Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, let's continue our conversation with state veterinarian on livestock vaccinations. And we had a conversation a couple of weeks ago that I thought was interesting enough that it should be repeated or somewhat replicated with the whole committee. So thank you for coming in.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Absolutely, thank you for having me.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You want to kick it off?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: I'm happy to. So what happened the impetus for all of this was we had a sheep flock that was exposed to a rabid animal this fall. As we kind of started or as little conversations have hinted, rabies is a developing new life in the public interest, especially here in Vermont, as we've had quite a bit of wildlife expansion of rabies in the last half decade. And so with that is coming more exposures to domestic animals and people, and that's kind of where that's the background to where this conversation is now starting. So we had a rabid animal expose a flock of sheep and the general recommendations when you've got an exposure is to, if there is an on label vaccine, vaccinate the animals immediately. There is technically not a post exposure protocol. So if you were to be exposed to a rabid animal as a human, we know exactly the things that you should take in, the steps you should take after you've been exposed, but before you develop any kind of symptoms. Because once you develop symptoms, it's almost universally fatal. So we have dedicated a lot of resources, especially on the human side, to figuring out how do we prevent that from developing. On the animal side, we generally just give post exposure vaccines. So you can vaccinate before you have the exposure, which is prophylactic, or after you have the exposure, which is post exposure. Though that's not really a formalized process, it works in a lot of things. And if you've already have some rabies immunity, if you had one rabies vaccine kind of ever in your life, you get this post exposure booster, your immune system is much more able to fight off the infection. So, the sheep farmer took that recommendation. He had his veterinarian come out. They immunized the flock. They boostered the dogs, and none of the animals in the story developed rabies except for that wildlife that brought it into their herd. He and I had a conversation after around that recommendation as to whether or not flocks should be vaccinated, because there are different protocols if there's already a vaccine in place versus if you've never been exposed, both protocols and risks that are associated with it. As I mentioned, there's lots more rabies in wildlife right now in Vermont than there was a decade ago. And we wrote and we raised most of our livestock outside. And so we are having more of these exposures. He, from talking to some of his colleagues, had not heard of or was not familiar with a general recommendation to vaccinate livestock for rabies. It's not a very common thing because rabies vaccines are restricted to needing to be given by a veterinarian. And so that is not something a farmer can just order themselves and give themselves, unlike many vaccines. And so it is a higher cost. It is protective, but it comes with a cost. And so based on that kind of conversation, he reached out directly to Chairman Durfee about the state of vaccination against rabies in our livestock. And that was kind of what's That's what got us here. I did see there was a question. So before I just keep going, did you

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yeah, just a couple of things. It was a fox?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: I don't know if it was a fox or a skunk. Could have been a fox or a skunk. Raccoon. Or raccoon.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You don't remember what that is.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Off the top of my head, no. The dogs took Or bit the dog? The dogs took care of it. So we are The dogs did their job

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: that day.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: So we did not have any confirmed bites.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I just wondered, going back to what you were just saying, why is rabies on the uptake, I guess?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: That is another thing that's being studied. It seems to be It is a mystery that is baffling some of our wildlife folks as well, but it is a topic of great interest to the wildlife community.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Oh, it was a raccoon. Really?

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: That's a pretty common one.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: How did I learn that? Were you gonna move that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, I was contacted by was in Heinzburg, I think, and the farmer, who's got block of 200 ewes, had reached out to his rep, but also copied me.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: It was confirmed in the raccoon,

