While there haven’t been any headlines about the various syndromes that affected a large section of the eastern and mid-western United States this spring, that doesn’t mean that researchers or practitioners aren’t hard at work. Kentucky, with its large and carefully scrutinized mare population, seemed hardest hit by the various problems that included late-gestation abortions, early gestation fetal losses, pericarditis (heart problems), and uveitis (eye problems). However, informal surveys and reports from horse owners and veterinarians in other states seem to point to problems that affected horses from Tennessee into Canada.

The exact cause of these problems, and whether they are actually associated, has not been proven at this time. Researchers are following many leads, but the main theory still seems to be a weather-related trigger that somehow led to the cyanide-containing leaves of black cherry trees being ingested by horses.

Results of a detailed epidemiologic survey of farms in Kentucky are expected to be released soon. Noah Cohen, VMD, PhD, MDH, Dipl. ACVIM, an equine epidemiologist, will be on loan from Texas A&M University to the Kentucky Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center to assist the state in studying the syndromes this spring. A task force created by Gov. Paul Patton and headed by Patton’s Cabinet Secretary Dr. Ed Ford and the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation will have Cohen looking at archived samples at the Diagnostic Center and from private clinics.

A meeting on Aug. 16 of the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association’s emergency disease group brought together private practitioners, researchers, and state and federal government officials. One of the realities they discussed is that there aren’t standardized evaluations for the substances being researched