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AVMA Revises Animal ID Policy

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The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Executive Board has modified its policy on the U.S. Animal Identification Plan (USAIP).

The AVMA adopted its current policy on the development of an animal identification plan in 2003. Since that time the USDA has scrapped the original USAIP in favor of the National Animal ID System (NAIS) released in 2005. Subsequent to these changes in the national plan, the AVMA’s Council on Public Health and Regulatory Veterinary Medicine and the Food Safety Advisory Committee recommended the following policy.

National Animal Identification System

The AVMA supports an effective National Animal Identification System that contains the following key elements:

  1. The database(s) are accessible 24 hours a day and 7 days a week by animal health officials.
  2. System cost does not detract from effective implementation.
  3. A system that is workable for producers of all sizes.
  4. Implementation that engages all stakeholders in providing input through the NAIS Subcommittee of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Foreign Animal and Poultry Diseases and other designated forums.
  5. Exception from freedom of information disclosure laws for data collected in support of the NAIS.
  6. Implementation benchmarks and timelines are established in federal regulation to achieve the NAIS goals identified in the strategic plan.

[Ed. The Pork Industry Identification Working Group (PIIWG) developed guidelines to address the details associated with animal ID in the swine industry. These "program standards" were submitted to the USDA in July, 2005. In order to meet the goals of the NAIS, the swine industry is moving forward with modifying the existing animal identification protocols in place to track swine movements since 1989.

A Swine ID Implementation Task Force has been formed to develop a strategy for implementing the necessary modifications and educating producers about the need to register their premises and adopt the animal and group/lot identification numbering systems defined in the NAIS. Pork producers have indicated that the current system was proven effective at tracking animal movements throughout the PRV eradication program and it is a system producers designed with USDA cooperation. Costs associated with animal ID are built into current swine production systems and producers question the necessity to add additional costs in order to adopt a generic unproven system or a system designed for another species that may not fit the needs of swine producers.]

Source: AVMA News