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: but none in sheep. Correct. None in dogs. Correct. The dogs had been previously vaccinated and they got boosted immediately. What is interesting about this case is about the same time we had this situation in Vermont, a similar situation happened in Massachusetts, and they followed a different protocol and they had something like seven of their sheep develop symptoms. So what came out of that was this expensive thing happened, was recommended. Was it because there was no exposure to the sheep or were these actions protective? There's no real way to determine that because we didn't have any cases and that's great, that's what you want. But it still brings up the question, how much are we vaccinating for rabies in our livestock populations? How much should we be vaccinating? And should those recommendations be coming from the state level or from the veterinarian level or what? And so that was kind of where our conversation centered couple weeks, or a couple weeks ago. And so here to just talk about what that can look like and where those recommendations come from is kind of why I'm here.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So you mentioned that it was relatively expensive. Relatively. And I don't think I had picked up on this earlier, may be partly because requires a vet to administer. So if that weren't the case, so that's contributing to the cost?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: That is the primary expense of the cost. The vaccine itself is not a terribly expensive vaccine. It's just that it requires veterinary oversight to administer to make sure that it's been done properly. Rabies is a public health concern. There's a way of approaching health called One Health, and it's the intersection between wildlife and humans and domestic agriculture. And so how do those things kind of play together in one? Another way of looking at it is animals, the environment, and humans, and how do we all impact one another? And rabies is kind of the classic example because when it affects our wildlife, it affects public health, it affects our domestic animals, both our cats and dogs, because they expose people, but also it could impact our food systems and expose people that way. So we spend a lot of time talking about this, it is of great interest. So we can't take rabies vaccines lightly because it is fatal if it gets in, once you start to develop symptoms. There are a couple of documented cases of recovery, so we can no longer say one hundred percent. But let's just say from a functional perspective, that is not a gamble anyone wants to take. So An animal. The couple of recovered cases are in humans. I know of no animals that have, but we also.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Brigham.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I hear in the downstairs, open the front door, back up. Next morning, was like, what are you doing? Oh, there was a bird in my room. I grabbed it, threw it outside. He bit me on the finger. He blew the holes.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: It was bad. Bad. Yeah. So he got shocked. Yep, he did. Absolutely.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Right off the bat. Different right out of the classroom. Oh yeah. We never saw it, but two little That's enough. Yep.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Absolutely.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Nelson? Yeah, thank you Chair.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Farmers administer vaccines to their herds all the time. All the time. Dairy farm was involved, you know, the large herds. If it's for and I can understand for show animals that are traveling around to different parts of the state or out of state, they have the rabies vaccine requirement and they wanted to administer, you know, veterinarian to sign off on it. I can understand that part. But if it's for commercial buryment, we're we're in the process of allowing people at shelters to administer rabies vaccine. We hope they're gonna get proper training and oversight to learn how to do this correctly. There's more exposure between fluffy and mittens than there is between cows and people. Couldn't it be made available so a farmer could procure the rabies vaccine and self administer it to his herd of cattle?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: So that is how There is that provision in Rhode Island. So Rhode Island allows farmers to administer rabies vaccines themselves. However, it's not considered an official vaccination. If one of those animals ends up being exposed to rabies, it treated would from a policy perspective as an unvaccinated animal, and it would be subject to all of the same quarantines and restrictions of an unvaccinated animal, we can't speak to the quality of that vaccine. Understood.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: And

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: so that's the line here. So you brought up a bunch of things that I was gonna cover. So happy to just dive right into all of that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Just before you, do you wanna ask a question too, Greg? Well, it's all

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: the same lines. This made me think of telemedicine as well. My question is, is there sort of a telemedicine a veterinary system in place? And

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: is there potentially that?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: So the concern with the oversight of the rabies vaccine is appropriate cold storage and administration. So telemedicine doesn't really work in that situation because that would require the vaccine leaving their control and making sure it has been purchased by an appropriate vendor. People sell unlicensed vaccines in shady parts of the internet. Has it been stored properly? Is it within date and isn't expired? Is the appropriate amount being given in the appropriate way? That last bit probably could have a telemedicine oversight because you could watch a farmer draw up a dose and administer it. But you don't know what happened to that vial between when it was ordered and when it got to the cow side on that call. And so that would be the concern. The shelter program that representative Nelson referenced would have to require, would have to be under veterinary oversight. That shelters have veterinarians of records that are responsible for the various products that are in that clinic and being administered at that time. And so those would have to be considerations and all of those trainings would be involved in that. So telemedicine works really well for some things and could provide some oversight, but there would have to be certain controls elsewhere down the line, whether or not it's telemedicine with a technician or telemedicine with Now that would be the only one that I could think of under current structures. But that is different than the Rhode Island policy where they can basically says, you can give your livestock anything you want, but we're not gonna consider it official, should something happen. And that's the big difference. Do you mind if

