President’s Message — January 1999

President’s message	January and February, 1999

Greetings to AASP members. I hope your holiday season has been enjoyable and that you were able to spend time with family and friends. This message will update you on activities that took place this fall, specifically the actions taken by the Board of Directors at their annual fall meeting.

Mike Sheridan was introduced as the new Director from District #11 (Canada). Mike fills the position vacated by Guy Martineau who resigned this past fall after accepting a job offer in France. I want to thank Guy for his years of service on the Board of Directors. Guy has been a friend for a number of years and has served faithfully and with the AASP’s best interest in mind. Guy, with other colleagues, was instrumental in getting the AASP meeting to Quebec City in 1997 and we all know what a success that meeting was. Thanks, Guy, and good luck in your new job. We look forward to working with Mike Sheridan in the Director’s role in the future.

David Madsen was nominated as the Candidate for AASP Vice-President for 1999. Dave has been a strong supporter of the AASP’s programs and has served in a number of roles, including Director from District #3, member of the Public Relations Committee, and the AASP Foundation Board, and as Alternate Delegate to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).

In the previous President’s message, I mentioned a $10,000 grant from Elanco Animal Health to provide scholarships to veterinary and graduate students. The AASP Board of Directors approved a request to the AASP Foundation for $2000 to be pooled with the Elanco grant to provide an additional scholarship. The AASP Board also approved a $3000 request from the PRRS Subcommittee for printing and mailing a PRRS discussion guide.

Tim Trayer, our delegate to the AVMA for several years, has announced his candidacy for a position on the AVMA Council on Veterinary Services. Tim has served us diligently in his role as Delegate. We wish him success in his candidacy for the Council.

The site for the 2003 meeting will be Orlando, Florida. This decision was made after much discussion in previous Board meetings and after conducting a membership survey that was sent out early last year. We received 557 surveys (39% response rate), and 76% of respondents were in favor of a warm weather site, and more respondents listed Florida as the most desirable site than any other site.

The AVMA Steering Committee on Judicious Use of Antimicrobials, chaired by John Waddell, has finalized their guidelines, which were accepted and approved by the AVMA Executive Board. Each species group is now expected to develop their own species-specific guidelines. To further that effort, the AASP has joined with the AVMA, AABP, AVC, and NCBA to support Mike Apley of Iowa State University in a project to "Develop a Therapeutically Based Antimicrobial Use Database for Food Animals." We will need several practitioners to serve on an expert panel that will provide guidance to the swine portion of the project.

The AASP/NPPC joint working committee on Biosecurity met on October 29 to identify and discuss research and education needs. Future meetings will provide specific direction to research projects and hopefully help identify sources of funds for research in this area.

I hope to see you all at the meeting in St. Louis.

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