AAVN Newsletter November 2020 |
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From the President's Desk
Dear Colleagues,
One positive element to this year? A reminder that life can always throw you a curveball so it's important to be flexible and have a back up plan.
While we are hopeful that our situation will change by June, we have decided to move forward in planning a virtual Symposium in June. Given that several other conferences/meetings have also decided to offer virtual programming in that month, we are working to coordinate our dates to ensure that you can all attend as many online programs as possible. As soon as we have our schedule confirmed, we will let you know.
In the interim, please Save the Date for our first webinar of 2021!
Tuesday, February 16th, 7 pm EST
Foal Nutrition, Dr. Sarah Stoneham, Hambleton Equine Clinic, UK
As always, please don't hesitate to contact us with any ideas/ suggestions or feedback!
Thank you, as always, for your commitment to the profession.
Martha G. Cline, DVM, DACVN
AAVN Executive Board – President (2017 – 2021)
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AAVN 2021 Symposium
Call for Abstracts
The AAVN is now accepting abstracts for the 21st Annual Clinical Nutrition and Research Symposium, scheduled for June 9th-10th, 2021.
A virtual component of this symposium is anticipated, given the impact of COVID-19. Further details will follow as we monitor the situation. Please tentatively Save the date for June 9th-10th, 2021.
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Call for Abstract Reviewers
The AAVN is seeking 5 members to volunteer their time to anonymously review abstracts for our annual Clinical Nutrition & Research Symposium. If you are able to volunteer for this important task, or interested in learning more about this opportunity, please email AAVNSymposium@gmail.com (please do not reply to this email) by November 15, 2020.
If you are an author, co-author, or mentor to a person submitting an abstract this year, please refrain from volunteering.
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AAVN Member Updates
No matter the continent or time zone, AAVN members are staying busy during this unprecedented year, and a few of them kindly responded to an email request to share an update from their little corner of the world. Your own news and activities are of interest, too, so please consider sending a few sentences to the E-newsletter editor for a future issue!
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Dr. Linda Fleeman Melbourne, Australia |
After 7 months of lockdown we have finally achieved the happy goal of 11 consecutive days of no new cases of COVID! We feel victorious! It's spring here and it seems highly likely that restrictions will be eased as we head towards Christmas.
Here in Australia, my focus when I am not treating diabetic animals is often on pet food safety. Dr. Sue Foster and I volunteer our time as representatives of the Australian Veterinary Association to manage PetFAST (Pet Food Adverse event System of Tracking), which receives reports from veterinarians across the nation of suspected adverse events associated with pet foods. A major benefit of PetFAST is that the reports provide relatively 'clean' data because they come exclusively from veterinarians. The most commonly reported adverse events on a weekly basis continue to be acquired proximal renal tubulopathy associated with various commercial dried dog treats. Recently in October another cluster of food-associated megaesophagus in dogs was identified by PetFAST. Fortunately, the manufacturer promptly issued a voluntary recall of the product and the case numbers are now dwindling. The product potentially associated with the recent cluster of cases was notably different from those linked with the megaesophagus outbreaks in Latvia 2014-2016 and Australia 2017-2018 because it is a vegan product.
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Dr. Roschelle Heuberger Mt. Pleasant, Michigan |
Dr. Heuberger is a member of the faculty in the Dept. of Nutrition and Dietetics at Central Michigan University. She has two active projects that she shared information about--the first is a pilot study funded through Paws for People Grant #P63224. She is researching the implications of placing senior companion animals with older persons in institutional settings in an effort to ascertain if food intake and nutritional status improves for both people and animals. This project will also examine potential barriers, legislation, organizational systems and other factors surrounding feasibility of companion animals being placed in institutional settings.
Roschelle’s second project is funded through Bridges to a Cure Grant #P69775 and this is a study investigating contaminants in soil and water and the rising incidence of canine immune mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA) in the southwestern USA. Soil and water samples are being collected and analyzed using mass spec for two dozen trace elements (including Arsenic and Cadmium) from locations with known cases of IMHA in dogs.
Outside of her full-time job, Roschelle is the Founder and Executive director of an organization called “Quilts to the Rescue”, which works to fund senior companion animal rescues and to keep senior people with their pets.
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Congratulations to our
2nd Place Student Blog
Contest Winner
Dr. Stepfanie George
University of Missouri
Veterinarians and the Pet Food Industry
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Welcome 2021 Student Chapters!
The AAVN is excited to announce the following active student groups this year!
Mississippi State University
University of Missouri
University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
University of Wisconsin- Madison
The Ohio State University
Ontario Veterinary College
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University
Colorado State University
Cornell University
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Membership Renewals: Grace Period
The AAVN e-newsletter and list serve are both benefits of membership.
Although the membership year runs from October 1st - September 30th, we have extended the "grace" period for these benefits through December 1st. However, on that date we will be removing all non-members from these distribution lists.
If you have not already, please renew your membership for the 2020-2021 year!
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Don't Miss the CAVN Webinar Series!
The Canadian Academy of Veterinary Nutrition has scheduled a series of FREE nutrition webinars for November and early December.
These talks are designed for members of the veterinary health care team who regularly talk to clients about pet nutrition.
Register just once for the series and you'll get reminder emails for each session: BIT.LY/CAVN2020
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New feature for the AAVN Newsletter: “Dig and Discover”
Dr. Sarah Abood
Have you ever found yourself hopping down the bunny trail of hyperlinks on the internet? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go check out the blog posts by Dr. Brennan McKenzie at his website, SkeptVet.com. I highly recommend setting a timer, though, because once you click on one hyperlink to access an article that was referenced, you may soon discover that 30- or 60-minutes has gone by and you’re many pages away from the place where you started! This always happens to me when I investigate what’s new at SkeptVet.com. More recently, Dr. Laura Gaylord introduced me to an organization I hadn’t heard of before-the Pet Sustainability Coalition. I think it is a good example of a website that more AAVN members might be interested in but unfamiliar with; this got me thinking, what if we periodically shared information about interesting websites that could be useful to the AAVN membership? If you discover a new or unusual website that has useful information you can utilize in your day-to-day work, please consider sharing it with us through the e-newsletter!
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A Friendly Reminder from Dr. Sarah Abood, Newsletter Editor
Your colleagues would enjoy hearing about interesting nutrition-related cases that you've seen in your daily practice, or some different learning activities you've instituted in a nutrition course. Please consider sharing a short write-up that we can include in a future newsletter.
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Are you planning on publishing an article or making a nutrition presentation some time in 2020? We'd love to announce it for you! Please send to the Executive Directors at aavnexecutive@gmail.com or the E-newsletter editor aboodsarah@gmail.com
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Place your ad here!
The AAVN offers both display and classified advertising in the monthly e-newsletter. To learn more about space limitations and fees, please contact aavnexecutive@gmail.com
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Job notices received from an AAVN member will then be posted in the following places as a service to our membership:
1) AAVN Listserv
3) The following AAVN monthly newsletter
Members are also welcome to send relevant events, surveys intended for scientific research, training programs or courses to aavnexecutive@gmail.com for notice through our listserv and/or newsletter.
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Guidelines for FOR-profit Industry Content in the AAVN E-Newsletter |
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- Content can be up to 150 words (approximately three paragraphs) and can include a weblink or link to PDF
- Content will be labeled clearly: PAID FOR AND CREATED BY (company name)
- Content must be approved by the AAVN Outreach Committee
- Once content is approved, the AAVN will contact you to coordinate payment.
- The cost is $300 per issue.
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