Mounted search and rescue

[ilichten1@verizon.net]

Unless the disease was confirmed while the show barn was still being managed by the show they probably have no legal responsibility to the entrants or owners.

They sould provide the epidemiologists with the entrants and horse data so a warning can go out to them and the state vets involved.  As to a medical examiner assigning a cause of death for a human who died presumably under doctor's care, in most states the attending physician can sign the cause of death section and eliminate the post mortem studies, even for a reportable illness. 

 

What is amazing is that the published reports seem to focus on the cutting horse national.  There are no reports of outbreaks in rodeo stock, flat track or harness

barns, or other competitions.  I do not know what the proportion of QH is in the cutting arena but it is probably high.  These are the people who continue to breed allegedly genetically defective horses because the money is too good to retire the studs and mares that pass the defect along.

 

We have controlled several endemic diseases in US herds over the year.  This has often required draconian steps but if the test kills healthy hhorses that is a cost. We pay that cost with EIA nd Coggins. Coggins only tests for reaction to the virus, not whether the horse is carrying the virus.  And nobody pays for the cost of destroying a Coggins positive horse or the horse.  Any wonder that people are reluctant to test when the test has killed more than the disease has?

 

Who will determine what economic damages are to paid to who for bringing a sick horse to a show?  When you figure that out you round up all the conntacts, quarantine them, and destroy the infected ones. 

 

Pennsylvania has published guidelines for show managers in allowing horses on the premises of a show.  Failure to follow official guidance would constitute negligence or possibly gross negligence, making the show liable for all costs.  These guidelines include Coggins, vaccination lists, vet travel certificates, etc.

 

Irv Lichtenstein