[Legislative Counsel (name unknown)]: I add something? I just wanted to circle back to the beginning, which represents what Nelson touched on with the farmers being able to do it themselves. I think also with the telemedicine, it may be possible, but I don't know that it would reduce the cost, right? Because the veterinarian would still be charging for their time. So that was one thing that I had thought of.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Yeah. And so when it comes down to it, a lot of the vaccines that dairy farmers are giving themselves are to protect the health of their herd. And so there aren't those same public health controls, because it is for the benefit of your animals. Whereas rabies vaccines are often considered as being for the benefit of the public. We vaccinate as widely as we do, so we don't end up with accidental exposures. It doesn't end up accidentally in our food chain. It's why raw milk animals are required to be vaccinated for rabies, because there is the potential for transmission via milk experimentally. And so to reduce that risk, we require a rabies vaccine. And because what we are trying to do is protect public health, it has to be given with really strict guardrails to make sure that it's being appropriately administered because the consequences are so absolute.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: And, Boston? Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: So I guess I mean, it sounds like you think that this is the right policy and that Rhode Island is perhaps taking a risk. But I guess I'm wondering, I mean, I think a farmer is gonna want their animals to be protected. And so they're not gonna be storing their rabies vaccine out in the backyard in the hot sun. I mean, I would think that farmer, if they're administering all these other vaccines, like, I don't know how to give a vaccine, I wouldn't have any ability to do it, but Richard probably does. I mean, wonder if our goal is to prevent animals from getting rabies and we are finding it hard under our current system, maybe we should expand who's able

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: to do that. And that is something that can be entertained. I think we've got a place where we can do some good short of like before that, I think that that is an option. But what it comes down to is we can't bless that because can't Because rabies is such a public health concern, to lose control of the official status of those vaccinations would be a concern. I have some concerns that if we allowed there to be unofficial vaccination in that way, would we lose the flocks or the herds that are being officially protected in ways that are documentable and and are being done appropriately. So I don't know what the overall risk benefit is of allowing farmers to do that. Are we going to be losing some that are currently, that we know are protected in favor of allowing a broader possibility of protection? Possibly. Do you

[Unidentified committee member]: know how long Rhode Island has had that that program, and have they had what what their experience has been? Because it feels like we could learn from if it worked for them, it probably would work for us.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: And if that is of interest to this committee, I am happy to investigate that and look into that. I discovered that addition in research for today, because the policy that I was actually looking into and also was mentioned by representative Nelson is the vaccination for fairs and exhibits. So basically when you are displaying your animals to the public, are there requirements for vaccination? And so Rhode Island and Connecticut, in Vermont, New York, Ontario are all places where exhibition animals are required if there is an on label vaccine to be vaccinated for rabies, because, again, going back to that publication. So it was only in having that kind of initial discussion about what about exhibition animals did I learn that Rhode Island is pretty open about letting their farmers do it, but they are not considered officially vaccinated. That is a a new entertainment that hadn't really been part of the discussion before. But, if that is of interest because of our wildlife domestic, interface, I think it's worth investigating.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: John? Just a couple of quick related questions. Are real working sheep dogs or guard dogs considered livestock or they still fall in the pet category?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: They still fall in the pet category. I

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: mean, whatever municipality they're in, they should have rabies vaccines.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Yes, yes. Dogs are actually regulated on the state level. They are required to be vaccinated.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: The other thing is, can poultry of any type fowls get rabies or is it just a mammalian thing? You don't have to worry about wild turkeys or chickens. You do have

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: to worry about seals though. Eels? Fun fact. Men. We don't have any in

[Unidentified committee member]: Vermont.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Just I would

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: be relieved.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I don't what say about that.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. It's just the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: inland sea. Yeah.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Those whale's tails.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Last year we were in Bullseye up north for the first time and since I was a kid at Provo. And, you know, the rabies bait drops came in and strife about every farm there was, which was great. We we killed three confirmed rapid raccoons on our farm and killed several others. The one thing I can tell you about it being that hard hit, you don't see any raccoons now.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: They're they're far and few in between. You

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: know, we our herds not vaccinated. We had zero issues. You recall the last time my cow was confirmed with rabies in the state of Vermont?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: November either last year or the year before that.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Was there one? Okay. Because I know of one back in November, December thirty years ago. The better record.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Little inside knowledge. So yes, no, we have had a cow diagnosed with rabies in the last few years. We've been 24, I think.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I might need a third grader explanation too, but rabies is a bacteria, is it a virus?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: It's a virus, yeah.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Viruses, you mentioned that it's required that the animal lab with the rabies vaccinations were signed raw milk, because that implied that the virus would be killed in the process

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Pasteurization. Yep. One of the many things pasteurization is good for. But yes, it's a really fascinating virus that I will try really hard not to go into too hard unless you want to, but it is a very interesting one, and it's just a really aggressive and deadly one also.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: So follows nerve path loops.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: That's the bit that I was just thinking of. Was like, oh, do we need to go into this?

