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Cattle Health Committee Report
April 5, 2005

The Cattle Health Committee met on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 from 8:00 AM to Noon CST, during the NIAA 2005 Annual Meeting in St. Paul Minnesota, with 62 people present.  Dr. Karen Jordan served as the Chair.

The committee session focused on Monitoring and Surveillance and Security: Advancing a World Class System.  The following speakers presented relevant information pertaining to Monitoring and Surveillance.

Dr. Valerie Ragan, The role of Animal ID and Animal Movement Data in a successful monitoring and Surveillance program: ID allows us to get to the right animal quickly and efficiently.

Dr. Mike Gilsdorf, The new/revised National Veterinary Accreditation Program: The new program will train veterinarians in small animal(Category I) only or small and large animal(Category II ) accreditation.  Renewal will occur every 3 years, a database is established to keep tract of the currently accredited veterinarians.  Accredited veterinarians can link into a system to record animal movements.

Carol Tuszynski of the Center for Emergining Issues:  Emerging Animal Health Issues and Emerging Market Conditions for Animal Health Products: The role of the Center is to continuously examine the external  environment  and anticipate the impact.  Currently the Center focuses on tracking health events, watching the trend of health events and trying to predict and forecast health events. 

Dr. Valerie Ragan, National Center for Animal Health Surveillance – The National Surveillance Unit: Focus on trying to disseminate health information on a timely basis to decision makers.   For cattle disease surveillance opportunities for surveillance occur at slaughter, markets and on-farm.  For wildlife, disease surveillance can occur at hunter-kill, rehab centers, and zoos.  Surveillance is everybody’s job.

Dr. Mike Gilsdorf : Update on the National BSE Surveillance:  Lessons learned that would contribute to the success of another intensive surveillance program.

Dr. Mike Gilsdorf:  Update on Program Diseases: TB, Brucellosis, Johne’s

Karen Jordan, DVM :  Update on BVD Working Group: There will be a BVD Symposium in Denver, Jan 31, Feb 1, of 2006 at the NCBA meeting. Purpose of symposium is to Exchange information that will contribute to the successful control and eventual eradication of BVD from US cattle. The goal of the BVD Working group is to educate and insure successful implementation of voluntary BVD Control in the cattle industry.

Old Business: None

New Business:

• 4 Resolutions amended, 7 Reaffirmed, and 1 position statement written.

• Resolution number 12 reaffirmed support.

General discussion:  Each speaker had several questions asked concerning the topic that they presented.  During the business session , discussion was mainly concerning resolutions and rewriting of some of the position statements.

Committee Session adjourned at 12:00 noon.

Resolutions  action plan:

# 34 letter to USDA APHIS

#35  letter to USDA APHIS

#39 letter to APHIS

#40 letter to USDA APHIS

#41 letter to FDA and USDA APHIS

#42 letter to  FDA

#43 letter to USDA APHIS