It’s estimated that the disease costs pork producers $560 million a year in this country alone. And it’s why Dr. Randy Jones, a veterinarian with Livestock Veterinary Services, has told his fellow vets that the only real option is eliminating the disease altogether.

“If we can’t control it, we need to eradicate it.”

But Dr. Jones says that eradicating it is easier said than done. So in the meantime, producers have to minimize their risks.

“We can’t take [risk] away, but we can minimize it with immunizations and biosecurity.”

He says if they can get outbreaks of PRRS down to once every five years instead of once a year, farmers will save money. Dr. Jones says that eradication is probably still years away, underscoring the importance of good vaccines and good management practices. He adds that while the current PRRS vaccine isn’t a perfect tool, it is a tool that can help cut down on those outbreaks and, hopefully, preserve some bottom lines.

You can hear more of my conversation with Dr. Jones below.

BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album>

The visiting assistant clinical professor at the University of Illinois and veterinarian with the Carthage Veterinary Service told attendees of the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. (BIVI) Swine Health Seminar in Omaha, NE that they need to think about not just controlling or eliminating the disease-causing organisms, but how do they control overall disease in pigs.

“We really have got to think about that in a holistic approach. We have to think about the system and, really, what tools are available to us.”

He says when vets think about managing diseases, such as PRRS, they really need to use all of the tools in their tool bag, such as how gilts entering the farm are handled and how pigs leaving the farm are taken care of as well. He says the right vaccine strategy in concert with the pig flow in and out of the farm is that holistic approach.

“I don’t care about the agent. What I really want to know is how much disease we have, because that’s what costs us profit.”

He also encourages producers and veterinarians to look at the long-term, not just what they do today and tomorrow.

More of my conversation with Dr. Lowe is available below.

BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album

Dr. Kent Schwartz was one of the featured speakers at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. (BIVI) Swine Health Seminar in Omaha, NE, and he told the group that diagnosing endemic diseases is a lot more work than epidemic diseases.

“There’s a lot of risk factors that contribute to it, so assessment requires diligence in diagnostic workup, but moreover, diligence in assessing production practices, parameters and outcomes.”

He says the most common answer to questions regarding biology is: “It depends.” You need to take into account production practices and all the other factors that might affect the health of the herd. Dr. Schwartz says veterinarians must be open to exploring holes in their dogma or in areas that need further investigation. He says that means getting better at field trials. And that’s where BIVI comes in. He says the company has some top-notch field research that has trustworthy results.

“I truly think BI’s a leader in that.”

Dr. Schwartz hopes the veterinarians that have participated in this BIVI Swine Health Seminar will be able to go back and think about how they think about things and challenge their own assumptions.

More of my conversation with Dr. Schwartz is below.

BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album

Dr. Keith Bretey, a professional service veterinarian at BI, told the group of veterinarians in attendance that the company’s CircoFLEX and PRRS vaccines were safe to be used concurrently and did not affect the performance of the swine herd.

“Because concurrent use is something we’re seeing a lot of out in the industry today, so we needed some evidence to say, ‘Is that a good idea or not?’ ”

Dr. Bretey says there was a significant improvement in using both of Inglevac’s CircoFLEX and PRSS vaccines.

“In the nursery, the non-vaccinated pigs performed the same as the vaccinated pigs. And what this tells us is, with very little pathogen presence in the nursery, the vaccines did no harm in the nursery.” He says lots of producers ask the question whether the vaccine will hurt the performance of the non-infected pigs. Dr. Bretey says they now have conclusive evidence the vaccines are very non-stressful and smooth to the pigs.

They also found the vaccines were helpful in several finisher performance categories.

You can hear more of my conversation with Dr. Bretey below.

BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album

Dr. Holck talked about how Ingelvac’s CircoFLEX and MycoFLEX vaccines have nearly three years and 200 million doses of experience in U.S. swine herds. He says that has given the company lots of information on the vaccines.

“When we look at what we have for CircoFLEX, for example, we’ve got over 30 different trials conducted … either efficacy or safety.” And Holck says that can make for a mountain of data (even comparing it to the great mounds of snow Midwesterners have dealt with this winter!). He says BIVI’s goal is to simplify this vast amount of information for producers and veterinarians to make good, interpretive recommendations from that knowledge. Dr. Holck calls it distilling down to the simple side of complex.

“We do look at a lot of different things, but at the end of the day, we’re looking at what’s most economical for the producer.”

Dr. Holck says that really comes down to average daily gain and feed efficiency. He says, for example, a product like CircoFLEX can return on investment $4-5 for every one dollar a producer spends, so it’s too important not to monitor and have all the tools needed.

Hear more of my conversation with Dr. Holck below.

BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album

It goes without saying that the market outlook is pretty dismal. University of Missouri professor emeritus Glenn Grimes summarized his forecast simply. “Farrows trending down, continued productivity growth, fewer imports of Canadian hogs and pigs, decrease in pork exports, weak domestic demand, high feed costs, red ink for producers – and the bottom line is we have to reduce the herd five percent minimum and maybe ten.”

Download or listen to some of Dr. Grimes remarks here: Glenn Grimes

Dr. Greg Stevenson with the Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory discussed swine influenza testing and USDA surveillance for swine flu. It was a pretty technical presentation that detailed the genetic difference between the H1N1 virus in humans and in swine. “When the USDA is going to be talking about surveillance, they’re going to be calling it H1N1 Flu Outbreak Virus (FOV), trying to distinguish it from the H1N1 that is in the swine population now in the U.S.,” said Dr. Stevenson. “We’ve got to talk about it intelligently and we’ve got to be careful to distinguish the two for the sake of the swine industry.” To talk intelligently about it, he says we’re all going to have to become virologists, and he proceeded to give a crash course in virology in 25 minutes. Learn more here.

On the PCV2 control front, there is some good news for producers. Dr. Joe Connor, president of Carthage Veterinary Service, gave an update on PCV2 vaccines. Specifically, he talked about the efficacy of Suvaxyn PCV2 One Dose from Fort Dodge Animal Health. “We’ve had very high success with the vaccines in all the studies,” he reported. “We’ve shown in all of the studies that we are comfortable vaccinating with singe dose vaccines such as Suvaxyn at 3 or 5 weeks of age.” The studies done in commercial herds in the United States, Europe, Japan and New Zealand all indicated that Suvaxyn significantly reduced total mortality rate and improved growth performance. Nice to hear some positive news for pork producers!

Listen to Dr. Connor’s summary here.

World Pork Expo 09 Photo Album

George Heidgerken says events like these are important for BIVI to deliver answers to questions their customers have. “This is a wonderful forum to deliver those answers,” George told me. The seminar included presentations from a number of researchers who presented the results of studies related to PCV2 vaccines.

George says BIVI is helping swine producers meet the challenges of a down market in a number of ways. “Providing safe and efficacious, and even more efficacious, products into the marketplace; escalating our spending on research and development so that there is always a flow of new products; and investing in our manufacturing capabilities so that we ensure a continuous and long-term supply of vaccines and products that help the producer make more money – or lose less.”

Listen to an interview with George here:

Download the interview here: BIVI president George Heidgerken

Check out a photo album from the BIVI event in Dallas on-line here: BIVI 09 Dallas Photo Album