It’s true that Scott Dee, a retired veterinarian with Pipestone, has thought about porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) more than most people throughout his lifetime. The “mystery disease” rocked his world as a young practicing swine veterinarian as he sought to find answers to help producers survive one of the most challenging times in the pork industry.
“In the late 80s, a 1,000-sow farm was huge. Most farms were 200 to 500 sows, and all the buildings were on one site. It was a very bacterial disease focused industry. Viruses didn’t play a big role in the health programs at that time. There really weren’t many viral diseases, and there certainly was nothing like PRRS,” Dee says.
A Devastating Foe
When Dee graduated from veterinary school, PRRS had not yet emerged. But within the next year, it reared its ugly head and was a real disaster, he explains.
“One of the most disappointing experiences I ever had in my almost 37-year career is how the industry fought each other, especially the veterinarians, in the early days of mystery swine disease. People were trying to figure out what it was. There were certain camps of researchers that thought they had the silver bullet. There was no sharing, no collaboration, no working together,” Dee says.
Fortunately, the industry has evolved and collaboration has been key to many of the improvements that pork producers see today from vaccines and diagnostics to biosecurity plans and genetics. Fighting PRRS requires a multi-pronged approach.
Over the years, Dee transitioned from practicing on the farm to taking that practical knowledge into research roles at the University of Minnesota and Pipestone where he took on challenges one by one – finding solutions and documenting his research for the entire industry’s benefit.
“One thing that strikes me when I look at Dr. Dee’s career (and his contributions have been many at multiple levels), is how he’s helped advance biosecurity for the swine industry through his research on PRRS and applying very basic concepts on how virus gets transmitted,” says Montse Torremorell, department chair and professor in the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
From air filtration to feed mitigants, his research has changed the industry, she adds.
Fighting PRRS Today
Still, the battle against PRRS wanes on and many wonder if we can win the war.
“If you asked me this a year ago, I would have been very negative, saying that we don’t have any idea what to do. We’re really struggling. The virus is winning the war all the time,” Dee says. “This year, though, we’ve put out a couple of new papers where we’ve shown we’ve solved a very important problem - the problem of area spread of the virus. So now we can eliminate the virus, and we can keep it out.”
He believes these recent next-generation biosecurity findings, recently published here, combined with all the great work people have done in PRRS research, make him optimistic the industry has everything it needs to take PRRS incidence down dramatically.
“I really think a lot of what we did is applicable not only to PRRS, but to other diseases. Within the system, we see less porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) now, we see less mycoplasma and we see less influenza. This goes beyond pigs and PRRS,” Dee explains.
When it comes to fighting PRRS or any disease, producers have a role to play.
“This is not rocket science. It’s just taking everything we’ve learned that we know is valid because it’s been validated scientifically and putting it into a program. Of course, we have to audit it. We have to train employees. We have to take care of the people aspect. But there’s nothing really magical about what we did. We simply looked at the information we had, applied it and then measured it to see if it did anything.”
And it did. He says the industry has enough knowledge, and products that can be combined with that knowledge, to start moving the needle.
“We’ve got everything we need to start moving forward. We might learn some more things along the way. We might improve on some of those tools. We might face a bump in the road along the way,” Dee says. “But standing still and saying we can’t do anything about this virus is the wrong attitude. We have to move forward and keep our spirits up.”
Where does the industry go from here?
Find out what Dee has to say in episode 8 of The PORK Podcast here on YouTube or download it anywhere podcasts are found.
