Farmscape for December 20, 2023

Effective January 1st a new management team will take over the day-to-day operations of the Swine Health Information Center.
At the end of this month Dr. Paul Sundberg, the founding Executive Director of the Swine Health Information Center, will be replaced by current Associate Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder when he moves into retirement.
Dr. Sundberg explains the creation of the Swine Health Information Center in 2015 was prompted by the 2013 outbreak of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in the United States and the recognition that the pork sector was not well prepared for dealing with new infections.

Quote-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
It was a wakeup call that things needed to be done differently for the good of the U.S. pork industry.
We needed to act quickly, we needed to act urgently, we needed to find answers as fast as we could in order to help people out on the farm.
The Board of Directors of the National Pork Board recognized that we keep doing the same thing and always hoping for a different outcome.
PRRS was an outbreak in the late 80s, we had circovirus in the late 90s, we had influenza in the 2000s, then we get PED in 2013 and we keep chasing after those things after they happen.
The Swine Health Information Center was formed in an effort of being in front of them, of trying to monitor both nationally and globally for emerging diseases that are likely to or even possible to come after it, to be prepared for those, prevent them when we can but preparation, response and recovery for emerging diseases for the U.S. pork industry.

Dr. Sundberg says he's looking forward to retirement and he's looking forward to the further progress that will be made as the Swine Health Information Center moves forward under the direction of its new management team.
Further information on the Swine Health Information Center, its work and the resources it has available can be found at swinehealth.org.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers