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Shannon Bass, DVM, president of the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association,and host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA,  to discuss the NCVMA's role in helping those impacted by disasters.

The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360: Are you prepared for a disaster?

On this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, welcomed Shannon Bass, DVM, president of the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association to discuss preparedness and ways to help if you are in or near an area that was impacted by some type of disaster. Throughout the episode, Bass shared with Christman why professionals should not just self-deploy, where to access grants, and how much NCVMA has been able to give back to its veterinary community. 

The communities like to get involved too. So not just, I'm assuming, not just the veterinary professionals too, but pet owners and alike, they really want to get involved. So it sounds like it's a collaborative approach to disaster preparedness.

It really is, and we saw so many examples of a shelter might say, I need cat litter. And so pretty quickly, what we saw within a few days, they'd get cat litter, but then someone would find that social media post a week later and start to propagate it again. And then the shelter would get the second and third and fourth wave of cat litter that they didn't meet at that time, and they had no place to store it at that time.

So it was really tricky when you saw kind of this glut of supplies. And then on the non veterinary side, when I was there, a few times, you would drive by churches that had just tables of soaking wet clothes in their parking lot, because so many random clothes had been donated with no real destination that they were just going to get thrown in the trash.

It's unbelievable. And I know the AVMA has some resources through their website as well, right?

They have some great resources. And the AVMF, the American Veterinary Medical Foundation, they donated to the NCVMA. They were great partners. They have wonderful grants as well. And so any AVMA member, and I do think they even have a set of grants for non members. And so the AVMA is has been a really great partner for us. We were able to establish 2 different grants that were new just for this disaster, one [was] veterinary community grants, and those were $300 grants that were available to any veterinary staff member. All they had to do was prove to us that they were employed at a veterinary hospital on the day of the storm. They didn't have to have receipts. It didn't have to be for any specific expense. It was a community grant for those individuals, and that has felt really good. It's not a ton of money, but it's something to to help folks in that area

NCVMA president Shannon Bass, DVM, shares how veterinary teams can help and be more prepared for a natural disaster

Are you prepared for a disaster?

Mars Science & Diagnostics, a relatively new division of Mars Petcare, focuses on veterinary diagnostic and scientific research. Its vision aligns well with legacy brand, Antech, in helping veterinary professionals predict, diagnose, and monitor wellness or disease using science, data, and technology, so pets can live their healthiest lives.




 - Learn how Antech’s KeyScreen® test harnesses PCR testing.
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 - Understand what makes the Nu.Q® Canine Cancer Test so attractive in monitoring the wellness of high-risk breeds and senior dogs.


James Barr, DVM, DACVECC, joins Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, to discuss the latest in veterinary diagnostics and scientific research. 

Science Meets Compassion: Diagnostic Innovations are Driving Change in Veterinary Medicine

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USDA updates policy taking the vaccine off the shelves

Vet Watch Update: Rattlesnake Vaccine

Editor’s Note (May 22, 2025): According to sources, since this conversation was recorded, the USDA may have renewed the conditional license for the 

 Toxoid (rattlesnake vaccine) as of Friday, May 19, 2025. The video conversation above reflects the status as of the original recording, serving as valuable context regarding the USDA's decision and the science behind the vaccine. 

Below is a partial transcript, lightly edited for clarity. Watch the full video for more.

. I'm your host, Dr Christopher Lee. We're talking today about the rattlesnake vaccine [

 toxoid] and its potential loss from the marketplace. It's my pleasure to introduce Dr Dale Wallis. She's a UC [University of California], Davis graduate, just like myself. But in addition to her DVM, she also earned a certificate in preventive medicine, which is fantastic.

She was a director of a vaccine laboratory in the town of Davis before she accepted a position at Hygieia Biological Laboratories in 1993. She quickly rose to become their vice president. You may also know their sister company, Red Rock Biologics. She is now the senior staff veterinarian at Red Rock Biologics, which manufactures the rattlesnake vaccine. Welcome, Dr Wallis.

So, tell us—what's going on with the rattlesnake vaccine? It may be losing USDA [US Department of Agriculture] renewal?

It has lost USDA renewal. We believe the problem is that the USDA has changed its policy on a category of licensing called limited market conditional licenses. Conditional licenses are issued when there is no commercial product available, but there is a need. The manufacturer has to show purity, safety, and a reasonable expectation of efficacy to get this kind of license. It’s issued for things like emergency conditions—like an outbreak of some sort—or, in our case, something called a limited market. This is where products are developed to address a problem, but the market is so small [that] it doesn't warrant the cost of full licensure.

