I received the following emails targeting equine veterinarians with various announcements last week. You must be “cognitively diligent” to read the subtle messages and misdirection, confusion, and sometimes utter nonsense within their messages.

Everyone has an agenda. As veterinarians or horse owners, we must read between the lines, question what is said, and discover if the information is good, relevant, or, most importantly, what parts they are leaving out. Lying by omission is still covering the truth. Marketing is so good at this that the government forced specific industries to rapidly read all the adverse side effects of medicines, alcohol, and smoking, finally banning it from commercial airwaves.

However, when it comes to marketing to professionals, there is an understanding that what is said is well understood. We are humans, though, susceptible to misdirection like everyone.

As horse owners, we need to embrace the concept of Medicine 3.0, the prevention of disease, rather than Medicine 2.0, the fixing of problems. What some call “Whack-A-Mole Medicine.”

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