Spectrum - Volume 20 Issue 11 November 6, 1997 - 125th Anniversary Speaker

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125th Anniversary Speaker
`Mad-cow' expert featured today at VMRCVM

By Jeffrey S. Douglas

Spectrum Volume 20 Issue 11 - November 6, 1997

The veterinarian who has represented the United States in an international effort to understand and contain threats associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)--or "mad-cow disease"--will speak at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine on Thursday, Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the college's classroom 102.
William Hueston will present a lecture entitled "Mad-Cow Hysteria or Legitimate Public Health Threat? BSE and other Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies."
Hueston, now associate dean of the Maryland Campus of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, has played a pivotal role in helping understand the emerging BSE problem since becoming involved with it while employed at the USDA.
He is the only non-Briton appointed to the British Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), and served as the official USDA spokesman on BSE during the period of intense media attention in early 1996.
Hueston's lecture is the last in the VMRCVM's six-week "New Horizons in Veterinary Medicine Speaker Series," which has been produced in honor of Virginia Tech's 125th Anniversary Celebration.
"Our institution is nationally recognized for academic programs which prepare veterinarians for work in "non-traditional" areas of veterinary medicine," said Dean Peter Eyre. "Many of these speakers will showcase some of these emerging ways in which this profession is serving society, and we are delighted they have agreed to be a part of the series."
The presentation is open to the public. A reception will follow.