EIA cases in West/Southwest

[poltroon]

For clarity, I’ve always known about EIA and Coggins testing, even before I owned a horse. (Yes, I’m that much of a geek, I read EVERYTHING, every bit of printed material I could find about horses, when I was a kid.) I even wrote a paper about it in middle school.

I’ve never had an equine professional in California even suggest that one should be done, not even when I was eventing and traveling all over the state.

I know for many of you this is routine health care and in your areas it may be appropriate. But, as I said earlier, the lack of regular testing in California does not seem to have created any kind of health problem - we’re not sending visiting horses home with positive tests.

I do sometimes wonder how much having the test-and-slaughter by federal law for this one disease and this one only encoded into law has prevented some better solutions from coming forward. If someone were to develop an effective vaccine, that law would have to be repealed for it to be used, because it is an antibody test. It’s a hard vaccine to make but you couldn’t even try without making horses Coggins positive. There has been some money for research anyway because of the similarity to HIV. But if I’m a vaccine maker, I’m probably not up for the risk of trying to make this challenging vaccine (that requires my test subjects be isolated and destroyed) at all plus also the risk that I can’t change the law.

But again, in California, our biggest risk seems to be not biting flies but reuse of needles. And it’s not veterinarians reusing the needles to save literally sixty cents. Or, as we suspect here, blood doping.

[Sdel]

@poltroon

I do sometimes wonder how much having the test-and-slaughter by federal law for this one disease and this one only encoded into law has prevented some better solutions from coming forward. If someone were to develop an effective vaccine, that law would have to be repealed for it to be used, because it is an antibody test. It’s a hard vaccine to make but you couldn’t even try without making horses Coggins positive.

Texas provides for quarantine situations so that horses do not have to be euthanized. I believe it is 250 yards away from any non-positive equines and they will never be allowed to leave the premises except by specific permission to go to an approved research or diagnostic facility. Also, they must be identified by brand within a certain amount of time.

[poltroon]

@Sdel

Texas provides for quarantine situations so that horses do not have to be euthanized. I believe it is 250 yards away from any non-positive equines and they will never be allowed to leave the premises except by specific permission to go to an approved research or diagnostic facility. Also, they must be identified by brand within a certain amount of time.

This is a provision of federal law, not state by state.

In practice, this makes it extremely difficult to keep the horse, regardless of its health status. Even if you have your own premises, it’s kind of sad to force a horse to live alone. It’s not impossible for research but again all horses that have been used for EIA vaccination research have ended up euthanized at the end of the trial, per the research protocol/plan.

It could part of why there aren’t any known effective treatment protocols. What’s even the point of trying? Given that we have antivirals effective for HIV, it’s not impossible that a (very expensive) treatment is possible, but why would you do that for a horse would be subject to that lifelong quarantine? I looked to see if there were any papers on that topic and did not find any.

We also know that horses do recover from infection on their own sometimes - else the quarantine locations wouldn’t have horses in them for years, as on Assateague Island.

[Sdel]

My point was that the law on this hasn’t hindered research. It’s something that could be done if someone wanted to badly enough, horses can be quarantined to allow research to be done. I don’t think the public has huge ethical concerns about animal testing in this manner.

For whatever reason, there isn’t enough incentive. My guess is that the lack of incentive is because the solution we have now has been so effective that it’s now considered rare enough that it doesn’t justify the expense of developing medications and/or vaccines for a disease that affects very few horses annually. It’s really only recently that we’ve had really effective HIV meds and vaccines compared to when the Coggins laws were put into place.

[Sdel]

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2022-eia-report.pdf

Here is a report from the USDA for EIA cases in 2022. There were less than 100 cases that year, with about half coming from California. There is also a chart that compares the number of tests performed compared to the number of positives for the two decades prior to 2022.

[Demerara_Stables]

@Sdel

with about half coming from California

Seems like we should do something about that (not eye rolling at you, eye rolling at California)

[SusanO]

My friend’s horse that was not euthanized went to live a solitary life with her parents at their house. They (her parents) were sure that a cure was coming soon. This was in the 70’s. I think the horse finally died of old age.

[SusanO]

So where is Dick Francis when we need him? I looked at EDCC outbreaks in the last year or so. Most of them were in California and Texas. Most were Quarter Horses and the ones in California were racing QH’s. There are outbreaks in California before this most recent one. And at least one in a racing QH in New Mexico. And the outbreaks in California were not due to insects. Blood doping with used needles? I thought there might be a lab across the border that was using a positive horse as a donor but I think (at least for humans) you take and store and then infuse blood from the same animal, not another horse. Poor sanitary practices in illegal doping? But somehow a positive horse entered the chain. We need Mr. Francis to solve this mystery.

