Hidden in Plain Sight: 
Unashamed Conflicts of Interest to Make Your Head Spin

Each year, Massey University and its veterinary faculty draws – through the students it pulls in from countries all around the world and most especially from its increasingly pivotal Asian and Southeast Asian marketplaces – large (almost bottomless) buckets of funding from government scholarship and student loan agencies.

Some of these are short on veterinarians and have almost no other option but to staff their countries’ veterinary clinics with Massey graduates. It’s a lucrative scenario indeed for Massey and its management (whose immediate past Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas, was in 2021/22 reported as earning a healthy annual salary of NZD 586,000).

But do these geographically removed recipients of Massey’s supposedly gold standard educational standards know what they’re really getting when they hire a Massey vet school grad?

Do they know of the sort of practices that apparently form acceptable operating principles within the walls of its Veterinary Teaching “Hospital” aka “Companion Animal Hospital”?

Do they know, for example, that the “school” is about to be investigated by the Animal Welfare Inspectorate of New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary Industries at the instruction of the Ministry’s Director General?

That’s no mean feat. With universities historically treated as the quintessential “law unto themselves” in New Zealand public service culture, readers might want to consider just how bad things have to be before a Ministry will actually break the unspoken “hands-off code” and step in to find out what the hell is going on with the way Massey treats its private fee-paying clients’ pets.

(For the record, the Inspectorate’s Team Manager – Compliance Analysis and Co-ordination Animal Welfare, is on the case, and has added the Police filing (OR-2484821N) regarding Massey veterinary staff’s breaches of Crimes Act 1961 Section 258 (Altering document with intent to deceive) and Section 260 (Falsifying registers) and the formal complaint to the New Zealand Law Society against Veterinary Council CEO Iain McLachlan, to its case files. )

New VC's Window of Opportunity to Be the Clean-Sweeping New Broom . . . MISSED

Massey’s management recently switched at the top:  Vice-Chancellor Jan Thomas handed over to new blood, Pierre Venter, who hails from a research and scientific background in New Zealand’s high-profile dairy industry.

But does Venter represent the much-needed “new broom” approach . . . or is he just a new broom to sweep the old dirt under the institutional rug? Read my experience of him here. . . .  and note that no, there was not only nil response, but instead an apparent upscaling of the moral filth and cover-up to which my Open Letter to the Vice-Chancellor pertains.

Any of the many items of coverage I’ve produced here on The Customer & The Constituent are evidence not only of the malpractice, malfeasance, clinical cruelty and deceit that saw the demise of my own precious pet and the ongoing resultant traumatisation of the human involved in it (me) . . . but also of the obviously ingrained, institutionally systemic nature of the rot.

The new VC had the ideal moment, albeit a short one, to spot that rot and turn things around forthwith. But – as you’ll read here – he chose to support his deans in the intimidation-over-integrity approach.

It’s a shame, because Pierre Venter was pretty clearly brought in to achieve what his predecessor couldn’t i.e. a turn-around in Massey’s substantial, and substantially publicised, financial woes, with the Tertiary Education Commission classifying the institution as “high risk” for its financial management, a 20 percent decline in domestic students between 2021 and 2024 (perhaps they know something the overseas student markets don’t), the reduction of over 500 courses, and the elimination of more than 60 science roles back in 2023.

Notwithstanding Massey’s urgent and ongoing need for a financial recovery plan, the markets into which it shovels large numbers of its graduates each year still deserve veterinarians not only trained in competent, rightful and honorable principles of veterinary medicine and “care”, but also graduates imbued with functioning ethics . . . which, according both to my experience and the systemic behaviour it has uncovered, is currently an area in which Massey is substantially challenged -at the senior academic level and at the level of the Veterinary Teaching “Hospital” and a concerning proportion of its individual staff.

What Massey's Triple Accreditation Is Actually Worth . . . And to Whom

These geographically-removed importers of Massey veterinary graduates are entirely reliant on one thing to be sure of the standards their own veterinary sectors are resultantly being built upon: the regulators and the accrediting agencies.

Massey holds simultaneous accreditation from all three bodies: the American Veterinary Medical Association Council on Education (AVMA COE) in the United States, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) in the UK, and the Australasian Veterinary Boards Council (AVBC), covering Australia and New Zealand.
 
What does that actually buy Massey? In blunt commercial terms: everything.
 
Because of that accreditation, Massey graduates can practice not only in New Zealand, but without additional or jurisdiction-specific qualifications in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, South Africa, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

In markets that are chronically short of veterinarians - and Malaysia, for instance, has been formally identified by its own government as still significantly short of vets - a Massey degree is not just an education. It is a passport to markets that have few other options.
 
International students pay between NZD 350,000 and NZD 400,000 (BEFORE still-substantial additional and, in New Zealand, particularly substantial living expenses) for that five-year degree passport.
 
Financially speaking, Massey’s veterinary school is a load-bearing part of the institution. No wonder the Tertiary Education Commission didn’t want to know when I reported any of my experiences – including the Crimes Act breaches for records falsification – to them.

Strip the accreditation, or place it under probation, and the international enrolment pipeline — and with it Massey's entire financial recovery strategy — collapses.
 
That’s what's at stake. For Massey.
 
What's At Stake for the Accreditors
 
But this shouldn’t be about Massey. It should be about the animals and the pet owners . . . and the “care” and ethics they’re going to be paying for, when they entrust their pets to a Massey-qualified veterinarian. Which, according to my experience and what I’ve had reported to me by those scared of the legal threats I myself don’t actually give a stuff about, is not who you want to be entrusting your precious pets to. At all. Not if you want any guarantees they won’t be catastrophically sedated without cause with contraindicated drugs for use in student training videos and then presented back to you for apparently immediately required “euthanasia” – under the guise of a supposedly overnight “neurological decline”.

