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There
are some things you should never forget, like your anniversary, your
spouse’s birthday, and your social security number. There are other
things that are just worth remembering for what it took to accomplish
them.
We
celebrate the Fourth of July to remember what it took to gain our
freedom as a nation. We celebrate religious holidays to remember what it
took to gain another kind of freedom. But there are other events and
accomplishments that are mostly kept alive in the memories and
recollections of those who were involved. That is the case with the
Alabama Brucellosis Eradication Program. The Program changed after
Alabama became Brucellosis-Free in 1998. However, it will always be
"something worth remembering."
While
going through some old files not too long ago, we ran across one that
contained some old and very interesting information about the National
Bovine Brucellosis Eradication Program. A Progress Report, dated
December 1958, stated that steady progress had been made since the
Program began in 1934. It is interesting that the Brucellosis Program
began about seventeen years before Alabama even had a State
Veterinarian. It seems that the Program began as a cooperative effort
between the USDA and the 48 state governments and qualifying
territories.
Others
actively participating in the program, in addition to individual
livestock owners, were practicing veterinarians, Federal-State Extension
Services, public health districts, and various livestock and educational
groups. It also reported that at one time Brucellosis was the most
widespread and most costly communicable disease affecting cattle in the
United States.
It
was a tremendous effort early on to get cattle producers to buy into the
voluntary program. It was, however, not until the mid-fifties that USDA
began to implement regulations that affected the interstate movement of
reactor cattle. That was followed by regulations that affected
stockyards that handled reactor cattle. While that was going on
nationally, here in Alabama, we were slowly making progress by achieving
certification levels in various counties across the state. To be a
certified county, there had to be a certain percent of the purebred
herds tested as well as a certain percent of the dairies. Cherokee
County was the first county to be certified in the program.
As
the Program evolved, testing of cattle at slaughter and testing of
cattle going back to the farm from stockyards began to locate infected
herds to be tested. There were probably two monumental events that took
place that paved the way to eradicate the disease. First, the
legislature passed a law that established a State of Alabama Brucellosis
Eradication Program that gave the Board of Agriculture the authority to
make regulations as needed to eradicate the disease here in Alabama. The
second occurrence was the regulation that called for Change of Ownership
Testing of all eligible cattle—either through sale at stockyards,
private treaty, or special sales.
As
with any type of regulatory program, it was not accepted with open arms
by everyone involved. However, the success of the program was not that
it was a government program, but that it benefited from buy-in by a
large portion of the Alabama cattle industry.
That
buy-in did not come automatically. As I understand, Dr. John Milligan,
State Veterinarian at the time; Dr. Hines, USDA assistant area
veterinarian in charge; Dr. J. Lee Alley, USDA epidemiologist (at the
time), and a fellow named Hamm Wilson, the "Daddy" of the
Alabama Cattlemen’s Association, took their show on the road. They
went to county cattlemen meetings all over the state to explain the
seriousness of the program and the need for producer cooperation.
Maybe
it was that type of government-industry cooperation that was so
instrumental in our eventually becoming a Brucellosis-free state. It was
indeed a monumental task. At the peak of the program, the state was
divided into 16 sections with a Veterinary Medical Officer and varying
numbers of Animal Health technicians in each section. Over the years,
hundreds of herds and thousands of cattle were tested. Portable panels
and squeeze chutes were hauled thousands of miles as they moved from
farm to farm.
A
lot of the folks that worked so hard and gave so much of themselves to
eradicate that costly livestock disease are no longer around. Many of
the others are retired, but my goodness, what stories they can tell
about conquering a tiny bacteria that you can’t even see with the
naked eye. I suppose it is somewhat ironic that I was fortunate enough
to have been a stockyard veterinarian when I was in practice, but it was
even more special to me that when I went to work with the state, the
last Brucellosis outbreak in the state was in my section where I was the
Veterinary Medical Officer. I am glad I got to play a small part in
waving goodbye to Bang’s Disease in our state.
A
special thanks goes out to Dr. J. Lee Alley, Dr. Carl Wilson, Dr. Wally
Hester, Dr. Don Cheatham and Dr. Curtis Chrisenberry. Also to the many,
many other people who played any role in the Brucellosis Eradication,
the Alabama livestock industry owes a large debt of gratitude. It is
truly something worth remembering. |