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: And sometimes if we've bitten in nerve, it may take a while before, it could be months before it reaches your brain, your central nervous system and kills you. That's what this thing about the, when clinical signs appear, you know, you're done.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Because it's been there for so long.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: It's very rare to see it in rodents, and it's unclear whether rodents don't get infected. Maybe we've seen some more current research, but it might just be that they die and you never know, but it's very uncommon with rodents.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I was gonna ask about rats. And possums.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: just want to be clear that you're a veterinarian. Yeah, okay. It wasn't just man or legislated. Yes.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: There's a lot of veterinary experience at this table at

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: the moment.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: So so, yeah, and that was the it's it's traveling along nerves was the thing that I was thinking about. Was like, hey, you don't need to go too deep. That doesn't seem to be needed here because it is something to nerd out about. That's for sure. Absolutely fascinating one, but it is also a very scary one and it is one that the vaccine is very effective against. And so I was recently discussing this with also my New York colleagues, they have taken it a step further in addition to requiring it for all livestock where there's a vaccine on label, their municipalities or their health department can require it for off label species. So there's not actually The vaccine is labeled for sheep, but not goats, cows, but

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: not

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: pigs, but it can be effective in species that are off label, but it's difficult to put in a requirement from a state's perspective. I'm not sure I would advocate for requiring the off label use of anything in that way, but their health departments do on a municipality or a regional level. So for some of their fairs, they do require even goats and pigs to be vaccinated, because they have that authority, like we do split amongst different groups. I really think that for all of the interest in vaccinating livestock, and we do have these occasional cases, we do have these occasional exposures, we have a process in place officially. Whether or not we explore the unofficial is one option. But that public interface, I think, is where we are at our biggest risk and our biggest concern is what if we've all been to the fair, we all have seen people interact with livestock that aren't used to it, and they stick their hands in places either intentionally or unintentionally, and they end up in animals' mouths. And if that's an exposure risk. And if these animals are unvaccinated, now what? And so with dogs, we know about approximately how many days before they show symptoms are they shedding virus. Livestock, we don't have those numbers quite as well dialed in. And so having the public exposed to unvaccinated animals can be a concern. I recently Every year I present our fair and field or field days regulations and recommendations to the Fair and Field Days Association. And we always stress that we recommend that we vaccinate for rabies amongst our livestock. This year, which was last week, they asked why we don't require it. Didn't have a good answer except that we don't yet. But they expressed some real interest in that. There are many of the fairs that were there knew that they do require it on a fair level. The others weren't sure, but seemed supportive. So we have rulemaking authority already in statute for the control of contagious diseases, including vaccinations. And so I was pleased that the leaders of our fairs were also supportive of moving in that direction. So that is that is something that I'm hoping we can get we can get some support for coming in the in the coming days and and months so we can maybe move in that direction. Because I think that there are lots of places we can discuss the risk versus benefits, and and those are subtler and and certainly important. But I think in those public interfaces, it's really important that we move in that direction.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You mentioned

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: the states, Connecticut. Rhode Island, New York, those are the ones in given region. It's a pretty common.

[Legislative Counsel (name unknown)]: I'm sure Doctor. O'Brien has it covered with rabies and I'm happy to follow-up on the question about the New England states and the council.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Is there