So who’s meant to make sure an institution like Massey doesn’t operate in this manner and do this sort of thing with its fee-paying clients’ pets? Who’s meant to be making sure it doesn’t need to be investigated – as it apparently does – by our Ministry of Primary Industries’ Animal Welfare inspectorate, under order of the Ministry’s Director General?

Well, according to my correspondence (published further down in this article) with the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), no-one in that organisation, at least.

I’m now waiting to see how the other two accrediting agencies in question – the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (UK) (RCVS) and the Australasian Veterinary Boards Council (AVBC) – respond to the similar correspondence I’ve sent to them. I’ll be publishing that, too, and then all the stakeholders in this rather disturbing picture will get a direct window into what’s really going on . . . who cares, who doesn’t, and who intends to do what (if anything) about it.

Now let’s take a moment to follow the money flow from the other direction.
 
The AVMA Council of Education (COE) confirms in its own published policies that accredited institutions pay an annual administrative fee to the AVMA, plus all costs associated with site visits. The exact figures are not publicly disclosed — a point worth noting in itself — but the structure is unambiguous:

Massey pays to be accredited. Every year. So, the AVMA has a direct financial interest in retaining Massey as an accredited client.
   
I haven’t been able to confirm whether the same applies to the RCVS and the AVBC – but it would be a reasonable assumption. Over to anyone with the appetite to dig further into that for the specifics. (If any reader finds a verifiable figure and wants me to add it here, please send it in.)

The Singapore Problem: Why the Financial Stakes Just Got Much Higher

In November 2024, Massey University opened a branch campus in Singapore in partnership with PSB Academy. This Singapore campus is the centrepiece of Massey's plan to have had 5000 offshore students enrolled by 2026, and was hailed by Massey's then-Vice-Chancellor Jan Thomas as a key plank of the university's international expansion and financial recovery strategy.
 
On March 6, i.e. Friday of last week, I formally notified the Singapore Veterinary Association, Singapore's national parks veterinary registry, and its SPCA, of thedocumented records falsification and malpractice at Massey's Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
 
They were not the only ones. I have also notified the Malaysian Veterinary Council and Director of Veterinary Services, the Veterinary Surgeons Board of Hong Kong, the Nanjing Agricultural University, and the Chinese Ministry of Education - all of them accreditation-dependent markets for Massey graduates, and all of them now formally on notice.
 
If Massey hasn’t notified these organisations of the MPI's intended formal animal welfare investigation it certainly should have.

It’s in the AVMA rules, for example. If the accreditors, their joint venture partners and other stakeholders in its primary graduate markets are finding out about it here for the first time, Massey has even further explaining to do when it comes to its ethics and its ability – or inability – to follow the rules.
 
That omission in itself would constitute a powerful – and powerfully negative – statement.
 
The Regulator That Is NOT Independent of What It Regulates
   
Closer to home, the financial and institutional entanglement is not abstract. It’s structural and it’s got some specific names attached to it.
 
The Veterinary Council of New Zealand (VCNZ) is the domestic regulatory body charged with investigating complaints against Massey veterinary staff. It’s the body to which Massey's own Dean of the Veterinary School, Jon Huxley, directed me as my only “allowed (by him)” option when threatening me with legal action for publishing my evidence.

By the way, for an institution plagued with big-time money problems, the funds they’re shoveling in their high-profile national law firm’s – Buddle Findlay’s – direction would, I’m pretty sure, not be insignificant. It’s just a pity the Dean’s scary letter cc’d to the Buddles Findlay didn’t do the trick with me. And that nor will it.

EVER. I’m not just a pissed-off pet owner (or WAS a pet owner  before Massey's “veterinarians” got their hands on my precious pet, who they clearly didn’t view as being as precious as I did). I’ve been an investigative writer and reporter of the truth for a very long career to date . . . and maybe Massey should have done as much checking on my background before they did what they did to my pet, as their expensive legal counsel  has done since.
 
What Dean Huxley knew, and what I subsequently documented, is this:
 
One of the VCNZ's seven Council members (ex officio) is the Academic Program Director of the undergraduate veterinary program at Massey University - one Dr Jenny Weston. She sits simultaneously on the body that would assess complaints about Massey's veterinary staff, and on Massey's own academic leadership.

Weston represents New Zealand on the Veterinary Schools Accreditation Advisory Committee (VSAAC) - the very body that accredits schools in Australia and New Zealand. It’s a closed loop. The person responsible for the "quality" of the Massey degree is the same person who sits on the Council that would "assure the public" if that quality fails.

Under the Veterinarians Act 2005, the VCNZ is structured to ensure that the only veterinary school in the country has a permanent, guaranteed voice in how the profession is regulated. No Election Required: the Massey Academic Lead has a reserved seat as an institutional proxy for Massey University and its Veterinary Teaching Hospital i.e. on the body that’s supposed to independently audit Massey University and its Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

You see the problem.

Meantime, the VCNZ's Professional Advisor - the person who advises the Council on professional standards, including in complaints matters - is one Dr Seton Butler. Dr Butler is a Massey University graduate who taught at Massey as an adjunct lecturer at the School of Veterinary Science, before taking the VCNZ advisory role. He is simultaneously a director of Panacea, a veterinary practice management software business with commercial interests in the veterinary sector he advises on.

You see the problem.

Fun Fact:  Of particular interest to me since my discovery of Massey vets’ falsification of my dog, Harry’s, records both pre- and post the death they were determined for him to have, has been the whole integrity of clinical and medical records issue. On which note, I have just finished reading a piece Butler wrote for the industry journal, Vetscript, back in May 2020 in which he opines how important correct clinical records are: “Clinical Records Under the Microscope”, Vetscript, May 2020. Such a pity he never instilled his values in Massey's staff while he had the ready opportunity to do so.

