edward
04-16-2009, 05:15 PM
Contact:
Dr. R. M. Thornsberry, DVM, MBA, President of R-CALF USA
It is important for horse owners to know why NAIS is being forced on the
equine industry within the United States. The United States and many
other countries signed a World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty in the
1990's which obligated the first world countries, which had spent
literally millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to eradicate
contagious animal diseases, to develop a system of individual animal
identification. The individual animal identification was demanded by the
Organization of International Epizootics (OIE), a WTO world wide
governmental agency, tasked with developing trade rules and
internationally obligated trade regulations that would force animal and
meat trade between countries that had eradicated contagious diseases
with those that had not eradicated contagious animal diseases. In other
words, the United States, which had eradicated Equine Piroplasmosis in
the 1980's, a tick borne protozoal infection, would, by identifying
all equines, be forced to trade with countries that had not eradicated
Equine Piroplasmosis. In general, the argument goes something like this:
Once you can identify every equine at birth and trace their every
movement off the farm from birth to death, a first world country that
has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to eradicate Equine
Piroplasmosis, can no longer prevent trade with those countries who have
refused to spend the necessary resources to eradicate Equine
Piroplasmosis.
The United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) no longer seeks to carry out their
mandate to prevent the introduction of foreign animal and plant diseases
into the United States. Currently, USDA-APHIS in supporting NAIS,
spending millions of tax payer dollars to entice livestock and equine
owners into the system by promoting the acquisition of a free Premises
Identification Number (PIN)from their respective state departments of
agriculture. Producers of cattle, and equine owners, are the two classes
of livestock owners who have overwhelmingly refused to receive an
internationally sanctioned en***brance to their private property. The
USDA says a PIN is the first step to a painless process of
identification of all livestock owners' physical locations, and that
this PIN number is essential for the USDA to find a farm and quickly
trace the movement of animals in the face of a contagious animal disease
outbreak.
Yet, in any location within the state of Missouri, and I am sure in most
states, you can simply punch 911 into your phone, and in a matter of 15
to 20 minutes, the police, the fire department, the ambulance, the
sheriff, and usually the Conservation Commission Agent will be at your
doorstep, but the USDA says they cannot find you? At every Agricultural
Services-USDA office in the United States, you may obtain a description
of your farm or ranch, including a current aerial photograph. You can go
on Google Earth, type in your physical address, and privately obtain a
detailed satellite photograph of your farm or ranch, providing such
detail, that you can actually count individual cattle or horses in your
pasture, and the USDA says it cannot find your farm or ranch in a
contagious animal disease outbreak? The reasons the USDA want you to
obtain a Premises Identification Number have nothing whatever to do with
the USDA's ability to find your farm or your cattle or your horses.
My 10 year old grandson can find my farm, a detailed satellite
photograph of my farm, my telephone number, my mailing address, and my
physical address on his computer in a matter of seconds. It's called
Google!!!
The USDA-APHIS has testified before the United States Department of
Agriculture, House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture,
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, Poultry, March 11, 2009 that the NAIS
would have to be electronic in nature to function as envisioned by the
WTO. This simply means no visual tags, hot or cold brands, tattoos, ear
notches, or individual color markings or descriptions will be allowed
for individual animal identification. While this is a problem for other
types of livestock, for the equine industry, it becomes a major hurdle
to overcome. For equines, dogs, cats, fish, poultry, and many exotic
animals, the only acceptable means of electronic individual animal
identification is a surgically implanted glass enclosed electronic
microchip. This implant is not nearly as simple to surgically implant
within an animal as some are led to believe. When I implant a chip into
an animal, I clip or shave the area. I scrub the area with surgical
preparation soap containing iodine, and I finish by spraying the area
with a surgical site disinfection iodine-alcohol solution. Lastly, I
inject the area over the site of implantation with lidocaine to render
the skin and underlying tissues devoid of sensation. The chips come
individually packaged in a sterile container. To maintain this
sterility, I must be sterile, which requires a surgical scrubbing of my
hands, and the donning of a pair of sterile surgical latex gloves. Only
after this extensive preparation, am I ready to actually implant the
chip in the nuchal ligament of the mid neck area of my equine patient.
Compare this process to the cattle producer who simply places a small
eartag in his cattle.
The glass enclosed chips do not always stay put. Like a splinter in your
finger, the body often mounts a response to a foreign body, even one as
innocuous as a piece of sterile glass. The response may include the
formation of a sterile abscess around the chip, or it may simply be
painful and generate a negative response from the horse as it turns its
neck or tries to graze, or attempts a performance endeavor at a race,
show, or event. Chips have been known to migrate quite extensive
distances within the body of an animal. Ask any veterinarian that works
in this area of interest. Simply finding a chip to make a reading in
some animals becomes a major undertaking. Only recently, has another
side effect of chipping become known. A small percentage of veterinary
patients have developed a cancerous growth at the site of implantation.
