The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided to consolidate the Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices
04 June 2012

Sources:  Progressive Dairyman & USDA news release

Center for Animal Health Innovations Award to research in a novel class of antibiotics for treatment of mastitis in dairy cows 
04 June 2012

Associate Professor Tonatiuh Melgarejo from Kansas State University has been awarded with $250.000 to research in a novel class of antimicrobial peptides derived from water buffaloes. The aim of the study is to see how this natural occurring antibiotic can be used to treat mastitis infection in dairy cattle. The US dairy industry estimates that 10-35% of the 9.5 million US dairy cows have mastitis.

Sources:  Progressive Dairyman & Kansas State University News

Elimination of bovine tuberculosis (TB) by consulting the experts
30 May 2012

In North America bovine TB was the most common death cause among cattle until 1917, where a federal effort eliminated the TB breakouts. The occasional TB breakouts seen since have primarily been related to cattle import – legal as well as illegal. 

In order to identify and track the TB breakouts it molecular fingerprinting techniques were used to identify several strains of Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis), indicating multiple sources of introduction. 

States with high TB risk are California and New Mexico, where import of cattle and labor from e.g. Mexico is a risk factor. In Michigan and Minnesota M. bovis was tracked as well and these states also had TB infections but here the breakouts were identified to origin from the wildlife like white-tailed deer. A network of veterinarian experts did the mapping of bovine TB outbreaks in the US, which will be a solid tool to keep TB at a minimum.

Sources:  Progressive Dairyman, US Farmer Magazine

Screening of 500 Danish herds to identify the multi-resistance staphylococci MRSA
29 May 2012

MRSA infection has been a problem in swine production for a while and it seems to be an increasing problem in cattle herds especially milk production as well. Therefore a national campaign to map the infection ways has been established in Denmark, where approximately 500 cattle herds will be screened for MRSA infection by running tests on the farm milk tanks. The infection is not foodborne as such as milk is usually consumed after pasteurization but MRSA can spread from animals to humans by direct contact, so there is a higher risk for infection among people, who work with the cattle.

A similar UK study from 2011 discovered a new version of MRSA infection in tank milk samples, so it is important to screen for MRSA in order to be able to identify and handle the problem before it increases.