STOP PRESS: The 2023 Buoy’s Law amendment has now passed in the NY State Assembly – but we still need you to contact your State Senator
Quick steps to contacting your State Senator
Help us ensure a smooth passage for critical updates to Buoy’s law
Buoy’s Law was passed during the 2022 legislative session, and requires veterinarians to provide information to clients about common adverse side-effects. NYSVMS had opposed the bill for many years but was eventually successful in negotiating a number of language changes to the law that removed aspects that would have been unnecessarily onerous to comply with. However once the bill was passed in 2022 we began to receive member feedback that showed that the language of the bill was not clear enough, and could be interpreted in ways that were problematic.
Write to your Senator TODAY
NYSVMS has worked with sponsors to introduce a bill to ammend Buoy’s law in both the NY State Senate and Assembly. On June 1st it passed in the Assembly. We are very optimistic that it will be passed in the Senate soon and urge members to send a message to their State Senator today. It will only take a few minutes – just follow the steps below.
What would happen without this new bill |
What will happen when this new bill is passed |
| You will need to inform the clients about known adverse side-effects every time you prescribe, dispense or provide a drug to any animal | You only need provide side-effect information when you first prescribe the drug for dogs, cats and rabbits. |
| The language could potentially be interpreted to apply to all medications used in-house including during emergency surgery | The language is clarified so that you only need provide side-effect information when you are sending medications home with the owner of dogs, cats or rabbits or prescribing. |
| The law would go into effect in a few weeks (June 2023) and there would be no regulations available to answer the many questions we have received about implementation | The law would go into effect in June 2024, giving plenty of time for draft regulations to be published, and an adequate period of public comment and review prior to publication |
Quick steps
Step 1 – 2 minutes
Find out the name and email address of your State Senator.
Once you find them you may have to click through to find their email address.
Senate https://www.nysenate.gov/find-my-senator
Step 2 – 2 minutes
Edit the template letter we have prepared. If you have a little more time you can add some personal comments.
Either:
a) Download the draft letter below
or
b) Use this form to generate a draft that will be emailed to you so you can send it on
Step 3 – 2 minutes
Email the letter to the contact emails you obtained in Step 1 for your Senator. Ideally both paste the text into the body of your email and attach your edited word document.
If you have an extra moment – let me know you sent them.
Thankyou for your help getting these revisions to Buoy’s law through the NY State legislature.
Tim Atkinson
Executive Director – on behalf of the Government Relations Committee
I appreciate the good intentions of this legislation, however in its current form it will cause undo confusion and increase the time burden on veterinarians without compensatory benefit to the client. The increased time will likely result increased cost to the owner without significant benefit. I would urge a pause in enacting the legislation for clarification so that we may serve the public with less confusion and without significant additional cost.
Thanks for spearheading this and making it easy Tim!
Thank you for facilitating this
Veterinarians will have no time to treat animals, instead all time will be spent doing paperwork. Government should not dictate how doctors/veterinarians should treat their patients.
Thank you to every one who worked on getting this amendment passed ot make this law a little more workable. Kudos!