Federal Government Lends Research Assistance on Foal Loss Syndrome

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The good news is that the federal government doesn't have to be in Kentucky or any other state because of the current spring syndromes taking place in the horse populations. They would be required to investigate if there was any indication that an infectious or contagious disease process was at work.

The other good news is that the USDA officials in Kentucky have been assisting the Gluck Center personnel in epidemiologic studies since the start of the outbreak of foal/fetal loss. Those include Dr. Roger Odenweller, Area Vet in Charge for Kentucky; Dr. Michael Pavlick, who is the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) coordinator in Kentucky; Dr. Barry Meade; Dr. Roger Rowe, and Dr. John Hollis. Animal health technicians from the Kentucky office of USDA are assisting in gathering information from the field. Dr. Lindsey Gardner, an analytic epidemiologist, is coming in from the Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health (CEAH) in Fort Collins, Colo.

"We're interested in helping in any way we can," said Dr. Odenweller, "and we've been involved since the start" of the spring syndrome. "The USDA involvement is to assist Gluck with personnel and epidemiologic help from Washington and Fort Collins."

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