Aggression is not a diagnosis for your veterinary patients.

Aggression is not a diagnosis for your veterinary patients. According to behavior expert and Fetch dvm360 speaker Dr. John Ciribassi, many clients (and veterinary professionals!) fail to recognize aggression for what it really is—a clinical sign. According to Dr. John Ciribassi, the most common behavior misconceptions he hears from clients and fellow veterinarians is the view that aggression is a diagnosis rather than a sign of an underlying problem. Dr. Ciribassi makes an analogy to vomit—presumably so you can get a nice mental picture: "You don't say the diagnosis is vomiting. You say the symptom is vomiting. Now we have to find out, why is that occurring? Same with aggression," he says. According to Dr. Ciribassi, thinking of aggression as a clinical sign forces us to dig deeper to determine its causes, such as fear, territoriality or a maternal problem. “Your goal as a practitioner is to diagnose why that symptom is occurring and then address the cause,” he says. This paradigm applies to both dogs and cats, though Dr. Ciribassi says the range of causes of aggression as a clinical sign is wider in dogs than in cats. “But it’s the same idea,” he says. “Cats display aggression for a few different reasons—fear and territoriality are probably the biggest. And then we can see pain as well in both species.”

No hoof, no horse: Ending the scourge of laminitis.

No hoof, no horse: Ending the scourge of laminitis. With a little less than three years to go, will equine researchers meet the ambitious goal of Vision 2020—to conquer laminitis? Laminitis—the painful, crippling disease from damage to the hoof’s sensitive laminae—has been a scourge for ages, but it may soon … finally … be overcome. It is estimated that 15 percent of horses in the U.S. are afflicted by laminitis in their lifetime. Up to 75 percent of those affected eventually develop severe or chronic lameness and debilitation. An estimated $13 million annually is associated with the evaluation and treatment of laminitis and the loss of horses after a diagnosis. Now in 2017, there is reason for hope. Veterinarians at major universities worldwide are working on and inching closer to a cure. We’re on the verge of being able to treat the early stages of laminitis and perhaps reverse its devastating course that leads to the demise of so many horses.

Pet insurance : When is it a good time to buy pet health insurance?.

When is it a good time to buy pet health insurance?. As with anything you own and want to protect, the time to buy insurance is when you do not need it. Pets are part of our family, but we also own them. We plan to have enough money to cover their feeding, housing, and entertainment needs. 

 We also plan for routine medical care and wellness needs such as for vaccinations and parasite preventatives. It is the unexpected need for medical care that catches people unprepared. For some owners, having an insurance policy for their pet could make the difference between getting the needed medical care done or having to choose from another, less favorable option. Pet health insurance needs to be purchased ahead of need and before your pet develops any lifelong conditions that would be considered pre-existing and not covered.

Veterinary staff like to discuss pet health insurance with owners of puppies and kittens as enrolling them at such a young age means they have not had time to develop lifelong conditions. Allergies, chronic ear conditions, arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease are just some of the chronic illnesses that take time to develop. Also, puppies and kittens tend to get into mischief and injure themselves. Puppies tend to explore their world via their mouth and swallow many things they should not such as socks and plastic items. 

Kittens sometimes swallow strings or other parts of fabrics. Surgeries to remove foreign objects would often be covered by insurance. Adult dogs and cats also can benefit from health insurance. As pets age, some will develop cancer. There are more options now than ever before in diagnosing it. Cancer treatments are also improved with targeted radiation therapies and chemotherapy. 

Veterinary bills for specialty cancer care can range easily from $5,000 to $10,000, and pet health insurance may pay for a significant chunk of it. Hip and knee problems tend to plague older dogs and high-energy, active dogs. They may need costly knee operations or hip replacement surgery. Multiple alternative and complementary therapies such as chiropractic care for animals, acupuncture, and therapeutic laser for chronic pain are available and covered by many insurance policies.

VETERINARY MEDICINE: Pet health insurance rising in popularity.