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: any recommendation these days for prophylactic vaccination of farmers?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: I don't believe that was covered, not in the 2026 compendium. The updated rabies compendium, so the public health veterinarians have their own organization and they have written what we refer to as the compendium, which is the shortened name of a rabies document that basically gives all recommendations for animal associated rabies. And they also cover who should be getting the vaccine and how titers are taken. So that was the document that I was referencing here. And no, I don't believe that farmers have been included in that group in the past.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Interesting because rabies and livestock is quite different from dogs. In dogs you can have the dumb form, whereas they're not aggressive, or you can have the vicious form and get bitten. You think rabies, but in a cow, a cow probably is not gonna attack you, but you might get like a choke symptom and you're examining the mouth and stuff with saliva, why is this cat choking? Well, uh-oh, there's nothing there.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: And what's the first time? Stick your hand in its mouth.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Right, and then, you you could be exposed. And anyway, that's why it was asking about.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Yeah. And that that would firmly go in the category of things to talk to the health department about because that that is a human a human vaccine question that I am not gonna step on their toes about.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Is it just the exposure to saliva, or is it the exposure to saliva with broken skin?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: It's exposure to saliva for broken skin or mucous membrane contact. So broken skin Oh, wow. Exactly, so any kind of, even like, I've got a small cut here, the last time I got a rabies post exposure was because I had poison ivy and it was pretty aggressive, just above where my glove line was. And so the health department recommended that I, in New York, recommended that I get a booster. The time before that, it was a horse that we were examining for choke, and I was feeding a, you know, a tube through trying to get this esophagus unblocked, and I was coated in saliva. Did I have any definite broken skin at that time? I don't know, but it was on my face, it was on my hands, it was every, you know, bathed in it, so.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I would on a side of caution if you had a, you know, if you're like we were, if you had it last year, so prevalent with rabies, if we'd had a non ambulatory cow that people had been handling, it would have been off with its head.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Yep, and we work with the health department to submit those samples when appropriate. And we discuss the exposure profile, what is the risk to the public? What is the risk to the farmer who could have been exposed? Very rarely is there zero concern for exposure because inevitably someone has stuck their hand in its mouth to see if there was something stuck there. And that's all it takes.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Doctor, is there, like about vaccinations in Pearson field days, Does your office sort of set the standards for what animals get what vaccinations? Say, is it Coggins disease and things like that?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: So there isn't a vaccine for So Coggins is the name of a test that tests for equine infectious anemia. And so the disease is called EIA, the test that is most commonly run is called Coggins. And so that's just a shorthand whenever we're talking about it. Our office sets requirements and recommendations for the state. The requirements are pretty are limited mostly to what is required for importation or in line with federal order. The HPAI, I now have to go back and revise twenty twenty sixes, thanks to yesterday's announcement. But that is generally where our requirements, we limit to things that we have laws for or trying to control a specific outbreak. We periodically ban waterfowl when the risk is really high versus just strongly recommend against is another category. So most of the vaccines go in the strong recommendation categories because we don't require, we have no state level requirements for vaccines in stock. It's really not that common. Fairs are about the only place where livestock are required to have vaccines kind of even on a state level. The only other vaccine that's really ever required is, and representative Nelson mentioned it earlier, brucellosis. Brucellosis used to be a much bigger concern than it currently is in cattle. Most of this America is considered free of it. Cattle brucellosis has been considered to not be in our herds except for in the greater Yellowstone area, and they have a very aggressive quarantine testing and vaccination protocol. So there's been a movement kind of across the country to move away from requiring brucellosis vaccines as they come with their own cost and headaches, and honestly, sometimes public health concerns. So that is, as a country, we're moving away from that vaccine requirement, but there are still a few states out west that require it. But that's pretty much it. People don't tend to require putting things in cows that we don't have to. It's mostly about the other way around.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: So if I took a sheep or a cap or a horse to the term is fair or the biggie or state fair, does it change then depending, do the states have the jurisdiction of vaccination requirements? Yes.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: And that's where the states that I brought up. I know that Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York all require for exhibition. If there is an on label vaccine, that that needs to be given. So cattle, horses, sheep would all need to be vaccinated for exhibition in those states, and those would have to be given by a veterinarian.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Does Pennsylvania still require testing for TB for all cattle shows?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: 'm not sure. Vermont is considered TB free, but there are some states that still require pre movement testing.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It didn't matter that we're TB free. That

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: is

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: There are a lot of states I can tell you what Vermont's requirements are. Do not have a universal, my brain's not that good. So I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: don't have

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: them all memorized. Careful.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: What else did you wanna bring up or cover?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: I really just wanted to, happy to answer any questions to representative Lipsky's previous point. I think it's important that we have conversations whenever you guys have these kinds of questions. I like to talk about the thing that I've dedicated my life to, which is livestock medicines. And I wanna be a resource for you like I am for the state. And so I'm happy to come in and have these conversations. So thank you for having me. When it comes to rabies vaccines, like we discussed or was brought up in the small animal, we already have the authority to make these rules if they are of interest. It just so happens that all these conversations came up in the last couple of weeks and usually that's a summer fall conversation. So if that is of some interest, and certainly I'm happy to look into the other points that were brought up. These are the kinds of things that were really helpful.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Howard, you

