Vet challenges "anyone anywhere to make argument that we can erradicate any disease without traceablity"

Rod Smith
Feedstuffs
March 31, 2010

Disease like bovine brucellosis and tuberculosis, foreign animal diseases and emerging diseases "cannot be eradicated without adequate traceability, and I would challenge anyone anywhere to convince me that we can eradicate any disease without traceability," Dr. Richard Breitmeyer emphatically said.

In opening an animal identification panel at the annual meeting of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) in Kansas City, Mo., this month, he illustrated his point by showing how 5,208 heifers in a Texas
dairy herd exposed to tuberculosis traveled from Texas to more than 22 states.

Brietmeyer, California state veterinarian and president of the U.S. Animal Health Assn., said radio frequency identification is an important means of traceability, providing accuracy, speed and personal safety with little labor. This is "a huge issue," he said.

He said another issue is marketability, explaining that the Food Safety & Inspection Service is now enforcing residue hazard analysis and critical control points and penalizing plants for violations, which means
plants must respond to reduce residue. If animals are not traceable, plants may not procure them, and "producers will lose market access," he said.

Brietmeyer said the U.S. Department of Agriculture's disease traceability concept must identify and prioritize traceability needs for response to and control of disease, identify traceability tools that are effective for this, identify gaps in needs and tools, fill the gaps and provide appropriate justification.

Full text: http://tinyurl.com/y895lp2