Pet health insurance rising in popularity. The 12-year-old was diagnosed with a tumor near her tail in August. Fortunately, Rita invested in pet insurance 8 years ago. "It is a relief it is an investment and a bit of a gamble as insurance usually is you could never see a return on it and for most insurance, you hope you don't," Orrell says. Insurance for dogs, cats and other pets is growing in popularity.

 Nearly 2 million pets were insured in 2016, up 15 percent from the prior year, but that's still just a fraction of the 144 million pets in America. Some Fortune 500 companies are now offering employees pet insurance as a work perk. "From their employee's point of view, pets have really become part of the family.

 Literally, over the last few years, pets have moved from the backyard to the bedroom," says Scott Liles, Vice President and Chief Pet Insurance Officer for Nationwide. If you have to buy a plan on your own it can cost more than $40 a month.

 They usually only cover accidents and illnesses, not wellness visits and vaccines. I understand that people may not be able to afford that," says Orrell. PetCure Oncologist Dr. Van Beven says insurance is vital when an animal is hit with a serious disease like cancer.

"Pesticides in produce linked to women not getting pregnant with IVF".

"Pesticides in produce linked to women not getting pregnant with IVF". A new study has found a potentially harmful link between eating fruits and vegetables high in pesticides and having lower reproductive rates. In the report, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, scientists studied 325 women who were using assisted reproductive technologies to get pregnant. They were part of the Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) study, which was designed to measure factors that can affect reproductive success. The women in the study filled out detailed questionnaires about their diet, along with other factors that can affect IVF outcomes, like their age, weight and history of pregnancy and live births. Senior investigator Dr. Jorge Chavarro, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and his colleagues then matched the dietary responses with a U.S. government database of average pesticide residues on fresh fruit and vegetables to calculate a measure of the amount of pesticides the women were exposed to from their diet. Certain fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries, spinach and peppers, tend to consistently rank high on pesticide residues, while others, like peas and avocados, rank lower. Women with high exposure were eating more than two servings of high-pesticide fruits or vegetables a day, compared to women in the lowest exposure group, who ate one serving of high pesticide fruits and vegetables daily on average. Women who had the highest pesticide exposure were 18% less likely to get pregnant than women with the lowest exposure, and 26% less likely to have a live birth.

FIIRO woos Unilever on R&D commercialization.

FIIRO woos Unilever on R&D commercialization.Consumer products giant, Unilever Plc and the Federal Institute for Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) are poised to seal a bilateral agreement on commercialisation of some of the research products of the institute. This was disclosed when a technical team from Unilever Plc visited FIIRO office in Lagos. On the occasion, FIIRO Director-General Prof Gloria Elemo showed some of the researches to the delegation; saying the institute was well endowed to deliver at all time and that it was open to collaborations with Unilever in various areas. She called for collaboration on product development and commercialization, adding that the raw materials, crops and technical back-up for the exploitation of research results were available and in the right quantity and quality.

AfDB targets 513 million tonnes of food production by 2025.

AfDB targets 513 million tonnes of food production by 2025. The African Development Bank (AfDB)’s new initiative Technologies for African Agriculture initiative will produce 513 million tonnes of additional food across Africa. It will also lift nearly 250 million Africans out of poverty by 2025. A statement from the bank said 25 African countries have written letters, confirming their interest and readiness to participate in TAAT, and help transform their agriculture. TAAT, according to the bank, will support its Feed Africa Strategy for the continent to eliminate the current massive importation of food and transform its economies by targeting agriculture as a major source of economic diversification and wealth, as well as a powerful engine for job creation. The commodities value chains to benefit from this initiative are rice, cassava, pearl millet, sorghum, groundnut, cowpea, livestock, maize, soya bean, yam, cocoa, coffee, cashew, palm oil, horticulture, beans, wheat and fish. AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina, at a TAAT side event in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, said: “TAAT was born out of this major consultation and brings together global players in agriculture, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, World Food Programme, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Rockefeller Foundation and national and regional agricultural research systems.