Cut Down Influenza A with Sequivity(R) IAV-S NA

National Pork Producers Council Makes Weighing In With Lawmakers Easy

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) received a great response from their request in last week's e-Letter requesting veterinary action on a number of legislative issues. Over 40 AASV members took the time to log onto the NPPC website and send an email to their congressional representatives. Dr. Annamaria Castiglia, NPPC Director of Science and Technology, submitted the following article to update our membership on additional legislative concerns.

Aggressive animal-rights activists keep pushing their emotionally-based agenda on Capital Hill. The voice of reason needs to be heard loud and clear by congressmen to level the playing field. NPPC has an effortless method for you to send a letter to your legislators on these issues.

Sens. Edward Kennedy and Sherrod Brown and Rep. Louise Slaughter are sponsoring legislation (S. 549 and H.R. 962, respectively) that would prohibit the use in livestock of antibiotics that are necessary for maintaining our animals' good health when challenged by disease outbreaks. Rep. Gary Ackerman and Sen. Daniel Akaka are sponsoring bills (H.R. 661 and S. 394, respectively) that would keep fatigued hogs from entering the human food supply. Reps. Peter DeFazio and Christopher Shays are offering legislation (H.R. 1726, the "Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act") that would prohibit the federal government from buying meat from farms that use individual sow housing systems.

NPPC would like to thank the 40+ AASV e-Letter readers who already weighed in on these issues. Today we are reaching out to the rest of you. Veterinarians, Nutritionists, Veterinary technicians and all other animal health professionals, we need your action now more than ever before. Please sign on to the Legislative Action Center of NPPC's Web site to let your lawmakers know these are ill-advised proposals.

Here's how to send a letter to your senators and representative:

  1. Log on to http://www.nppc.org.
  2. Click the Legislative Action Center button located on the left side of the screen.
  3. Click the link for "New? Register Here" and enter your profile information.
  4. Your log-in from this point forward will be your e-mail address.
  5. Choose your legislator.
  6. Once you have entered your profile, you can take action by clicking the federal issue tab.
  7. Here you will find the legislative letters already drafted.
  8. These letters have been developed for pork producers, so as veterinarians, nutritionists, etc. you will have to edit the letters or just write your own thoughts.
  9. If you decide to use the existing letter, highlight the second sentence in the producers letter to the last word in the text and copy the text.
  10. Choose the prompt for blank letter space.
  11. Paste the copied text into the blank letter space.
  12. Include your own personal introductory sentence.
  13. Click send.

If you have any questions on this process, please don't hesitate to call Dr. Annamaria Castiglia at NPPC at (202) 347-3600.

Thank you for standing up and making your opinion count.