But the AVMA Doesn't See All this Head-Spinning Conflict of Interest As A Problem. At All.

It’s a "Conflict of Interest" (COI) map that SHOULD make any U.S. or UK regulator’s head spin. In the U.S., under CHEA (Council for Higher Education Accreditation) and U.S. Department of Education standards, "institutional integrity" requires a clear separation between the regulator and the regulated.

The American Veterinary Medical Association’s Standard 1 (Organisation) is being utterly mocked by this structure . . . that is, the one the author of the AVMA's response to my concerns said weren’t concerns for her. Read on.

Meantime, the VCNZ's CEO and Registrar is Iain McLachlan, a practising lawyer registered with the New Zealand Law Society.

McLachlan is currently under formal investigation by the Law Society - initiated by a complaint I lodged - for his conduct in relation to the Harry Kelly matter, including the VCNZ's non-facilitation of my complaint and the non-disclosure of its multiple conflicts of interest with Massey (including allowing me to unknowingly cc Dr Seton Butler in on all my emails to him, McLachlan, while I was still sufficiently naïve as to believe the VCNZ would act as the industry regulator it is mandated to act as).
 
Moving to the complaints mechanism itself . . . which contains a structural trap:  Under New Zealand law, VCNZ complaints can only be lodged against individually named, registered veterinarians.

But Massey has redacted the names of the individuals involved in Harry's case from the records it has released. The VCNZ could, but will not, compel disclosure of those names.

You cannot lodge a complaint against someone whose name you are not permitted to know.
 
No names. No complaint. No accountability. By design.
 
Dean Huxley knew exactly what he was directing me towards when he told me to take my concerns to the VCNZ and nowhere else.
 
What Has Actually Happened . . . and What  Hasn't
   
Here is what has happened since I began documenting the atrocities surrounding the abuse and demise of my dog, Harry Kelly (and the stink-ridden, broad-scale, multiple-party cover-up thereof) at Massey University's Companion Animal Hospital on December 1, 2025:
 
New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries has formally tasked its Animal Welfare team with investigating conduct at Massey's veterinary hospital.

A police report has been filed under Sections 258 and 260 of the Crimes Act 1961 for the falsification of clinical records. Victim Support has been engaged.

The VCNZ's CEO is under Law Society investigation.

The veterinary regulatory bodies of Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China have been formally notified – by me.

The AVMA, RCVS, and AVBC have all received formal third-party disclosures – from me.
 
Here is what hasn't happened:
 
The AVMA responded to my detailed, documented, section-by-section disclosure with 93 dismissive little words, telling me that my citations "do not align" specifically with their Policies and Procedures Manual - a claim that the 4,000-word response I sent back has comprehensively dismantled (and the compilation of which required me to study the specific clauses and associated specific wording in the AVMA's 207-page Accreditation Policies and Procedures document. Dry stuff.)

That response (printed in the email exchange hereunder), and this article, are now part of the permanent public record.
 
Meantime, Down Under, the AVBC has not acknowledged any of the multiple disclosures I have sent over past weeks.

The RCVS has responded in an interim manner.
 
I am assuming that none of them have told Massey's Asian partner institutions, joint-venture partners, or graduate licensing jurisdictions that they have received documented evidence of clinical record falsification and a government-level animal welfare investigation at the institution they accredit.

It should be noted, that each of these three accrediting bodies has certainly known for many weeks about every component of this whole murky picture (because I've told them, in detail), except, possibly, for the impending Ministry of Primary Industries’ Animal Welfare Inspectorate’s investigation.  

Read It and Weep
 
What follows is the correspondence that has put all of them formally on notice.

From: editor@consumeraffairswriter.com <editor@consumeraffairswriter.com> 
Sent: Saturday, 7 March 2026 8:15 pm
To: 'Dr. Samantha Morello' <smorello@avma.org>; 'COE' <COE@avma.org>; 'generalcounsel@avma.org' <generalcounsel@avma.org>
Cc: 'admin@avbc.asn.au' <admin@avbc.asn.au>; 'aslppu@ed.gov' <aslppu@ed.gov>; 'oig.hotline@ed.gov' <oig.hotline@ed.gov>; 'president@chea.org' <president@chea.org>; 'ThirdPartyComments@ed.gov' <ThirdPartyComments@ed.gov>; 'oig.hotline@ed.gov' <oig.hotline@ed.gov>; 'ceo@avbc.asn.au' <ceo@avbc.asn.au>; 'aslrecordsmanager@ed.gov' <aslrecordsmanager@ed.gov>; 'Registrar' <Registrar@rcvs.org.uk>
Subject: RE: AVMA Response of 7 March 2026 (and the procedural failure it has now created)

Dear Dr Morello
 
I have read your below, March 7th, 93-word dismissal of my correspondence and my multiple items of cross-referenced and detailed evidence.

I have also read, in detail, the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Council on Education (COE) 207-page Accreditation Policies and Procedures manual, per your link and as you appeared to have required me to do (albeit you appear to have read nothing of my correspondence or referred evidence as sent to you).

You advised me that my disclosure "does not align specifically" with your Policies and Procedures, offering this 207-page document by way of explanation.

Those 207 pages represent a more instructive document than you may have intended. They are also a document which, with all due respect, you may wish to re-acquaint / acquaint yourself with at your earliest opportunity . . . because what I will take the time and care to lay out for you here is a precise accounting of where, in fact, we do align.

Ministry of Primary Industries’ Animal Welfare Team to Investigate Massey’s Veterinary Teaching ‘Hospital’ (aka Companion Animal ‘Hospital’)
   
Before I do so, however, I note for the formal record of every party copied on this correspondence that New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) has confirmed in writing that its Animal Welfare team has been formally tasked with investigating conduct at Massey University's Veterinary Teaching Hospital as a result of my documented evidence. That is, to be clear, the same documented evidence I have already presented to yourself, Dr Morello, as AVMA’s Associate Director, Education & Research.

