ANIMAL HEALTH
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:
Ohio Veterinary Medical Board member George Wenning, DVM, resigned March 11 under pressure
for having called filing horses’ teeth “nigger work” during a board meeting. The governor’s office ordered another
member, Tom Liggett, DVM, to take a one-day course on cultural diversity at his own expense––and made the
annual course mandatory for all 400 members of state boards and commissions. Liggett reportedly routinely
inquired as to whether applicants for veterinary licenses were “Americans.” The situation came to light when for-
mer board president Linda Randall, DVM, an Afro-American, told media that her private complaints to Governor
George Voinovich had gone unanswered for six months.
The Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium responsible for Lyme disease has now been discovered in Lone
Star ticks, American dog ticks, and the Pacific Coast tick, as well as the deer ticks and western black-legged ticks
previously known to carry the disease. “These new results expand the list of potential Lyme disease transmitters to
include tick species covering nearly the entire United States,” said a spokesperson for Fort Dodge Laboratories,
promoters of a Lyme vaccine for dogs. There is no vaccine yet for humans.
Fox rabies recently spread to coyotes, a rarity, at the confluence of Brome, Missisquoi, and Shefford
counties in southern Quebec, where 18 cases were discovered in January and February. While fox rabies has
swept through the area several times over the past 30 years, no human has contracted rabies in Quebec since 1966.
The Max Bell Foundation has awarded $95,000 (Canadian funds) to the University of Saskatchewan in
Saskatoon “to establish a consistent system of veterinary care of wild animals that will be acceptable both to the
veterinarians and to agencies responsible for wild animal management and control.”
Norwegian Polar Institute researcher Oystein Wiig believes polar bear fertility is dropping because
the mother bears are accumulating PCBs from eating seal blubber. The seals get the PCBs from eating fish, who
in turn pick them up from deposits of industrial wastes dumped at sea––often decades ago.
An unidentified Australian seal trainer has become the first human known to get tuberculosis from a
seal. The seal, who got the bovine strain of the disease, was the first pinaped ever known to be infected with TB.
The first known case of feline AIDS in Hong Kong was discovered Feb. 2––but because few Hong
Kong cats get regular veterinary care, the disease is expected to spread fast. “The population of cats infected could
be tremendous,” said Rosana Lai of the Hong Kong RSPCA.