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: also cover meat inspections in a roundabout way, the the antimortem?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: So that is covered by our meat. So Kathy McNamara is our, her title recently changed from assistant state veterinarian to state agricultural public health veterinarian. So she is really the all knowing, antemortem and disease disposition when it comes to meat inspection. I try to fill in when she's not around, but it takes me about four times as long.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Maybe is she fully staffed for those people so that our process and plants can roll without hindrance?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Believe so, but you'd have to ask her that. I know that we have an expanding state slaughter program. They do a wonderful job of being equal to FSIS. They are always working on innovating and improving and working with our slaughter facilities to get access to interstate markets through the CIS program. They an impressive team. So I'm not going to step on their toes to say they're definitely all set. I just know they do really good work over there.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: They do great work and and and great help in young, well, new slaughterhouses get up and rolling and and working with the owners, and so they help them calm their calm the demons inside their yeah. I I gotta stay inspection. You're going to

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: be fine. We're not that scary.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: know, thinking about Rhode Island and how they're a different state than Vermont, and I'm not sure what their agriculture economy looks like cheap.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Yeah, we generally joke that they've got six cows. That's probably a slight exaggeration, but not by much. They have a big aquaculture state, but their land based agriculture is much smaller than Vermont's, which is really not a surprise, I think to anyone, they're smaller in a lot of things. Just geographically, don't have the space for it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And more people than that. Yeah. 10 dairy farms, it says. They can keep them.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I think housing farms has more than they have. That's possible. But

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: they are So they have they have different they have different interests. Their interests are are much more focused towards the human side of it, because they just outweigh.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Just in the few minutes that we've technically got left, there's other questions, I think if you're able to stay, we can maybe run a little long too. But if there had been an outbreak, if there were an outbreak on the farm, so if it turned out that this wild animal had transferred the rabies onto one of the farm animals, and there hadn't been the vaccination done, what would have happened at the state level?

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: So we have a framework of recommendations when it comes to rabies exposure in livestock, and it all depends on the type of exposure, the state of the herd or flock, when it was discovered, and kind of the desired disposition. So if a bite is recognized immediately and the animal is basically ready to go to slaughter, if they can be slaughtered in a very short time period, you can trim out the associated tissues and that animal is considered safe. If you miss that window, then you have to wait six to eight months before you can send a slaughter. And so when it comes to making those recommendations, there's gonna be a difference between a couple of week old piglet and a full grown steer. If they weren't going to go to slaughter anyway, then we have placed six month quarantines. No animals are allowed on or off that farm in the meantime, at least not from that cohort. And because that cohort is now at risk, if one of those animals developed symptoms, they could then expose any of the other ones that they're in there with. So you wanna keep that number limited. And so we can do the full range. You either can go to slaughter in the next couple of days, or you can wait six months and there's everything in between. And we kind of adjust based on risk profile, who was exposed, where were they exposed, to kind of do our best to both protect public health while also keeping practicality and farming in mind.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So you see you have exposure, you know you've got exposure. Can you go in with the post vaccine to keep, you know, that one animal that exposed compost and you go in with the post vaccine, does that make your herd open or you

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: If we know that there's been an exposure, we definitely recommend that. We might also still require an observational period, something like eighty two percent of all cases in cattle will develop in the first six weeks. So that's kind of one of those benchmarks that we use a lot of the time. And it also depends on the difference between, did we notice when one of the cows gets sick, or did we notice when it got exposed? And so those are different calculations. Texas developed a protocol over the last few decades of how to actually do a post exposure treatment that was shown to be, they knew they had been exposed, they went through this treatment and they didn't develop symptoms over a long period of time, which is pretty exciting. And we're hoping that the update of the compendium, which is due later this year, might have some reference to that, because it's not Right now, it's a scientific study in the Journal of Veterinary Medicine, but there is not yet a accepted protocol from a public health policy standpoint. So we're hoping that that makes a transition so we can start recommending that more strongly.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Alright, well, has been informative.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Really

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: helpful. Yeah, thank you.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: That's just scaring the crap out

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: of me.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Sorry. Good for that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And I think it's a conversation that we can continue to have, not just in this room, but part of the reason we thought it might be helpful to copy you in was just to have an open conversation that the model could be listening to as well, and just stressing how this is important.

[Dr. Brian O’Brien (State Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture)]: Yes, it is my, what I like to call my rational irrational fear. I think rabies is one of those topics that definitely I spend a lot of time thinking about and worrying about, because it has such significant consequences, but we are in a position to make some real protective actions, and that's comforting.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, thank you.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Brian.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We can go off live. Yeah.