had made the diagnosis was asked by the judge. "What is the predisposing cause?"
and the vet was reported as responding.
"In some places it is put down to ragwort poisoning. Mouldy hay often cases it. Ragwort is usually put down for it."
This is still happening. There are all sorts of cases being reported in the media. One Equine charity started using four letter insults to me on Twitter when I told them you cannot diagnose ragwort poisoning from blood tests. It is pretty obvious that this abusive and ignorant person had been led to believe that falsehood by a vet as they insisted they had veterinary reports.Equine charities have played a part in this as I document frequently here. I am going to be blunt and honest about it, but my opinions are based on a detailed study of the evidence. The British Horse Society published an inflammatory article scaring people with a false story about a vet turning up and diagnosing ragwort poisoning on the spot without tests! What is more they used it to persuade people to fill in one of their infamous surveys. I'll say it clearly this is another example where the British Horse Society have used crooked methods to rig surveys or present their arguments in a false way.
If you want to survey people honestly you must not make leading statements which will bias the results. So giving people false information which overstated the risk from ragwort biased the results. The first question in the survey also made a false exaggerated claim of toxicity of the plant.
I keep saying this I know but this blog entry is going to new people I hope. The video below is from the excellent BBC comedy, Yes Prime Minister where the infamously scheming Sir Humphrey Appleby explains exactly how you rig a survey using leading questions.
This is exactly what the British Horse Society did! Of course it is a different subject but they rigged it in exactly the same way, with leading questions that shape the opinions of the person answering.
There is also a problem with Defra who are claiming on their website that following advice will help you avoid fines under the Weeds Act, whilst lying by omission. The omission is that you cannot just be fined for not following their advice. You have to be ordered to something by a rare legal order and only then can you be fined and only then can you be fined if you don't comply.
The you have their Code of Practice declared, "out of date" and withdrawn legally some years ago but still offered as advice . It is based on a bizarre and crazy use of risk statistics from a notorious source who claims that an animal that uses ragwort as its near exclusive food source is being poisoned by it and that animals won't be affected by having their habitat destroyed! See https://ragwortfacts.com/defra-ragwort-code-of-practice.html