I have been advised by the Animal Welfare team’s national leader to expect communication shortly from the assigned regional investigators.

The MPI's Animal Welfare Act mandate covers the very conduct I have documented: the administration of substances to animals in ways that cause unnecessary suffering, the practice of cruelty and endangerment (including intentional) of life (e.g. in order to conduct experiments and invasive practices upon a client’s overdosed and IV-disconnected pet) and, generally, the treatment of animals in a manner inconsistent with their welfare.

The fact that New Zealand's primary agricultural and animal welfare regulatory authority has independently determined that the conduct at Massey warrants formal investigation is not a peripheral detail. It is a statement-in-action, from a respected government ministry, that the threshold for institutional intervention has already been reached - by a body with no connection to, or interest in, my personal situation.
 
On What Your Own Accreditation Policies and Procedures Manual States - and Massey University’s Multiple Points of Contravention
   
Section 1.1 of your Policies and Procedures is unambiguous: accreditation "assures the public and licensing bodies that graduates of accredited programs meet a defined level of competency."

Section 1.2.2 states that the COE is "fully dedicated to protecting the rights of the students ... and assuring the public that accredited programs provide a quality education."
   
Your document also sets out the formal mandate of the AVMA COE. The COE is charged to "meet the needs of society by promoting active programs in veterinary medical education by, among other things, encouraging and assisting schools and colleges of veterinary medicine to meet the requirements for accreditation." Section 1.2.4 states that "it is vital that the accreditation process is conducted in a manner of utmost integrity."
 
I am the public.

This is what I have provided you with documented evidence of, at an institution whose graduates your organisation assures me are competent:

• The deliberate, repeated administration of a renally contraindicated sedative at 750% of the indicated therapeutic threshold (to him) to a 3.8kg, 15-year-old, renally compromised patient - as documented in detail here: CATASTROPHIC 750% OVERDOSING & DEATH . . . Gross Malpractice, Deception & Management Malfeasance at Massey - including two administrations within 26 minutes of each other, by which point the consequences of the first were already a clinical certainty, not an unknown risk. The third administration, at 09:00 hours the following morning - by the day-shift veterinarian who arrived to find this patient in the state the night shift had produced - requires no characterisation from me. The metadata speaks to the decision-making, and the metadata has already been provided to you: MASSEY VETS FALSIFY RECORDS: POLICE REPORT FILED – and to the New Zealand Police. (Crimes Act 1961 Section 258 - Altering document with intent to deceive) and Section 260 (Falsifying registers).

• The utilisation of this catastrophically over-sedated, IV-fluid-deprived patient as an institutional teaching specimen: a calculated act of property conversion under New Zealand common law (Bailment), and one that constitutes multiple instances of animal cruelty under Section 12 of the New Zealand Animal Welfare Act 1999 - which mandates that any person in charge of an animal must take reasonable steps to alleviate pain or distress. Instead, Massey ICU staff and students filmed this massively over-sedated patient on at least eight occasions, including on personal cell phones, subjecting him to forced physical manoeuvres, vice-like cephalic restraint, and dramatic and dangerous one-handed overhead suspension while in a state of pharmacological collapse - all while withholding the emergency corrective care his condition demanded, and while his life-essential IV fluids remained deliberately disconnected to facilitate that utilisation (and even stayed permanently disconnected thereafter). This is documented in detail, including (sanitised) photographic evidence from Massey's own records: (UPDATED) PROOF: Massey Vet, Teaching & ICU Staff INTENDED Harry to Die & Were Actively Facilitating It and The Cruel Way Massey's ‘Companion Animal Hospital’ Uses Your Pet As A Training Aid Behind Closed Doors e.g. Repeated Unrelated, Invasive 'Observational' Tests.

• The subsequent alteration of those clinical metadata records, for which a formal police report has now been filed under Section 258 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 (Altering a document with intent to deceive): MASSEY VETS FALSIFY RECORDS: POLICE REPORT FILED

• The presentation (and misrepresentation) to me, the owner, of my dog's catastrophically over-sedated condition as an overnight "neurological decline" - a fabricated diagnosis, the forensic dismantling of which is documented here: NOT ‘Euthanasia’: A Cover-Up & A Coerced Termination Under False Pretences - used to coerce my consent to his immediate “euthanasia” (which cannot be rightfully deemed “euthanasia” because it was a clinical life termination under false pretences), thereby destroying the primary body of evidence.

The totality of the above - the “pharmacological” decisions, the conversion of a client’s property and the associated multiple acts of severe animal cruelty, the record falsification, the false diagnosis, the coerced life termination - is not the result of a series of unfortunate errors. It is a documented sequence of decisions, each made with full knowledge of what had preceded it. I note that New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries has reached a sufficiently similar conclusion to have tasked its Animal Welfare team with a formal investigation.
 
I anticipate you may prepare to invoke the language in Section 1.7.3 i.e. that limits the COE's jurisdiction to matters that are "of a continuing or pervasive nature, as opposed to an unfair or arbitrary act of an individual or an act isolated in nature." I will hereby address that directly . . . and at some length, because the breadth of what your own document requires, and what Massey is currently failing to deliver, warrants it.
 
I am not alleging a single act by a single veterinarian. That goes well beyond any need for “allegation” and clearly applies to multiple thereof. I am alleging an institutional pattern: deliberate and repeated pharmacological decisions resulting in the clearly INTENDED death of a patient, followed by multiple acts of multiple student-involvement in direct contravention of animal welfare laws, by falsification of records as the institutional response, followed by the deployment of external legal counsel to suppress disclosure by the owner. This sequence did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred in an active teaching hospital, in front of students who are being trained in clinical practice. What is modelled in that environment is, by definition, what is being taught.

