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For the great discoveryFor the second consecutive week in a row I spent a Monday with thousands of animal scientists. Most recently, I was north of the border in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the 21st International Pig Veterinary Society meeting. I attend a lot of meetings that call themselves "international" this or "world" that, but let me tell you that of the 66 countries represented within the 2,600-plus attendees, Americans felt like the minority. It is quite impressive to see so many people coming together to work on the continued health of pigs and generating safer global food supplies. Dr. Hank Harris from Iowa State University opened the three-day event with a keynote address and walked through the significance of improved pig health since 1970. Harris did it as a tribute to the late Dr. Tom Alexander, who had been the deputy head of the veterinary school at Cambridge University, where he taught pig husbandry, pig medicine and infectious diseases. Alexander's contributions to improved pig health will forever be felt in global pig production. Between the two of them in their work with PIC, they learned of the benefits of early weaning pigs and how getting the piglets away from the sow at an early age broke the passing of disease from sow to piglet. Hank humbly says it was Tom who really made the discovery. I have a feeling that if I could ask Tom, he would tell me that it was Hank. Regardless, it is a true testament that we talk about the science and technology that improves human lives, but the truth of the matter is that if it were not for the scientists, nothing would happen. Knowing that Hank Harris will not agree with me (rarely does he do that), I am going to tell you that no other living person has had such an impact on pig production as Dr. Harris. From identifying the swine dysentery to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome to being the first person to develop commercially available H1N1 vaccine, it has been Harris at the core of these life-saving discoveries. It was one of Harris' past students who said something that really hit me hard. Thanks to Hank, we learned the benefits of multi-site pig production, and yet take a look at the human health system. Dr. Jason Hocker is currently a practicing veterinarian at the Audubon-Manning, Iowa, clinic and a former Harris student. He told me that any time he gets into a conversation about how well we do with modern confined animal feeding systems, he simply tells them about multi-site pork production and compares it to modern human health care. Jason pointed out that we have babies in the same rooms where we have sick people waiting to die. Talk about a light bulb moment! Absolutely everyone in human health care could stand to learn a thing or two about pig health. The truth of the matter is that thanks to the scientists and improved housing for animals, we have the healthiest population of food animals this country has ever seen. One other thing that Harris told me that is hard to get my head around is their perseverance. For all of the discoveries and solutions he has provided to food production in the pork industry, one feat Hank did not accomplish was identifying the atrophic rhinitis agent. He spent 12 years studying it in a petri dish under a microscope and came up with nothing. A colleague took a chance and put the virus in a mouse and was actually able to identify and culture it, which then led to the cure. How many of us have the perseverance to spend 12 years studying something even without a small sense of accomplishment to fuel us into the next day? In fact most of us, myself included, are driven by the sense of immediate satisfaction or we head off into a different direction. Today, we have some discoveries that need to be made; in particular, what will it take to find a cure for the ignorance that is leading to unnecessary laws and restrictions being made against us. For example, Congress is discussing right now the elimination of one of the tools of public health--antibiotic usage in animal agriculture. What then? Hank Harris has inspired me to be more determined than ever to uncover the right method of curing what is truly wrong with our nation--inside and outside of the petri dish known as the Beltway. Maybe then we can all have an "aha" moment!
Editor's note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.FacesOfAg.com, or e-mail Trent at trent@loostales.com.
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