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FROM THE DIRECTOR
H. Leon Thacker, DVM, PhD

Good day from ADDL.  As this is being written, the weather here has taken a turn to the frigid category.  With these ambient temperatures, the nutrition requirements of our animals so exposed are markedly increased.  This, along with the shortage of feed production brought on by shortage of rainfall during the past growing season are expected to have bad effect of some of our animal populations.  High grain prices and low roughage supplies are a bad combination.

  I am saddened to report that Dr. Greg Stevenson will be leaving ADDL the end of February to join a ministry to college campuses as director of outreach to faculty and content development.  Greg has provided 17 years of capable and dedicated  service to ADDL and to animal owners of Indiana as well as most valuable teaching to  students, colleagues and animal owners.  He will be missed.  A search committee has been appointed to select a replacement for Greg’s position; the committee includes members from the ADDL faculty, the School of Veterinary Medicine faculty, Department of Animal      Sciences and an Indiana private veterinary practitioner.  A search committee has also been selected and chaired by SVM Dean Willie Reed to identify a new director of ADDL as I will be stepping aside as ADDL director August 1, 2008.

  We recently completed immunohistochemistry testing of samples from 610 white tail Indiana deer collected by the Indiana DNR for chronic wasting disease.  All of these samples, as well as several thousand tests run in previous years for CWD from Indiana deer were “no resistant prions detected”.  To date, no CWD has been found in the Indiana deer or captive elk populations.

  Our laboratory continues to find swine in Indiana herds newly positive for porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome (PRRS).  This is likely the most economically significant infectious disease of swine in Indiana as well as elsewhere in the U.S. 

  Our toxicology laboratory has received many requests to conduct analyses for bone marrow fat as  a quantification of malnutrition or neglect as various animals’ terminal condition.  The ADDL tox lab developed this test and subsequently established normal test values for various animals so that the bone marrow fat values may be used as a defined measure of an animal’s terminal nutritional status.  The tox lab also developed chemical analysis for juglone, the toxic principle of walnut toxicity (laminitis) of horses.  Numerous requests for this analysis have also been received.

  The ADDL was recently invited to join the national Food Emergency Response Network in the areas of microbiology and  toxicology.  With being a member of the FERN, our respective laboratory sections are required to pass periodic check tests for various microbial organisms and potential food toxicants so that ADDL will in turn be available to assist with food testing in the event of a catastrophic local or national food contamination event.  We hope that our services are never needed for such an event.

  In closing, I hope you can stay warm and enjoy Indiana winter.  If there are things we can improve to better serve yourveterinary diagnostic needs, please do not hesitate to let me know.

 

Locations


ADDL-West Lafayette:
406 S. University
West Lafayette, IN 47907
Phone: 765-494-7440
Fax: 765-494-9181

ADDL-SIPAC
11367 E. Purdue Farm Road
Dubois, IN 47527
Phone: (812) 678-3401
Fax: (812) 678-3412

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