In this article specifically - CATASTROPHIC 750% OVERDOSING & DEATH . . . Gross Malpractice, Deception & Management Malfeasance at Massey - I document in detail, some of the many breaches of the Veterinary Council of New Zealand (VCNZ) Code of Professional Conduct that students not only had modelled for them, but were expected to participate in, as this intentionally lethally debilitated dog was utilised as a live training aid and ghoulishly filmed on cell phones. Please refer to the section of the article under this subheading, Personal & Professional Liability of Staff and Students, for the details.
 
The Standards Your Own Accreditation Policies and Procedures Manual Requires - and Massey's Performance Against Each
   
Standard 4: Clinical Resources
   
Your Standard 4 states that "medical records must be comprehensive and maintained in an effective retrieval system to efficiently support the teaching, research, and service programs of the college. Students must actively participate in the use of an electronic medical records system within a clinical setting during the care of patients."
 
At Massey's Veterinary Teaching Hospital, students are certainly “actively participating” in an electronic medical records system - but one in which the records have been subsequently altered to conceal the sequence of decisions that gave rise to a police complaint under Section 258 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961. The students are, therefore, being educated in record management that has been formally identified as potentially criminal: MASSEY VETS FALSIFY RECORDS: POLICE REPORT FILED

I would further note that Standard 4 requires client-owned animals to be receiving "veterinary medical care" – which is indeed what their owners are paying richly for. The evidence I have published documents that the patient admitted for rehydration was instead subjected to at least eight video recordings, repeated invasive procedures unrelated to his admission diagnosis, and the deliberate withholding of his life-essential IV fluids to facilitate his use as a teaching specimen: The Cruel Way Massey's ‘Companion Animal Hospital’ Uses Your Pet As A Training Aid Behind Closed Doors e.g. repeated, unrelated, invasive and objectively severely cruel “observational” tests . That is not "veterinary medical care". It is the conversion of a paying client's animal into institutional property - a matter that is also the subject of formal complaints under New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020, for which 75% of the predatory and opportunistic video footage taken of this patient remains withheld: UPDATED 20.2.26: WAITING, MASSEY . . . What's Hiding In the 75 Percent of Video Footage You Refuse to Release?  (Note: This article is about to be updated with the addition of further breaches.)
 
Standard 6: Students
 
Your Standard 6 states that "the program must be able to demonstrate, using its outcomes assessment data, that the resources are sufficient to achieve the stated educational goals for all veterinary students engaged in its programs."
 
The outcome data I have provided is itself outcomes assessment data. It demonstrates that the resources at Massey's Veterinary Teaching Hospital are not producing the educational goals your Standards require.

They are producing their inverse.

I would be interested to understand whether this data has been incorporated into Massey's outcomes assessment reporting to you, or whether it has been omitted. Given that I have documented evidence of record alteration, and given that New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries has independently determined that the conduct at Massey warrants formal animal welfare investigation, the latter would not surprise me. It would, however, constitute precisely the category of conduct covered by Section 2.5.2 of your own Policies and Procedures i.e. that states accreditation may be withdrawn if “provides incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information to the Council.”
   
Standard 8: Faculty
   
Your Standard 8 states that "instruction in the pre-clinical and clinical setting must be delivered by faculty who have education, training, expertise, professional development, or a combination thereof, appropriate for the subject matter."
 
I have published a detailed analysis - drawing on expert contributed commentary - of the decisions made by Massey's ICU veterinarian, the attending “neurologist”, and the Dean of the Veterinary School, Jon Huxley: ICU Vet, Massey Neurologist & Dean of School: Dangerously Deficient or Just Plain Dangerous? 

The question raised by that analysis - and which I now formally put to you - is whether faculty whose decisions result in the repeated 750% pharmacological over-sedation of a patient, and whose institutional response to the subsequent disclosure is legal intimidation rather than clinical review, meet your Standard 8 requirement of "education, training, expertise ... appropriate for the subject matter."

For your information, the nature of that legal intimidation is documented here: Massey Sends In the Legal Big Guns to Silence Me 

Your document further states that "the dean and other administrative officers should be knowledgeable in the definitions of the various levels of accreditation status and the impact of the failure to meet one or more of the Standards." The written communications from Dean Huxley's office that I have published suggest that this threshold is also not being met - a matter of some relevance given that it is Dean Huxley who is responsible for the institution's compliance with the Standards you are declining to investigate.
 
Standard 9: Curriculum
   
Your Standard 9 requires the curriculum to provide students with "opportunities to learn how to acquire information from clients (e.g. history) and about patients (e.g. medical records), to obtain, store and retrieve such information, and to communicate effectively with clients and colleagues." It further requires "opportunities throughout the curriculum for students to gain an understanding of professional ethical, legal, economic, and regulatory principles related to the delivery of veterinary medical services."
 
What Massey students are currently being shown, with regard to client communication, is this: 

Massively and repeatedly (including 26 minutes apart) overdose a paying client’s pet for the express convenience of ICU night staff (Massey Vet Teaching Hospital ICU: Where Empathy Goes to Die), double down on it yet again the next morning for the purpose of converting the client’s pet for the utilisation of Massey for “teaching” videos by students, tell the owner their animal has suffered a sudden neurological decline. Do not disclose the fact of the sedation. Do not disclose that IV fluids were disconnected. Do not offer a second opinion or any alternative to immediate euthanasia - the denial of which is itself a breach of international best practice standards, as documented here: The Criticality of ALWAYS Obtaining A Second (& Third) Opinion Before Agreeing to 'Euthanase' Your Pet. Present the animal for immediate lethal injection on the basis of that false account: NOT ‘Euthanasia’: A Cover-Up & A Coerced Termination Under False Pretences.

