Receiveing at Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory

Abstract

Texas legislators created TVMDL during the regular session of the 6oth Legislature, in 1967. In 1969 TVMDL opens its original 18,000-square-foot facility on the Texas A&M University campus in College Station. During a massive anthrax outbreak in east central Texas (1975), National Guard helicopters deliver specimens daily to TVMDL, which becomes known worldwide as an anthrax expert. The virology section of TVMDL becomes the world's first to isolate canine parvovirus in 1978. The next year they developed a killed canine parvovirus vaccine and licensed it to Jen-Sal Corporation. In 1989 the Texas Racing Act gives them the primary responsibility for providing drug-testing services to the pari-mutuel horse and greyhound racing industries. The 72nd Texas Legislature in 1991 transfers implementation of the Salmonella Pullorum-Typhoid Program to TVMDL. During 1998 their pathology department is the first to recognize that unusual liver lesions in dogs are caused by aflatoxin contamination of cornbased dog food. And in that same year the toxicology department of TVMDL is heavily involved in helping to control the large aflatoxicosis outbreak in Texas and nationwide. In 2002 the U.S. Department of Agriculture chose TVMDL as one of 12 core state/university diagnostic laboratories to be part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN), a partnership between the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians and the USDA. NAHLN laboratories receive funds for homeland security surveillance and diagnostics of eight high-priority foreign animal diseases. Two thousand and four saw the TVMDL playing a critical role in containing and eradicating a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak in poultry in Gonzales County, Texas, saving the poultry industry from millions of dollars in potential losses. In 2004 the College Station facility adds two new 800-square-foot Biosafety Level 3 laboratories, designed to diagnose some of the most contagious and deadly animal diseases. During 2008 they become one of the nation’s first laboratories to alert veterinarians and federal agencies to the presence of melamine in companion animal food, resulting in a national reevaluation of the animal food inspection process. TVMDL diagnoses an outbreak of equine piroplasmosis in 2009, and works closely with the National Veterinary Services Laboratory and state animal health officials to ensure proper notification and quarantine. In 2011 TVMDL opens a new 2,950-square-foot Poultry Diagnostic Laboratory in Gonzales, less than one mile away from the old facility built in 1971. It also expands its full-service laboratory in Amarillo to better serve animal agriculture in the Texas Panhandle.