AASV Board of Directors meets in Orlando

April 4, 2007 — 

The AASV Board of Directors held its 2007 spring meeting on Saturday March 3rd during the association's Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. The minutes of the meeting are now available in the Board of Directors section on the AASV website.

Butch Baker was introduced as the association's newly elected vice president. In addition, the results of 3 district elections were also announced. Tom Fangman, Kent Schwartz and Ron Brodersen will represent Districts 3, 6 and 8 respectively.

Tom Burkgren provided an overview of the annual meeting program. It was noted that the number of pre-registrations was excellent. There were 880 total pre-registrations of which 498 were paid registrations, 154 were technical table representatives, 114 were students, and 158 were speakers. There are attendees from 27 countries with 29.5% of the registrants from countries other than the United States.

The Board viewed a report from Derald Holtkamp (PRRS Risk Assessment coordinator) on the progress of the PRRS Risk Assessment Tool and Database. Seventy-one (71) AASV members have now been trained on use of the tool. Over 400 assessments have been completed and uploaded as of February 2007. There are 4 proposed or ongoing research projects which involve the data collected via this risk assessment. A web version of the tool is being developed and will be finalized in early June.

Tom Gillespie led a discussion on several issues related to porcine circovirus-associated disease (PCVAD). Some concerns have been raised over the name of PCVAD versus PCVD. It was consensus of the Board to depend upon the PCVAD committee for direction on the name of the disease. The Board also considered issues associated with the use of tissue homogenate.

The Board also addressed an issue involving the timing of herd visits and the writing of Certificates of Veterinary Inspection. The "30 day health rule" has been commonly interpreted in a manner that would allow an accredited veterinarian to issue a CVI to cover animals born during the 30 days between routinely scheduled herd visits without having to make an additional visit to the farm. This rule, however, is not being uniformly applied by all federal personnel. The Board instructed the AASV staff to proceed with the appropriate steps to amend the Code of Federal Regulations (9CFR161.3) to clarify that inspection of the herd would fulfill requirements for application of the 30-day health rule as it applies to animals born between inspections.

Lastly, the Board selected Phoenix as the site for the 2011 meeting.