Abstract
Medical care of the increasing number of organic livestock causes new problems for
veterinary surgeons, farmers, consultants and other involved people. The regulations of
organic farming (e.g. Council Regulation (EC) No 2092/91) have to be considered. According
to these regulations effective alternative treatments (e.g. phytotherapeutic and homeopathic
products) have to be used in preference to allopathic products chemically synthesised. In
veterinary education neither veterinary alternative medicine nor characteristics of organic
livestock husbandry are taught sufficiently. The access of information and search for literature
about specific topics is difficult, because the information is spread in a variety of sources.
The objective of this project was to develop an internet based information system, to supply
the increasing demand for information about alternative therapies in organic productive
livestock farming. For this purpose an innovative concept for the compilation of a literature
review was developed and implemented. After seven month the information system was
already available online (http://www.oekovet.de). It comprises a daily growing data base with
231 commented articles as of today. In addition it contains news about alternative medicine,
the basics of alternative therapy, descriptions of the legal regulations of organic farming and a
database for continuing education.
The available publications were evaluated systematically and in respect to practicality, to give
the user an overview about their quality. The objective of the survey was to support the
practitionerýs decision making in respect of interventions to use in practice. On the basis of
developed evaluation criteria the information content, material and methods, the presentation
and practicability were evaluated. Out of 231 publications 97 reported clinical trials (42,0 %),
47 contained information from personal experience (20,3 %) and 87 contained opinions of
experts like guidance for treatments or descriptions of drugs (37,7 %). Only few publications
about clinical trials obtained for the criteria material and methods the grade ýsatisfyingý or
ýgoodý.
According to these results the improvement of veterinary knowledge about the alternative
therapies in livestock medicine is based mainly on inadequately conducted or insufficiently
described clinical trials or on personal experiences. The need for well conducted, randomized
controlled clinical trials is obvious. The objective for the future should be, to conduct meta-analyses
of clinical trials and consequently develop an ýevidence-based veterinary medicineý. |