This is the "communication with clients" and "professional ethical and legal principles" being modelled in Massey's veterinary “teaching” hospital. I invite you to assess its alignment with you Standard 9 - and I note again that New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries, in formally tasking its Animal Welfare team with investigating this conduct, has obviously reached its own assessment.

Standard 11: Outcomes Assessment
 
Your Standard 11 requires that graduates demonstrate competency in record management (Competency 1), anaesthesia and pain management and patient welfare (Competency 3), emergency and intensive care case management (Competency 6), and ethical and professional conduct (Competency 8).

(To elaborate on Competency 8 - ethical and professional conduct, including the knowledge, skills, and core professional attributes needed to provide culturally competent veterinary care in a multidimensional society; communication skills; including those that demonstrate an understanding and sensitivity to how each individual’s circumstances impact veterinary care  – it should be noted that the pet’s owner had multiple times expressed to the “veterinarian” that she (the owner) was acutely sleep-deprived and not in a position to make a decision of such irreversible gravity on the day; the fact of the sleep deprived state even being documented by the preceding veterinarian in the patient’s intake notes).

The full catalogue of breaches across each of these competencies - including the multiple breaches of New Zealand's own Veterinary Code of Professional Conduct - is documented here: Massey’s Companion Animal Hospital Commits Multiple Breaches of New Zealand's Veterinary Code (And More)

At Massey's Veterinary Teaching Hospital, each of these competencies is currently being modelled in direct violation of what your Standard requires. These are not isolated acts. These acts, practices, policies and modus operandi are being modelled by senior veterinarians and teaching staff as part of the students’ curriculum, and are being overseen by the Practice Manager, the Dean of the Veterinary School, and the Dean of Veterinary Education.
   
Standard 1: Organisation
   
Your Standard 1 requires that the officers responsible for "the professional, ethical, and academic affairs of the veterinary medical teaching hospital" carry "overall budgetary and supervisory authority necessary to assure compliance with accreditation standards."

Massey University’s documented institutional response to these matters has been legal threats against the person who reported them. That is what "supervisory authority to assure compliance" looks like at this institution. I seek your comment on how that satisfies Standard 1 in your assessment.
 
Standard 1 also requires that "any secondary employment or activities must be approved and monitored by the parent institution and must not conflict with the CEO/dean's commitment to, or the interests of, the college." Your Appendix D - Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest - sets out in detail the conflict of interest obligations that apply to COE members and site visitors. I note that your document states "the Council must conform to the AVMA Conflict of Interest Policy at all times, not just during site visits," and that "no member of the COE who has an identified conflict of interest shall participate in any way in accrediting decisions."
 
I ask whether the AVMA holds its accredited institutions to equivalent conflict of interest standards - because the Veterinary Council of New Zealand (VCNZ), which is the domestic regulatory body charged with investigating complaints against Massey veterinary staff - has multiple cross-organisational relationships with Massey University at its most senior academic and advisory levels. I have documented these in detail here:(UPDATED) PROOF: Massey Vet, Teaching & ICU Staff INTENDED Harry to Die & Were Actively Facilitating It . . . & the VCNZ Has A MASSIVE Conflict of Interest. The short version is this: the body charged with independently regulating Massey is not, in any meaningful sense, independent of Massey. When a complaint is lodged with the regulator, the university and the regulator are, at senior levels, effectively the same institution in different hats – and at the same time. This is a structural failure of Standard 1's organisational integrity requirements - and it is directly relevant to your accreditation of this institution, since there is no functional complaints system either within Massey or outside of it as concerns the national industry’s regulator.
   
On the Procedural Failure Your Response Has Now Created
   
Section 1.7.3 of your own Policies and Procedures states:
 
"Any written complaint by a third party (individual such as faculty, staff, public, or organisation) relating to an accredited college of veterinary medicine will be received by staff, who will acknowledge receipt of the complaint within seven (7) working days. AVMA staff will make a preliminary investigation of the initial complaint and report to the COE Executive Committee within 30 days."*
 
My original correspondence was by a member of the public, alleging that an accredited college of veterinary medicine is not in compliance with the Standards of Accreditation. It met your definition precisely.
 
But your response did not acknowledge it as a formal complaint under Section 1.7.3. It did not initiate a preliminary investigation. It did not indicate referral to the COE Executive Committee. It referred me to a site visit in 2028 and a link to a 207-page document.
 
Section 1.7.3  does not provide for that substitution. The mandatory complaint procedure exists independently of any site visit schedule. The 30-day Executive Committee referral is not at your discretion. The word your document uses is "will".
 
I would also draw your attention to Section 2.3.2 of your Policies and Procedures, which provides for a focused site visit that "can be ... initiated by the COE based upon the contents of the college's annual interim report or third party (faculty, student, or public) comment, or other applicable information (as determined by the COE)."

My disclosure constitutes third-party public comment of precisely the type your Section 2.3.2 contemplates as grounds for a focused site visit. The 2028 comprehensive site visit is entirely beside the point.
 
I would further draw your attention to Section 2.5.2, which provides that accreditation may be administratively withdrawn where a college "makes misrepresentations or engages in misleading conduct in connection with consideration of the College's status by the Council, or in public statements concerning the College's approval status," or "provides incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information to the Council." The alteration of clinical metadata records - for which a police report has been filed - is precisely the category of conduct Section 2.5.2 describes.

Whether Massey has provided complete, accurate, and non-misleading information to you in its accreditation reporting is now a question I formally put on record.
 
Section 2.5.5 provides that the Council may reconsider and alter the classification of a college when "conditions affecting compliance with one or more Standards have deteriorated sufficiently so that the college fails to meet one or more of the Standard requirements."

