“In the 1930s and 1940s, smoking became the norm for both men and women in the United States, and a majority of physicians smoked. At the same time, there was rising public anxiety about the health risks of cigarette smoking. One strategic response of tobacco companies was to devise advertising referring directly to physicians. As ad campaigns featuring physicians developed through the early 1950s, tobacco executives used the doctor image to assure the consumer that their respective brands were safe.

These advertisements also suggested that the individual physicians’ clinical judgment should continue to be the arbiter of the harms of cigarette smoking even as systematic health evidence accumulated. However, by 1954, industry strategists deemed physician images in advertisements no longer credible in the face of growing public concern about the health evidence implicating cigarettes. ” * [button href=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470496/” newwindow=”yes”] Story about how doctors deceived the public about smoking[/button]  

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Declawing started in the 50’s by an unethical vet named Dr Misener. The AVMA celebrated him as a doctor who invented a “humane procedure to declaw cats.” Here is what the AVMA said about Misener in his obituary on the AVMA website.

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Here is a letter to the editor from Dr Grant Misener in 1952 in the AVMA’s JAVMA.

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This is the Resco torture tool that many vets still use to amputate the toe bones on a cat and that the AVMA calls “humane.” They put the cat’s toe bone inside the cutting part of it and crush off the bone.

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Here is just one of the sad stories about the millions of cats who have been horrifically declawed by this rescoe trimmer method. Declawed cat story

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The AVMA’s deception for profit story. Deception for Profit

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This was on the NYSVMS President’s website saying that laser declaw is more humane (yet she also offers the old school less humane way at her practice) Does the NYSVMS Pres. Walk the Talk?

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This is from an AAHA hospital, Blue Springs Animal Hospital in Missouri.

Update, August 2021.

A declaw for a 3 year old cat is $557.50. They do a laser declaw and said it cauterizes and cuts down on the swelling and healing time.

They said that all their vets who do surgeries are good at the declaws and do them regularly. They said that they give the cat nerve blocks in each toe and pain meds while they stay with them for two day. They also give the cat an antibiotic injection that lasts 2 weeks but don’t give any take home pain meds. They send you home with some of Purina’s Yesterday’s News cat litter which is included in the price.

A neuter declaw for a kitten is $638.50.

When asked if the cats are ok long term for a declaw they said, “Oh yes, it’s not a problem.”

They said if you go to another vet practice make sure you ask how they do the declaws. They said that a scalpel declaw is not as good as a laser declaw.

2016 info from this AAHA animal hospital.

Their front desk person says to those who ask about  a cost for a declaw and if it’s bad for a cat, that there are no negative consequences for a cat to be declawed, except that they should be indoor cats. They say their laser seal nerve endings and cauterizes and “makes for a nice procedure for these guys.”   They say they do “countless declaws” there.  They say that the reason most people declaw is for scratching kids, furniture, or tearing up a leather couch. When our researcher asked one of their long time employees who is a vet tech how they do the declaw and if it is inhumane, she says, “it is like taking off the first knuckle in your finger but in a cat, that is all claw so that’s what they are removing and there is no long term damage to their health by doing that.”   When asked what’s best, a 2 or 4 paw declaw, she says that they “prefer to just do the front but if your cat uses it’s back feet to get away from you and ends up scratching you, that can be an issue if you have elderly people or children”,  but that the cat can’t defend themselves so they must stay inside. Never once did they suggest the humane alternatives.

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From 2016 Pet Day Surgery veterinary practice in PA.  Pet Day Declaw info

Here’s another vet practice in Ohio that says it is best to declaw a kitten when it is young. They even say their four paw declaw amputations are for people with thin skin, health issues, or those in a nursing home.  Cat declaw info