Historically, there’s been no time limit on conditional licensing. They’ve just been renewed every year or every 2 years. The USDA wants to see ongoing research for them, which we do—and that's just been the way it's been.

Recently, they changed their mind and decided to time-limit conditional limited market licenses. And in so doing, ours got timed out.

Because the rattlesnake vaccine has been on the market for quite a while. How long has it been?

Twenty-one years—wow. And, correct me if I'm wrong, there is no other rattlesnake vaccine on the market?

To our knowledge, this is the only commercial vaccine against venom.

So, this is it. There are no other options for rattlesnake vaccination, other than treatment thereafter. Is that correct?

How does the rattlesnake vaccine work? Would you walk us through that?

Sure. My partner and I both had cats that were bitten by rattlesnakes in Northern California—mine in 2002, his in 2003—and both cats nearly died. Anecdotally, at least, the stories were that a dog would get bit the first year and get very, very sick—maybe nearly die. Get bit the second year, he’d get sick, but not as bad. Third year, he’d swell up but wouldn’t get sick. Fourth year, he didn’t even react to getting bit. So, there was evidence that a dog could mount an immune response to venom.

We also knew about antivenom, which has been around for about 70 years. It’s generated by vaccinating animals repeatedly to build up a titer. That serum becomes something that can neutralize venom; it can be given to a human or an animal to counteract an envenomation.

So, we were aware that there was a biological basis not only for developing immunity to venom, but specifically that a dog could do it as well. We started working on developing technology to process venom into something that would make a vaccine.

This is something the Army tried many years ago because of troops stationed in jungles and that sort of thing, but it was never commercially viable. They never got something that would develop the kind of immunity needed or persist. We were successful, so there's been a lot of interest in figuring out what we did and how we did it.

We started testing the vaccine in mice. The reason we started with mice is because antivenom is tested in mice. It’s applied to dogs, cats, horses, people—and all of it gets tested in mice.

We figured the mouse would be a good model to see if we were getting the kind of immunity we needed from this vaccine. Lo and behold, you vaccinate mice, challenge them with venom—they survive. The controls don’t.

There is a published paper on this that repeats our work and shows the vaccine is efficacious in mice. We looked at how dogs and mice seroconvert to the vaccine; they’re virtually identical in terms of antibody generation, so we felt the mouse would be a good model for the dog.

We applied for the license, and the USDA issued the conditional license once we’d satisfied purity and safety and showed enough data to where they believed there was a reasonable expectation of efficacy. The USDA license was issued in 2004.

That's a lot of information on how that works and why it can be trusted. What is the protocol for vaccination of a pet?

When we did our work, we used border collies and greyhounds—2 breeds known to have somewhat different immune system responses that are suppressed or altered. We were trying to make sure the vaccine we made would work for all breeds of dogs.

The dogs ranged in weight from about 35 to 70 lb. We found that 2 doses a month apart gave good immunity that persisted for at least 6 to 9 months. That would be enough for dogs in the northern half of the US, where rattlesnake season is about 6 to 9 months.

In the southern US, there's often year-round exposure. So, based on our work, the label is for annual revaccination. But in the South, they’ve found that 1 dose every 6 months—or 2 doses a year—is more beneficial.

Border patrol dogs get 3 doses every 4 months due to their higher level of exposure.

Later, we expanded to include English mastiffs—dogs up to 175 lb. We found that 2 doses didn’t provide the titer rise we wanted. We gave a third dose to that group and saw good titers, but it took 3 doses. I don’t know why larger dogs have that issue, but they do. That’s not on the label—that’s just experimental data.

We also adjusted for small dogs. Dogs under 25 lb get 3 doses in the initial sequence, but not for the same reason as the large dogs. Smaller dogs have smaller blood volumes, so at the same titer, a 10-lb dog and a 50-lb dog have a 5-fold difference in resistance. We achieve a higher titer in small dogs by giving a third dose.

They do great with single-dose boosters afterward, but it takes 3 for the initial sequence.

The USDA is ending automatic renewals for limited conditional licenses, putting the long-available rattlesnake vaccine at risk.

Vet Watch: What's going on with the rattlesnake vaccine (Crotalus atrox toxoid) and the USDA?

Deborah Thomson, DVM, talks about One Health Lessons’ recently launched “Bird Flu Lessons”

Avian influenza, One Health, and a new resource for educating communities 

In the face of rising avian influenza cases, the need for education and awareness on the topic grows. That's why 

reached out for an interview with Deborah Thomson, DVM, to talk about about One Health Lessons—an educational nonprofit organization—and its recently launched “Bird Flu One Health Lessons.” Thomson is the founder and executive director of One Health Lessons, author of the acclaimed book 

Preventive Medicine

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