Welcome to Animal Agriculture.org

BVD Working Group that is currently reviewing/developing vaccine guidelines for BVD. Group has already developed a “Thou Shalt… list specific for dairy and specific for beef. Contact person is Dale.M.Grotelueschen@pfizer.com

Dr. Sue Steman and Dr. Bill Shula are involved with a project looking at the decision making process that the ag producer goes through, in other words, how do farmers choose which programs/technologies they will adopt into their farming operations??

Dr. Steman is from New York but this project is being coordinated through the JDIP (center for excellence at the U. of Minnesota)

Johne’s Disease Program is in danger of a severe drop in funding. $18.8 million dollars funded in 2004, but House bill currently has funding at $7.1 million.

Tuberculosis in the dairy industry continues to raise its ugly head. There are problems with major packing plants not submitting any suspicious lesions which leads to questions of the surveillance program for TB. TB is also occurring in dairy heifer raising facilities.

I recently read a “draft document” presented by John Hoffman of DHS. (This document was still a work in progress but very interesting). This document was a matrix showing how all of “these activities” will be carried out in a manner to “establish national policy for critical infrastructure protection and designates the Secretary of the DHS as the principle Federal official to lead, integrate and coordinate implementation of efforts among Federal departments and agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector to protect critical infrastructure and key resources.” In this document there is discussion of a National Bio-Surveillance Integration System. My point in bringing this up is…. I think a seminar by John Hoffman and Dr. Tom McGinn of DHS on the workings of the DHS and the focus on agriculture would be a timely seminar. Possibly the focus of the seminar could be –where are the areas within the DHS that the private ag sector needs to step forward and take the lead in training or educating the ag community to accomplish the goal of protecting agriculture.

Update on BSE- by Dr. Ande Morgan –The National Incident Commander for BSE Surveillance

Plum Island Center Director-Dr. Beth Lautner - Update on new research, new products (antiviral, new vaccines) for FMD and update on Strategic Global Research on FMD.