Special Report

Pork delegates pass PED/disease policy

Significant actions were taken on the disease front at the delegate sessions of the National Pork Board (NPB) and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) in Kansas City, Missouri.  Delegates passed a resolution recognizing “feedback” as a lawful, useful tool in helping increase sow immunity from PEDv, a practice demonized in an HSUS video of a Kentucky farm going through an outbreak but strongly defended by producers and veterinarians. To date, an estimated four-to-five Million U.S. hogs have died from the disease since it was discovered last May.

The resolution was put forth by the Kentucky Pork Producers Association in the NPPC session.

There is NO vaccine yet for PEDv, points out producer Howard Hill of Iowa, the newly elected president of the NPPC.  He tells Brownfield Ag News, “Producers are trying to save as many pigs as they can and they know that building immunity in that sow which she would then pass on through her milk – we call that lactogenic antibody – is the only way that we’re going to protect those pigs.”

Delegates also adopted resolutions for the Pork Board and NPPC to come up with a plan by 2015 of coordination and action in the event of another significant swine disease like the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus which is not considered by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) as a foreign animal disease in the United States, but a “transboundary disease.”  

The National Pork Industry Forum concluded Saturday in Kansas City. The 2015 Forum will be in San Antonio, Texas.