With next month’s magazine, you will receive a special supplement that brings you the latest in horse health news from the annual convention of the American Association of Equine Practitioners. A record-breaking crowd of horse vets traveled to Orlando, Fla., to listen and learn, and to exchange information about a myriad of topics concerning the health and welfare of horses. One of the “take-home” points was that the veterinarian–and the horse owner–are the first lines of defense in new and emerging equine diseases. In these times of global horse hopping, and uncertainty of the source or cause of some animal diseases, it is even more important that anything out of the ordinary be looked at thoughtfully, and scientifically, and that even the ordinary be evaluated through the eyes of a different day.

With agroterrorism (yes, it has its own name), our animals are the primary targets in order to hurt humans, our country’s economy, and our ability to move freely across borders. Time and again the point was raised about how devastating foot and mouth disease was to the horse industry of England; and horses don’t even get the disease! What would happen if that disease were introduced here?

In England, thousands of food animals were slaughtered, whether they were infected or not; horses at least were saved from death. However, millions of pounds/dollars were lost because horses couldn’t be moved for fear of spreading the disease; ancillary industries lost business because horse movement was halted; tourism was hit hard…it all tallied into a huge problem from which the UK is still recovering.

In the United States, the official word is that West Nile virus (WNV) is considered endemic (exists here naturally). Since it’s hit nearly every state, and recurred in the ones that had it last year, that shouldn’t come as any surprise