Dr. John Davidson, Professional Services Vet for Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. (BIVI), played a central role in this year’s Cattle Industry Convention by giving several presentations on cattle health trends at the Convention’s Learning Lounge.
A major discussion point this week was Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD), which has begun to raise concerns among veterinary professionals, as the disease is becoming associated with rising morbidity and mortality rates each year.
“We’re spending more and more money to treat this sickness, which translates into more dollars spent on antibiotics aimed at treating sick cattle, and BIVI holds a belief that there is a better way,” said Davidson, “And that way is to target those leading threats prior to the cattle getting sick; really our mantra is “prevention works.” We’ve got information that really focuses on vaccinating those calves prior to the challenge, and matching the vaccine using the best available evidence-based medicine approach.”
Another topic of discussion this week, that is garnering plenty of attention in the field of veterinary medicine, is the upcoming legislation surrounding Veterinary Feed Directives (VFD) for large-scale antibiotic treatment.
“The interesting thing is that the VFD and the legislation that authorized that is really not new, the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996 is really the foundation of the VFD, and other industries like the swine industry have been dealing successfully with VFDs for quite some time,” said Davidson. “At the end of the day, we have to do a better job managing the tools we have to treat BRD in our cattle, and that means being better stewards of not only the animal resources, but also of our treatment availability, which means identifying the opportunity to prevent the disease and relying less on treatment.”
Listen to Jamie’s full interview with Dr. Davidson here:
Interview with Dr. John Davidson, BIVI
Photos from the Convention: 2016 Cattle Industry Convention Photo Album