I have provided evidence that conditions at Massey's Veterinary Teaching Hospital meet that threshold across multiple Standards simultaneously. New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries has obviously reached sufficient independent agreement with that assessment to have formally tasked its Animal Welfare team with an investigation.
 
Section 2.5.8 states that the COE "monitors programs throughout the accreditation cycle via annual reports, third party comment, and site visits" and "will respond to any program not meeting the Standards." I have provided third-party comment. I am waiting for the response your own document mandates.
 
Finally, Section 3.2.6 provides that "a college that has one or more major deficiencies in one or more Standards will be placed on Probationary Accreditation. Major deficiencies have more than minimal impact on student learning or safety."

Deliberate and repeated, lethal levels of pharmacological over-sedation of a patient, followed by falsification of clinical records, followed by institutional suppression of the disclosure - across Standards 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 11 simultaneously - constitute major deficiencies with more than minimal impact on both student learning and patient safety. That is the Probationary Accreditation threshold, stated in your own document. It is also, as I have noted, the threshold that New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries has independently determined warrants formal regulatory investigation under its Animal Welfare Act mandate.
 
On Your U.S. Federal Mandate
   
This entire situation is now compounded by your obligations under your own country’s Federal law.

As a Federally-recognised accreditor, the AVMA COE operates under 34 CFR § 602.19, which requires that an accrediting agency demonstrate it "has, and effectively applies, monitoring and evaluation approaches that enable the agency to identify problems with an institution's or program's continued compliance with agency standards."

And under 34 CFR § 602.23(c)(1), the agency must "review in a timely, fair, and equitable manner any complaint it receives against an accredited institution or program that is related to the agency's standards or procedures."
 
Referring a complaint about active criminal record falsification to a 2028 calendar entry satisfies neither of those requirements. I am ensuring that the U.S. Department of Education Accreditation Group and the Office of Inspector General, both of whom are copied on this correspondence, have a formal record of that fact.
 
I also note that accreditation under the AVMA COE is a condition of Massey University students' eligibility for U.S. Health Profession Student Loans, as your Section 1.1 confirms. Any institution that maintains accredited status while its clinical staff falsify records and its administration deploys legal counsel to suppress that fact is one whose accreditation is being used to facilitate access to US federal funds on a fraudulent basis. That is a matter for the Office of Inspector General, and I have ensured they are aware of it.
 
What I Require
 
I am formally restating this as a complaint under Section 1.7.3, and I require written confirmation of the following:
 
1. That this complaint has been formally logged under Section 1.7.3;
2. That a preliminary investigation will be conducted and reported to the COE Executive Committee within 30 days of this communication;
3. That I will be informed of the status of the complaint, as your own procedures require, and
4. That the COE will advise whether it intends to initiate a focused site visit under Section 2.3.2, given that this disclosure constitutes precisely the category of third-party public comment your document identifies as grounds for one.
 
This correspondence, and your response or lack thereof, will be published on the website of the International Institute for Improvement in Veterinary Ethics (IIIVE) as a case study in the conduct of international accreditation bodies when presented with documented evidence of institutional misconduct.
 
Yours sincerely
Jordan Kelly
Editor & Reviewer-in-Chief, The Customer & The Constituent NZ
New Zealand

From: Dr. Samantha Morello <smorello@avma.org> 
Sent: Saturday, 7 March 2026 4:17 am
To: editor@consumeraffairswriter.com; COE <COE@avma.org>; generalcounsel@avma.org
Cc: admin@avbc.asn.au
Subject: RE: External: FORMAL DISCLOSURE: Breach of Accreditation Standards 1 & 11 - Massey University (NZ)

Dear Jordan,

This is to confirm receipt of your email and to inform you that there is no upcoming scheduled site visit for Massey University. Massey University is not scheduled to receive a site visit from the AVMA Council on Education until 2028. Information about future site visit dates for all accredited veterinary schools is available publicly from our website:

https://www.avma.org/education/center-for-veterinary-accreditation/accredited-veterinary-colleges

Additionally, the items cited in your email do not align specifically with the AVMA Council on Education’s Policies and Procedures, including referenced aspects of Standards of Accreditation. The Councils policies and procedures are available here:

https://www.avma.org/education/center-for-veterinary-accreditation/accreditation-policies-and-procedures-avma-council-education-coe

Thank you,

Samantha L. Morello, DVM, DACVS-LA

Associate Director, Education & Research 
    American Veterinary Medical Association

From: editor@consumeraffairswriter.com <editor@consumeraffairswriter.com> 
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2026 9:28 PM
To: Dr. Samantha Morello <smorello@avma.org>; Dr. Karen Brandt <KBrandt@avma.org>; COE <COE@avma.org>; generalcounsel@avma.org
Cc: admin@avbc.asn.au; aslppu@ed.gov
Subject: External: FORMAL DISCLOSURE: Breach of Accreditation Standards 1 & 11 - Massey University (NZ)

Dear Members of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Council on Education (COE):
 
I am formally submitting this as a Third-Party Comment to be included in the permanent accreditation file for Massey University’s upcoming site visit.

While I am the directly affected party in the abuse and death of my pet by Massey University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital (aka Companion Animal “Hospital”), I am submitting this disclosure as a Formal Third-Party Comment regarding Massey University’s systemic failure to meet the AVMA Council on Education (COE) Policies and Procedures’ Standards of Accreditation: You are now on notice of institutional record falsification and also of the other associated matters outlined in my coverage of the matter - representing multiple material breaches of your clinical and ethical, and also of your governance, standards.

Standard 1: Organisation - Paragraph 1.1 (Organisation) The University must ensure the "integrity of the program". Falsified records represent a total failure of organisational integrity.

