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1. Reminder for AMR Stakeholder Pre-Webinar Input
NIFA Update
June 29,2016
USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and Office of the Chief Scientist will hold a webinar to collect and discuss stakeholder input on science priorities for Antimicrobial Resistance in Animal Health.
By July 5, please email animal.health@nifa.usda.gov (with AMR in the subject line) your perspective on the top five AMR-related animal health issues to focus the webinar's conversation as we talk in greater depth about priorities, gaps, and opportunities. Only the message's first 500 characters will be reviewed prior to the webinar, but additional information beyond 500 characters will be accepted and taken into consideration when developing the final report. Also, please indicate if your submitted information reflects your individual perspectives or those of a group or organization.
Register as soon as possible for the webinar, which is scheduled for July 19 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET. Registration is limited.
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2. USDA Launches a One Stop Shop for its "One Health" Approach to Zoonotic Threats
Posted by Dr. Steven Kappes, Co-Chair, USDA Agricultural Research Service; Dr. David Goldman, Co-Chair, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service and Dr. Brian McCluskey, Co-Chair, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service - USDA One Health Joint Working Group
USDA Blog and Press Release
June 29, 2016
At USDA, we use a One Health approach that embraces the idea that problems arising at the intersection of the health of humans, animals, and the environment can be solved only through a coordinated multidisciplinary approach. This approach embraces the idea that a disease problem impacting the health of humans, animals, and the environment only can be solved through improved communication, cooperation, and collaboration across disciplines and institutions.
Because the One Health work that we do spans across many USDA agencies, we are launching a centralized web portal page to better help our stakeholders and the public better access our information. This page features USDA's collective body of work on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), avian influenza and swine influenza as well as other One Health resources.
Using this collaborative approach, USDA, with its partners, seeks to maintain or reduce health risks to animals, humans, the environment and society. USDA has gained in-depth knowledge about, for example, zoonotic diseases (diseases that can move from animals to people or people to animals) and conditions such as AMR through its work on the agricultural production environment, animal health and food safety. Pathogens (disease causing organisms) can evolve and move from one organism to another and through the environment. Sometimes they mutate or evolve into more virulent strains, and sometimes they evolve to resist countermeasures such as the application of antibiotics. Investment in understanding the ecology of pathogens is necessary to develop strategies to address them.
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3. BLM Initiates Wild Horse Research in Oregon
By Edited Press Release
TheHorse.com
June 29, 2016
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Oregon's Burns District announced its decision June 28 to initiate research, in cooperation with Oregon State University, to develop and evaluate safe and humane methods to spay wild horse mares as a method for managing the growth of wild horse herds on public lands.
The decision comes on the heels of the BLM's latest annual population estimate that shows approximately 67,000 wild horses and burros roaming public lands in 10 Western states. This most recent estimate is 15%-equivalent to 9,000 additional animals-more than what was estimated in 2015. The BLM said the wild horse and burro population on public lands is now more than double what the agency has determined is healthy for the animals and the rangeland resources on which they and many other species depend. The BLM said its goal is to manage healthy horses on healthy rangelands.
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4. It's not just a grunt: Pigs really do have something to say
Source: University of Lincoln [UK]
ScienceDaily.com
June 29, 2016
Summary:
The grunts made by pigs vary depending on the pig's personality and can convey important information about the welfare of this highly social species, new research has found. The study indicated that pigs with more proactive personality types produced grunts at a higher rate than the more reactive animals.
Scientists specialising in animal behaviour and welfare devised an experiment to investigate the relationship between personality and the rate of grunting in pigs. They also examined the effect different quality living conditions had on these vocalisations.
Findings from the study, carried out by researchers from the University of Lincoln, UK, and Queens University Belfast, are published in the Royal Society journal Open Science.
The study involved 72 male and female juvenile pigs. Half were housed in spacious 'enriched' pens with straw bedding, while the other half were kept in more compact 'barren' pens with partially slatted concrete floors, which adhered to UK welfare requirements.
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5. AVMA launches database of clinical studies
Website will help researchers, animals, animal owners, practitioners
By Katie Burns
JAVMA News
Posted June 29, 2016
The AVMA launched the AVMA Animal Health Studies Database in June as a resource for researchers seeking animals to participate in clinical studies and for veterinarians and animal owners exploring options for treatment.
Until now, there really haven't been any national databases for veterinary studies, other than the Veterinary Cancer Trials website focusing on cancer in cats and dogs, said Dr. Ed Murphey, an assistant director in the AVMA Education and Research Division. The new AVMA website encompasses all field of veterinary medicine and all species of animals and will extend beyond the United States to Canada and the United Kingdom.
"There are a lot of AVMA members that are involved in the conduct of clinical studies, and so, having the database helps them enroll animals into their studies," Dr. Murphey said. "And there's a direct benefit to practitioners who are looking for all avenues to help some of their owners and patients."
He continued, "Then there is an indirect benefit, too, and that's the advancement of evidence for the practice of veterinary medicine. Clinical studies, in particular clinical trials, are really the most informative and most scientifically accepted evidence for whether things work or don't work in clinical practice."
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6. NIH awards $11 million to UTHealth researchers to study deadly prion diseases
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
EurekAlert
June 29, 2016
HOUSTON - Led by Claudio Soto, Ph.D., researchers from McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have been awarded $11 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the pathogenesis, transmission and detection of prion diseases - such as chronic wasting disease in deer - that can potentially spread to humans.
Prions are the protein-based infectious agents responsible for a group of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which includes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in cattle, scrapie in sheep, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, elk and moose. All are fatal brain diseases with incubation periods that last years or even decades.
"Prion diseases are rare but because of their incurability, lethality and potential to spread from animals to humans, we need to better understand them from how they replicate to the development of efficient detection methods," said Soto, principal investigator and director of The George and Cynthia Mitchell Center for Research in Alzheimer's disease and Related Brain Disorders.
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7. Accreditation status remains uncertain for Arizona
New target date for opening is fall 2017
By Malinda Larkin
JAVMA News
Posted June 29, 2016
The University of Arizona Marley Foundation Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program announced May 31 that it would postpone its plans to open its doors until fall 2017. The move comes as the AVMA Council on Education, the accreditor of veterinary colleges, reviews the report from a COE site team that visited Arizona. The university's proposed School of Veterinary Medicine cannot admit students without a letter of reasonable assurance of accreditation.
This is the second time the program has delayed its anticipated timeline since its creation in 2012. At that time, the institution anticipated opening in fall 2015. The first setbacks came when the Arizona state legislature twice denied funding for the program after requests by the university's board of regents in 2012 and 2013. Regardless, UA started the process to seek COE accreditation when the School of Veterinary Medicine conducted a feasibility study in 2013 and asked that year for a consultative site visit from the COE; the visit took place Jan. 13-15, 2014. Arizona then filed a letter of application with the COE in 2014, seeking a letter of reasonable assurance of accreditation. Also that year, the Kemper and Ethel Marley Foundation stepped in with a $9 million gift to get the program off the ground, creating the Marley Foundation Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program. In 2015, with the COE's schedule for site visits already at capacity, the veterinary school delayed its projected opening until fall 2016.
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