While the incidence is low in animals whose lives are relatively short,
an equine patient, living to the age of 20 to 35 years, has much more
time to develop a cancerous growth around the implanted chip, than does
a dog or cat, whose lifetime is closer 12 to 15 years. For a very
complete summary and analysis of the scientific literature on microchips
and cancer, see Katharine Albrecht, Ed.D., "Microchip Induced Tumors
in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature, 1990 to
2006," available at www.antichips. com/cancer
<http://www.antichip s.com/cancer> .
With all that being evaluated, the primary reason the USDA-APHIS desires
to force the NAIS system onto the livestock sectors of the United States
is simple: Bruce Knight told a large group of bovine practitioners at
our annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada in September 2007, when asked
why the USDA was pushing so hard for NAIS, and I quote, "It is
quite simple. We want to be in compliance with OIE regulations by
2010."
Now I don't know about all you equine owners, but we cattle
producers do not look kindly on an international agency in Belgium
telling us what we can and cannot do with our livestock in the United
States. Our grandfathers and fathers spend untold millions of dollars
to assist the USDA in eradicating many serious contagious animal
diseases during the last 75 years. Why would we now acquiesce to a
system that will open up our privately owned animals to contagious
animal diseases that we whipped and wiped out many years ago, for access
to our marketplace to animals and meat from countries who have chosen in
that same time period to ignore eradication of contagious animal
diseases? No way!!!
We live in the United States, not the WTO. We have a Constitution that
directs our legal system, not the OIE. We have a government by the
people, for the people, and of the people. It is time for the people to
stand up and say, "Enough with the one world government junk!!!"
If equine owners do not stand up and unite their voices with other
livestock producers, NAIS will become mandatory in the United States.
It will cost the equine owner in excess of $50.00 a head to implant the
electronic microchip desired by the USDA and the WTO. You will then be
required to report any movement of your horse or horses off your
property, and for any reason. Imagine the bureaucratic nightmare and
the paperwork requirements of reporting to your government every time
you go on a trail ride, every time you go to a show or an event, and
every time you trailer a mare to go to the stud. There will have to be
an NAIS office in every county seat to process all this data, keep track
of your information, and report any violations to the USDA. Just
imagine the fines and enforcement actions that will be carried out to
enforce this NAIS system on the livestock industry of the United States
of America, including equine owners.
R. M. Thornsberry, D.V.M., M.B.A.
March 28, 2009
Dr. R. M. Thornsberry, DVM, MBA, President of R-CALF USA
It is important for horse owners to know why NAIS is being forced on the
equine industry within the United States. The United States and many
other countries signed a World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty in the
1990's which obligated the first world countries, which had spent
literally millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to eradicate
contagious animal diseases, to develop a system of individual animal
identification. The individual animal identification was demanded by the
Organization of International Epizootics (OIE), a WTO world wide
governmental agency, tasked with developing trade rules and
internationally obligated trade regulations that would force animal and
meat trade between countries that had eradicated contagious diseases
with those that had not eradicated contagious animal diseases. In other
words, the United States, which had eradicated Equine Piroplasmosis in
the 1980's, a tick borne protozoal infection, would, by identifying
all equines, be forced to trade with countries that had not eradicated
Equine Piroplasmosis. In general, the argument goes something like this:
Once you can identify every equine at birth and trace their every
movement off the farm from birth to death, a first world country that
has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to eradicate Equine
Piroplasmosis, can no longer prevent trade with those countries who have
refused to spend the necessary resources to eradicate Equine
Piroplasmosis.
The United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) no longer seeks to carry out their
mandate to prevent the introduction of foreign animal and plant diseases
into the United States. Currently, USDA-APHIS in supporting NAIS,
spending millions of tax payer dollars to entice livestock and equine
owners into the system by promoting the acquisition of a free Premises
Identification Number (PIN)from their respective state departments of
agriculture. Producers of cattle, and equine owners, are the two classes
of livestock owners who have overwhelmingly refused to receive an
internationally sanctioned en***brance to their private property. The
USDA says a PIN is the first step to a painless process of
identification of all livestock owners' physical locations, and that
this PIN number is essential for the USDA to find a farm and quickly
trace the movement of animals in the face of a contagious animal disease
outbreak.
Yet, in any location within the state of Missouri, and I am sure in most
states, you can simply punch 911 into your phone, and in a matter of 15
to 20 minutes, the police, the fire department, the ambulance, the
sheriff, and usually the Conservation Commission Agent will be at your
doorstep, but the USDA says they cannot find you? At every Agricultural
Services-USDA office in the United States, you may obtain a description
of your farm or ranch, including a current aerial photograph. You can go
on Google Earth, type in your physical address, and privately obtain a
detailed satellite photograph of your farm or ranch, providing such
detail, that you can actually count individual cattle or horses in your
pasture, and the USDA says it cannot find your farm or ranch in a
contagious animal disease outbreak? The reasons the USDA want you to
obtain a Premises Identification Number have nothing whatever to do with
the USDA's ability to find your farm or your cattle or your horses.