Standard 11: Outcomes - Paragraph 11.3.1 (Clinical Competency) Graduates must demonstrate clinical competency. A 750% overdose (let alone repeated overdoses thereof) as a "teaching standard" is a failure of educational outcomes.

Third-Party Comments - Section 14.6 (Third-Party Comments) That is, the specific rule that requires the AVMA’s COE to solicit and review comments from "interested stakeholders" regarding a school's compliance.

I have provided highly detailed, supported-by-documentation evidence of systemic record falsification (Breach of Standard 1: Organisation) and lethal teaching standards involving 750% overdosings (Breach of Standard 11: Outcomes Assessment).

If the COE chooses to re-accredit Massey without investigating these specific, documented breaches, it does so with full knowledge of the data provided here:  THE KILLING OF HARRY KELLY

A Case Study In A Lethal Dose of Malpractice & Malfeasance By Massey University’s Companion Animal 'Hospital' (and that I have already provided to you, it should be further noted).

I am thus providing this Final Notice to ensure it is a matter of statutory record that the American Veterinary Medical Association has been provided with detailed evidence of clinical record falsification and systemic malpractice at Massey University. Again, I am formally submitting this as a Third-Party Comment to be included in Massey’s upcoming accreditation site visit file.

This notification, and your response (or lack thereof) will be published and appear permanently on the currently-in-progress website of the new international pet owner advocacy organisation, the International Institute for Improvement in Veterinary Ethics (IIIVE). (Please note: this website is not yet complete; the formal launch of IIIVE is scheduled for June this year.)

The purpose of the publication of this notice to the AVMA will be to assist the legal counsel representing any pet owners whose animals have been harmed by Massey University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital (aka Companion Animal Hospital) OR ANY OF ITS GRADUATES IN ANY JURISDICTION, by providing proof that both Massey and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) – as the accrediting body of that institution and its veterinary facility – were fully informed of these breaches of your Accreditation Standards.

It is my understanding that, upon your next on-site audit (which, actually and ethically, should now be immediately, following these disclosures to you), your auditing-and-accreditation team must refer to the information I am hereby (and that I have already) provided.

Further, it is my understanding that if the individuals on that audit team do not do so and do not act appropriately in accordance with their associated findings, that these individuals become personally and professionally liable for any future deaths or significant harms caused by Massey graduates.

Given the gravely serious nature of what is clearly evidenced in the coverage and materials I have sent you, and the clear breach of accreditation standards, should you choose to continue to remain silent with regard to your own legal and moral obligations as a recognised accrediting agency, then your right to accredit the school is hereby contested.

It is my understanding that the AVMA is recognised by the U.S. Department of Education and has a legal, statutory duty to ensure the schools you accredit are not engaging in fraudulent activity. Yet, I have provided you with evidence that one of them is i.e. Massey University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital and School. Your ignoring evidence of the fact of these falsified records at Massey is, arguably, already violating your own mandate from the U.S. Government. By cc'ing the U.S. Department of Education (Accreditation Group) on this disclosure, I am ensuring there is a formal record of your notification. Any failure by the COE to investigate these documented breaches of Standard 1 (Organisation) and Standard 11 (Outcomes) will be reported as a failure of the AVMA’s own mandate as a recognised accrediting agency.

Also to be clear, this email and your response (or lack thereof) will be published – and it will also be included in our broader (general and specialist veterinary, pet, and animal-related) media distributions regarding this matter.

Meantime, the articles I have already supplied you with access to include, but are not limited to (and I hereby include a section of them yet again):

For your urgent information, the fully indexed coverage is here: 

The Customer & The Constituent    OR  
THE KILLING OF HARRY KELLY: A Case Study In A Lethal Dose of Malpractice & Malfeasance By Massey University’s Companion Animal 'Hospital':

• MASSEY VETS FALSIFY RECORDS: POLICE REPORT FILED:     https://www.thecustomer.co.nz/massey-vets-falsify-records-police-report-filed
• CATASTROPHIC 750% OVERDOSE & DEATH . . . Gross Malpractice, Deception & Management Malfeasance at Massey
• PROOF: Massey Vet, Teaching & ICU Staff INTENDED Harry to Die & Were Actively Facilitating It . . . & the VCNZ Has A MASSIVE Conflict of Interest
• NOT ‘Euthanasia’: A Cover-Up & A Coerced Termination Under False Pretences
• UP NEXT: How Massey 'Training' Produces the Low Vet Care Standards & Outright Contempt NZ Pet Owners Have to Tolerate
• ICU Vet, Massey Neurologist & Dean of School: Dangerously Deficient or Just Plain Dangerous?
• Catching Massey In A Lethal Lie: Forensic Study of Invoice
• The Gabapentin Gamble That Didn't Pay Off & the Cover-Up That Necessitated Death
• The OPC Complaint the 'Head of Veterinary School' Doesn't Want Me to Make: Why Massey Is Terrified of Full Disclosure 
• Is Massey's Companion Animal ‘Hospital’ Running Potentially Lethal Experiments on People's Pets In ICU?
• Massey’s Companion Animal Hospital Commits Multiple Breaches of New Zealand's Veterinary Code (And More)
• The Cruel Way Massey's ‘Companion Animal Hospital’ Uses Your Pet As A Training Aid Behind Closed Doors e.g. Repeated Unrelated, Invasive 'Observational' Tests
• Massey Vet Teaching Hospital ICU: Where Empathy Goes to Die
• Massey Sends In the Legal Big Guns to Silence Me: Guess What? You Silenced Harry But You Won't Silence Me
• With A Fearless Pet Welfare Advocate for An Owner, Was Harry A Marked Dog? 
• Are These Harry’s Ashes? Or Aren’t They? 

Jordan Kelly

Editor & Reviewer-in-Chief

The Customer & The Constituent

New Zealand