[poltroon]

@Sdel

My point was that the law on this hasn’t hindered research. It’s something that could be done if someone wanted to badly enough, horses can be quarantined to allow research to be done. I don’t think the public has huge ethical concerns about animal testing in this manner.

For whatever reason, there isn’t enough incentive. My guess is that the lack of incentive is because the solution we have now has been so effective that it’s now considered rare enough that it doesn’t justify the expense of developing medications and/or vaccines for a disease that affects very few horses annually. It’s really only recently that we’ve had really effective HIV meds and vaccines compared to when the Coggins laws were put into place.

Almost all of the cases are due to needles and overwhelmingly they’ve been in racing Quarter Horses that are traveling between multiple jurisdictions. Whether this is because they are doing blood doping or whether they come from people trained on livestock animals where they think it’s completely acceptable to use the same needle for dozens of animals, I don’t know. There also seems to be a set of cases that is due to horses being moved from Mexico, either improperly or maybe too far in time from the testing.

I don’t understand why you think the law hasn’t hindered research. Yes, it is possible to do the research, but it is much more expensive and challenging to do, and there’s huge uncertainty in the upside - that is, if I do somehow manage to make a successful treatment or vaccine for EIA, I have to count on being able to change federal law before I can market it, and getting that done before my patent expires is a significant uncertainty. If I were a biotech executive, I wouldn’t take that bet. Too many other targets to explore.

It’s also just a hard disease and this still might be the right course of action for now. We can be honest about the costs and decide it’s still worth it, but we shouldn’t blind ourselves to those costs. At some point there will be a time to reevaluate this disease and whether we have better tech to address it than we did in 1973.

[SBrentnall]

There are no show venues that I know of in SoCal which require a Coggins. They do require proof of vaccination, however.

[DMK]

Asking for proof of a current coggins is a newer thing even in the heart of the deep South. I think the first time I ever had to provide* one was when I switched to dressage just pre COVID. Obviously once EHV-1 became a more widespread thing, everyone on the East Coast became a lot more rigorous about checking all the paperwork.

'* to be fair I believe the prize list always said it had to be provided, but I showed at fair amount of venues over a good number of years and was never asked for that information.

[CanteringCarrot]

I got asked for proof of a current Coggins in Massachusetts back in 2007ish. So it varies.

[SusanO]

I mostly showed in schooling shows and I remember you either had to send along a copy of the test with your entry form or the actual test. If you sent the original you got it back when you went to the entry table to sign in. This was a long while ago though.

[Demerara_Stables]

@DMK

Asking for proof of a current coggins is a newer thing even in the heart of the deep South.

I had to provide one as early as 2003 in Florida.

[jvanrens]

We had to provide them back in the late '70’s back in eastern Ontario. Horsefly central around here. One farm lost 9 to positive tests one fall. Sad situation, it was a trail riding and boarding spot.

[DMK]

It’s good to be the exception that proves the rule!

Seriously, I lived in South Florida and now GA. In showing from 1980 to about 2015ish I never once showed a show secretary or mailed in a copy of my coggins at Tropical, WEF, HITS, Fox Lea, PASC, saddle up, hucks and a few other show grounds I’ve long forgotten. Ditto wills, Aikenbeforebrucesfield, TryonbeforeTIEC, lake placid, Culpeper, WNC, Roanoke and again, places I’ve forgotten, no coggins request.

But I know there was a show secretary out there asking for one, and you met her!

[trubandloki]

Again, things are so different all over the place.
I have been showing a rabies certificate and a current negative coggins for rated shows and silly low level open shows, heck, even organized trail rides, since the 1980s (in NY).

[MorganMaresVT]

I manage/secretary a couple of endurance & competitive trail rides every year (Vermont & New Hampshire), and we definitely require current Coggins and proof of rabies. We’ve had to turn people away without them.

I too am surprised to hear there are states that don’t require Coggins. People are getting a little grumpier about providing Rabies around here which to be honest, also surprises me.

[Demerara_Stables]

Can I ask why you require rabies vaccines? I’ve never heard of that. Most people that I know with don’t even vaccinate for rabies 🤷

[Simkie]

Because there’s a large terrestrial reservoir for rabies across much of the US, so vaccinating is highly advised.

I grew up in Colorado, and when I was a teen, rabies was not on the list of recommended equine vaccinations from CSU, despite being considered a core vaccination by the AAEP.

Then the rabies reservoir expanded in the state, and rabies vaccination recommendations increased. When I started vaccinating for rabies, it was still uncommon enough that my vet didn’t carry the vaccine regularly.

I don’t know why a rabies reservoir in bats doesn’t trigger the same recommendation.