My 10 year old grandson can find my farm, a detailed satellite
photograph of my farm, my telephone number, my mailing address, and my
physical address on his computer in a matter of seconds. It's called
Google!!!
The USDA-APHIS has testified before the United States Department of
Agriculture, House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture,
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, Poultry, March 11, 2009 that the NAIS
would have to be electronic in nature to function as envisioned by the
WTO. This simply means no visual tags, hot or cold brands, tattoos, ear
notches, or individual color markings or descriptions will be allowed
for individual animal identification. While this is a problem for other
types of livestock, for the equine industry, it becomes a major hurdle
to overcome. For equines, dogs, cats, fish, poultry, and many exotic
animals, the only acceptable means of electronic individual animal
identification is a surgically implanted glass enclosed electronic
microchip. This implant is not nearly as simple to surgically implant
within an animal as some are led to believe. When I implant a chip into
an animal, I clip or shave the area. I scrub the area with surgical
preparation soap containing iodine, and I finish by spraying the area
with a surgical site disinfection iodine-alcohol solution. Lastly, I
inject the area over the site of implantation with lidocaine to render
the skin and underlying tissues devoid of sensation. The chips come
individually packaged in a sterile container. To maintain this
sterility, I must be sterile, which requires a surgical scrubbing of my
hands, and the donning of a pair of sterile surgical latex gloves. Only
after this extensive preparation, am I ready to actually implant the
chip in the nuchal ligament of the mid neck area of my equine patient.
Compare this process to the cattle producer who simply places a small
eartag in his cattle.
The glass enclosed chips do not always stay put. Like a splinter in your
finger, the body often mounts a response to a foreign body, even one as
innocuous as a piece of sterile glass. The response may include the
formation of a sterile abscess around the chip, or it may simply be
painful and generate a negative response from the horse as it turns its
neck or tries to graze, or attempts a performance endeavor at a race,
show, or event. Chips have been known to migrate quite extensive
distances within the body of an animal. Ask any veterinarian that works
in this area of interest. Simply finding a chip to make a reading in
some animals becomes a major undertaking. Only recently, has another
side effect of chipping become known. A small percentage of veterinary
patients have developed a cancerous growth at the site of implantation.
While the incidence is low in animals whose lives are relatively short,
an equine patient, living to the age of 20 to 35 years, has much more
time to develop a cancerous growth around the implanted chip, than does
a dog or cat, whose lifetime is closer 12 to 15 years. For a very
complete summary and analysis of the scientific literature on microchips
and cancer, see Katharine Albrecht, Ed.D., "Microchip Induced Tumors
in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature, 1990 to
2006," available at www.antichips. com/cancer
<http://www.antichip s.com/cancer> .
With all that being evaluated, the primary reason the USDA-APHIS desires
to force the NAIS system onto the livestock sectors of the United States
is simple: Bruce Knight told a large group of bovine practitioners at
our annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada in September 2007, when asked
why the USDA was pushing so hard for NAIS, and I quote, "It is
quite simple. We want to be in compliance with OIE regulations by
2010."
Now I don't know about all you equine owners, but we cattle
producers do not look kindly on an international agency in Belgium
telling us what we can and cannot do with our livestock in the United
States. Our grandfathers and fathers spend untold millions of dollars
to assist the USDA in eradicating many serious contagious animal
diseases during the last 75 years. Why would we now acquiesce to a
system that will open up our privately owned animals to contagious
animal diseases that we whipped and wiped out many years ago, for access
to our marketplace to animals and meat from countries who have chosen in
that same time period to ignore eradication of contagious animal
diseases? No way!!!
We live in the United States, not the WTO. We have a Constitution that
directs our legal system, not the OIE. We have a government by the
people, for the people, and of the people. It is time for the people to
stand up and say, "Enough with the one world government junk!!!"
If equine owners do not stand up and unite their voices with other
livestock producers, NAIS will become mandatory in the United States.
It will cost the equine owner in excess of $50.00 a head to implant the
electronic microchip desired by the USDA and the WTO. You will then be
required to report any movement of your horse or horses off your
property, and for any reason. Imagine the bureaucratic nightmare and
the paperwork requirements of reporting to your government every time
you go on a trail ride, every time you go to a show or an event, and
every time you trailer a mare to go to the stud. There will have to be
an NAIS office in every county seat to process all this data, keep track
of your information, and report any violations to the USDA. Just
imagine the fines and enforcement actions that will be carried out to
enforce this NAIS system on the livestock industry of the United States
of America, including equine owners.
R. M. Thornsberry, D.V.M., M.B.A.
March 28, 2009