Statewide Iowa — A legislative committee has voted to temporarily delay implementing a new state rule governing the care of livestock after major Iowa farm groups objected.
The rule was originally scheduled to go into effect April 1st. It would have forced veterinarians to examine animals they’re prescribing drugs for or visit the site where the animals are being raised at least once in the past year. Eldon McAfee is an attorney for the Iowa Pork Producers Association.
Current rules call for timely and medically necessary visits, but Dr. Duane Ray, chairman of the Iowa Veterinary Medicine Board, says it’s time to put some teeth in the rule to protect animal health.
Dr. Ray says this is a critical time with African Swine Fever detected in the Dominican Republican and Haiti.
The board has been negotiating with the pork industry for a year over this new rule, according to Dr. Ray.
The legislature’s Administration Rules Review Committee voted to delay implementing the rule for 70 days, but committee members warned the commodity groups the rule will go into effect in June as is if they don’t engage in good faith negotiations. Representative Mike Sexton, a Republican from Rockwell City, says it’s become common practice for a case of antibiotics to accompany semi loads of pigs delivered to large scale confinements.
Dr. Ray told legislators he’d been called to examine a sick calf and learned the farmer had treated the calf with antibiotics that came with a shipment of pigs, drugs that are not to be given to cattle.
