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National Animal Identification System (NAIS)
and the Equine Owner
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by R. M. Thornsberry, D.V.M., M.B.A. |
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It is important for horse owners to know why NAIS
is being forced on the equine industry within the United States. The
United States and many other countries signed a World Trade
Organization (WTO) treaty in the 1990’s which obligated the first
world countries, which had spent literally millions and millions of
taxpayer dollars to eradicate contagious animal diseases, to develop
a system of individual animal identification. The individual animal
identification was demanded by the Organization of International
Epizootics (OIE), a WTO world wide governmental agency, tasked with
developing trade rules and internationally obligated trade
regulations that would force animal and meat trade between countries
that had eradicated contagious diseases with those that had not
eradicated contagious animal diseases. In other words, the United
States, which had eradicated Equine Piroplasmosis in the 1980’s, a
tick borne protozoal infection, would, by identifying all equines,
be forced to trade with countries that had not eradicated Equine
Piroplasmosis. In general, the argument goes something like this:
Once you can identify every equine at birth and trace their every
movement off the farm from birth to death, a first world country
that has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to eradicate Equine
Piroplasmosis, can no longer prevent trade with those countries who
have refused to spend the necessary resources to eradicate Equine
Piroplasmosis.
The United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) no longer seeks to carry out their
mandate to prevent the introduction of foreign animal and plant
diseases into the United States. Currently, USDA-APHIS in supporting
NAIS, spending millions of tax payer dollars to entice livestock and
equine owners into the system by promoting the acquisition of a free
Premises Identification Number (PIN)from their respective state
departments of agriculture. Producers of cattle, and equine owners,
are the two classes of livestock owners who have overwhelmingly
refused to receive an internationally sanctioned encumbrance to
their private property. The USDA says a PIN is the first step to a
painless process of identification of all livestock owners’ physical
locations, and that this PIN number is essential for the USDA to
find a farm and quickly trace the movement of animals in the face of
a contagious animal disease outbreak.
Yet, in any location within the state of Missouri, and I am sure in
most states, you can simply punch 911 into your phone, and in a
matter of 15 to 20 minutes, the police, the fire department, the
ambulance, the sheriff, and usually the Conservation Commission
Agent will be at your doorstep, but the USDA says they cannot find
you? At every Agricultural Services-USDA office in the United
States, you may obtain a description of your farm or ranch,
including a current aerial photograph. You can go on Google Earth,
type in your physical address, and privately obtain a detailed
satellite photograph of your farm or ranch, providing such detail,
that you can actually count individual cattle or horses in your
pasture, and the USDA says it cannot find your farm or ranch in a
contagious animal disease outbreak? The reasons the USDA want you to
obtain a Premises Identification Number have nothing whatever to do
with the USDA’s ability to find your farm or your cattle or your
horses. My 10 year old grandson can find my farm, a detailed
satellite photograph of my farm, my telephone number, my mailing
address, and my physical address on his computer in a matter of
seconds. It’s called Google!!!
The USDA-APHIS has testified before the United States Department of
Agriculture, House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture,
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, Poultry, March 11, 2009 that the
NAIS would have to be electronic in nature to function as envisioned
by the WTO. This simply means no visual tags, hot or cold brands,
tattoos, ear notches, or individual color markings or descriptions
will be allowed for individual animal identification. While this is
a problem for other types of livestock, for the equine industry, it
becomes a major hurdle to overcome. For equines, dogs, cats, fish,
poultry, and many exotic animals, the only acceptable means of
electronic individual animal identification is a surgically
implanted glass enclosed electronic microchip. This implant is not
nearly as simple to surgically implant within an animal as some are
led to believe. When I implant a chip into an animal, I clip or
shave the area. I scrub the area with surgical preparation soap
containing iodine, and I finish by spraying the area with a surgical
site disinfection iodine-alcohol solution. Lastly, I inject the area
over the site of implantation with lidocaine to render the skin and
underlying tissues devoid of sensation. The chips come individually
packaged in a sterile container. To maintain this sterility, I must
be sterile, which requires a surgical scrubbing of my hands, and the
donning of a pair of sterile surgical latex gloves. Only after this
extensive preparation, am I ready to actually implant the chip in
the nuchal ligament of the mid neck area of my equine patient.
Compare this process to the cattle producer who simply places a
small eartag in his cattle.
The glass enclosed chips do not always stay put. Like a splinter in
your finger, the body often mounts a response to a foreign body,
even one as innocuous as a piece of sterile glass. The response may
include the formation of a sterile abscess around the chip, or it
may simply be painful and generate a negative response from the
horse as it turns its neck or tries to graze, or attempts a
performance endeavor at a race, show, or event. Chips have been
known to migrate quite extensive distances within the body of an
animal. Ask any veterinarian that works in this area of interest.
Simply finding a chip to make a reading in some animals becomes a
major undertaking. Only recently, has another side effect of
chipping become known. A small percentage of veterinary patients
have developed a cancerous growth at the site of implantation. While
the incidence is low in animals whose lives are relatively short, an
equine patient, living to the age of 20 to 35 years, has much more
time to develop a cancerous growth around the implanted chip, than
does a dog or cat, whose lifetime is closer 12 to 15 years. For a
very complete summary and analysis of the scientific literature on
microchips and cancer, see Katharine Albrecht, Ed.D., “Microchip
Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the
Literature, 1990 to 2006,” available at
www.antichips.com/cancer.
With all that being evaluated, the primary reason the USDA-APHIS
desires to force the NAIS system onto the livestock sectors of the
United States is simple: Bruce Knight told a large group of bovine
practitioners at our annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada in
September 2007, when asked why the USDA was pushing so hard for NAIS,
and I quote, “It is quite simple. We want to be in compliance with
OIE regulations by 2010.”
Now I don’t know about all you equine owners, but we cattle
producers do not look kindly on an international agency in Belgium
telling us what we can and cannot do with our livestock in the
United States. Our grandfathers and fathers spend untold millions of
dollars to assist the USDA in eradicating many serious contagious
animal diseases during the last 75 years. Why would we now acquiesce
to a system that will open up our privately owned animals to
contagious animal diseases that we whipped and wiped out many years
ago, for access to our marketplace to animals and meat from
countries who have chosen in that same time period to ignore
eradication of contagious animal diseases? No way!!!
We live in the United States, not the WTO. We have a Constitution
that directs our legal system, not the OIE. We have a government by
the people, for the people, and of the people. It is time for the
people to stand up and say, “Enough with the one world government
junk!!!” If equine owners do not stand up and unite their voices
with other livestock producers, NAIS will become mandatory in the
United States. It will cost the equine owner in excess of $50.00 a
head to implant the electronic microchip desired by the USDA and the
WTO. You will then be required to report any movement of your horse
or horses off your property, and for any reason. Imagine the
bureaucratic nightmare and the paperwork requirements of reporting
to your government every time you go on a trail ride, every time you
go to a show or an event, and every time you trailer a mare to go to
the stud. There will have to be an NAIS office in every county seat
to process all this data, keep track of your information, and report
any violations to the USDA. Just imagine the fines and enforcement
actions that will be carried out to enforce this NAIS system on the
livestock industry of the United States of America, including equine
owners.
R. M. Thornsberry, D.V.M., M.B.A.
March 28, 2009
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