Dear reader, I am not available to you at this time. You can click on this image to learn why: 
I have given advice to pet owners like you for over forty years at my animal hospitals and, until recently, online. During that time, I learned many things. An important one is that veterinarians like myself do not have a solution for all of your pet’s health problems. I also learned that innovations can be frowned upon by the powers that be when they feel threatened.
I am not now allowed to offer you advice based on my veterinary skills and the information you provide because I do not physically touch or observe your pet. The Texas Veterinary Board and the AVMA extend that prohibition against veterinarians like me not just for Texas pets but for pet owners over the entire world who might wish to discuss their pet’s problem with me. I see no justification for that, but it is the law. However human physicians in Texas are allowed to do online telephone and video consultation with human patients that have never visited their offices. Veterinarians in Canada and the UK do have that privilege as well. So I sued the Texas Veterinary Board in 2014 when they convicted, fined and silenced me. Later that year, my local federal judge agreed that what the Board had done violated my First Amendment freedom of speech rights. The Veterinary Board immediately appealed that decision and in 2023 federal judges of the 5th Federal Circuit Court in New Orleans reversed my local judge’s decision that was in my favor. They said the Texas Veterinary Board had the absolute right to silence my online correspondence even if I had never given advice that was not accurate. The Institute for Justice is persistent when government threaten our liberties that harm no one. Based on some other recent freedom of speech decisions, they asked the 5th Federal Circuit Court to reconsider; and in 2024, the New Orleans decision was reversed in my favor by a fresh panel of federal judges . You can read those judges decision here . I was informed in August 2025 that the Texas Veterinary Board and the AVMA plan to appeal that decision, this time to the US Supreme Court. I am told that the earliest the Supreme Court might consider my case is June, 2026. Its not my rights of speech and correspondence that motivate me – its your rights and the rights of younger, independent veterinarians who might wish to take my place.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ron Hines, veterinarian
