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1. ISU researchers discover mystery virus that causes tremors in piglets
Source: Iowa State University
National Hog Farmer
November 3, 2015
A team of veterinary researchers at Iowa State University has pinpointed a virus that has caused mysterious tremors in piglets dating back decades.
The virus, which comes from a family known as 'pestiviruses,' infects young pigs and can cause them to shake involuntarily. Afflicted piglets are sometimes referred to as "shaker pigs" or "dancing pigs," and, in severe cases, the tremors prevent pigs from nursing and can lead to starvation.
Veterinarians have recognized the congenital tremors for years but could never pinpoint the cause until now, said Bailey Arruda, an assistant professor and veterinary pathologist in the ISU Department of Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine.
"It's been a mystery in the veterinary community for over 90 years," Arruda said. "Unfortunately, we didn't have the technology to find the virus before."
The team of researchers, in collaboration with Missouri-based animal health company Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, utilized next-generation DNA sequencing techniques to detect the virus in samples from affected pigs. The team then used those results to experimentally reproduce the tremors in newborn pigs.
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2. Vesicular Stomatitis Still Present in Utah Livestock
By Edited Press Release
TheHorse.com
November 3, 2015
Utah State Veterinarian Barry Pittman, DVM, MPH, Dipl. ACVPM, is advising Utah livestock owners that the presence of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) continues in Duchesne, Uintah, and Utah counties.
The affected premises are in various stages of quarantine. Livestock owners are encouraged to take appropriate measures to protect their animals.
Tests conducted by the USDA Plum Island Animal Disease Center's Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, in New York, confirmed the first Utah case in early August. Since then other animals at different locations have tested positive for VSV.
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3. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Rules Expand [PA]
Posted by Justin Stakes
AmmoLand.com
November 3, 2015
Harrisburg, PA - Pennsylvanians who hunt deer, elk or other cervids out-of-state might be affected by newly updated rules that prohibit the importation of specific high-risk cervid parts into Pennsylvania from states and provinces where chronic wasting disease has been detected.
Ohio has been added to the list of states from which high-risk cervid parts - including the head and backbone - cannot be imported into Pennsylvania. The addition is in response to chronic wasting disease (CWD) being detected in Ohio for the first time in 2014. Additionally, the import of high-risk cervid parts into Pennsylvania from the entire states of Maryland, New York, Virginia and West Virginia is now prohibited.
Previously, the prohibition applied only to portions of those states in which CWD had been identified in captive or wild cervids.
Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director R. Matthew Hough said the updated rules better protect Pennsylvania from high-risk parts that might come from out-of-state harvests.
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4. Governor's Brucellosis Coordination Team Meeting in Lander Nov. 20 [WY]
Univ. of Wyoming News
November 3, 2015
Brucellosis updates and surveillance and action plan results are among topics at the Governor's Brucellosis Coordination Team meeting Friday, Nov. 20, from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at The Inn at Lander, 250 Grandview Drive in Lander.
Agenda items are:
-- Updates from the state veterinarians of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
-- Wyoming Game and Fish Department on its surveillance plans and results for 2015-16, and updates on brucellosis management action plans for elk herd units in the region.
-- A Utah State University researcher will discuss wolf-elk interaction in the Northern Yellowstone region.
-- University of Wyoming researchers will provide the latest information on their work.
-- A brief report on the National Academy of Sciences' study of brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
For more information, contact Bruce Hoar, brucellosis coordinator in the UW College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, at (307) 766-3372 or bhoar@uwyo.edu.
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5. How to Stop Cow Burps From Warming Earth
By AFP
Discovery News
November 3, 2015
At her farm nestled in the green hills of northwestern France, Marie-Francoise Brizard is helping to curb a planet-wide menace: farting and belching cows implicated in global warming.
So far this year, Brizard says she has cut methane emissions from her herd of 40 Normandy cows that are equivalent to 32 tons of climate-changing carbon dioxide.
That is equal to the carbon pollution spewed out in a 292,000-mile car journey, according to a computer tracker provided to Brizard by a French initiative that promotes lower methane output from farms.
10 Nasty Surprises from Climate Change
She does it by feeding the cattle more grass but less maize and soy, cutting down on the cattle's output of methane, which comes mostly from belching but also from flatulence.
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6. Nation 'dangerously vulnerable' to bioterror, lawmakers warned
By Julian Hattem
TheHill.com
November 3, 2015
House lawmakers on Tuesday heard new warnings about the nation's ability to protect against terrorists wielding biological weapons and outbreaks of deadly diseases, which critics describe as a national blind spot.
Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and ex-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge appeared in the House to present the results of a new 100-page report* claiming the country is "dangerously vulnerable" to an epidemic.
[ *See: http://tinyurl.com/qe5r6wr ]
"[As] I look back, it surprised me that we haven't, thank God, experienced a bioterrorist attack in this country of any significance since the outbreak of the war against Islamic extremism," said Lieberman.
A weaponized version of a killer virus is "relatively easier to put together" than other weapons of mass destruction, he added.
"This is not a threat that we're creating - this is real," he warned. "We better get ahead of it before it gets ahead of us and we're running to catch up.
"We're not ready for the threat now."
Lieberman and Ridge released their report along with other members of the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, which was set up late last year to assess the government's actions on epidemics and bioterrorism in the years since Sept. 11, 2001.
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7. Notice of Determination; Changes to the National Poultry Improvement Plan Program Standards
Federal Register Volume 80, Number 212 (Tuesday, November 3, 2015)
Notices
Pages 67699-67700
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-27959]
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Docket No. APHIS-2014-0100
Notice of Determination; Changes to the National Poultry Improvement Plan Program Standards
AGENCY: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice.
SUMMARY: We are updating the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) Program Standards document. In a previous notice, we made available to the public for review and comment revisions to the NPIP Program Standards document describing changes to blood testing procedures for mycoplasma, bacteriological examination procedure changes for Salmonella, and the addition of new approved diagnostic test kits.
DATES: Effective January 4, 2016.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Denise Brinson, DVM, Director,
National Poultry Improvement Plan, VS, APHIS, USDA, 1506 Klondike Road,
Suite 101, Conyers, GA 30094-5104; (770) 922-3496.
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