Safety Warning: Work-Related Pregnancy Problems in Female Veterinarians

Female veterinarians have twice the risk of miscarrying as a result of increased exposure to anesthesia gases and pesticides, according to a study released on April 1, 2008 in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine. These results highlight a warning for all young female vets, who must be made more informed of the inherent risks should they want to become pregnant.

This work was done as part of a study known as the Health Risks of Australian Veterinarians Project (HRAV), surveying all graduates from Australian veterinary schools between 1960 and 2000.

In all, 5,700 graduates were contacted, of which 2,800 responded. Of these, 1,200 were women. Within these female respondents there were 1,355 pregnancies reported, 940 of which took place while the woman was working in clinical practice. This group of pregnancies was considered eligible for inclusion in the study.

Women who carried out surgeries and were exposed to unfiltered anesthesia gases for an hour or more a week had 2.5 times the chance of miscarriage. The same was true for vets who used pesticides in their work.

Female veterinarians who performed x-rays more than five times a week had 1.8 times the chance of miscarrying. The trend appears to be consistent over time, as when the analysis was restricted to recent graduates (between 1980 and 2000), the results were similar.

This prompts the authors of the study to sound a warning to female vets who are of childbearing age, that they "should be fully informed of the possible reproductive effects of ionizing radiation, unscavenged anesthetic gases, and exposure to pesticides."

This warning could potentially apply to other staff members in equine veterinary practices as well. Thus, the authors advise that these women should take protective measures when planning to conceive and during gestation.

Article title: Maternal occupational exposures and risk of spontaneous abortion in veterinary practice
Authors: A Shirangi, L Fritschi, CDJ Holman
Journal cited: Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2008

This summary was brought to the HoofBlog's attention through a daily RSS feed from Medical News Today, a news aggregation service for the medical profession. The summary appears with the permission of the editor.

Photo at top by photographer Jan Verbeke, aka JeBeKe, of Belgium.

flip, originally uploaded by Rachel Robot.

Favorite Photo: They Don't Build Them Like This One Anymore...

Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.

Here's the fabulous Gould and Sons Forge in Merrow, England in 1913, just before the outbreak of World War I. I'm not sure what's more impressive, the horseshoe-shaped doorway to the forge or the topiary cottage next door! Does it have an arch as well?


Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.

Fast forward 15 years: Here you see the same forge in 1927. Where did the horses go? The doorway is still there but they've added gas pumps--and look at that car! Note that the cottage seems even more buried under foliage. And the fellows aren't wearing aprons.

Like so many others, I have a "thing" for these old forges with arched "horseshoe" portals and would love to know which ones are still standing. I know the one near Waterford, Ireland (now a tearoom) is still there--are there others? What became of this one in Merrow, England?

Please email fran@hoofcare.com if you have any information about old forges or farrier-related architecture. Thank you!

Great Britain Publishes Proposed Welfare Guidelines for Hoof Trimming; Distinctions Held Between Farrier, Trimmer and Veterinarian Roles

The National Equine Welfare Council of Great Britain has taken a very big bull by the horns with the publication of welfare guidelines in the trimming of horses by persons other than registered farriers and veterinarians. The first-ever guidelines were published this week, and herald the opening of a 30-day period during which time trimmers and others may comment on the proposed regulations.

The two-page document speaks firmly to the need for painfree trimming of barefoot horses, while adding a proviso that newly-barefoot horses may be painful during transition. According to the guidelines, sore barefoot horses need to be aided with oversight "including the use of protective boots and limited workload to ensure there is no pain or suffering."

The provisional text adds that "Care should be taken to ensure that any protective boots are fitted properly to avoid significant injury from straps and fixings."

In what appears to be a victory for those making a living as hoof trimmers, the regulations stop short of specifying any sort of minimum training standards, examinations or registration for trimmers. Farriers, on the other hand, will still be required to complete college training and a four-year formal apprenticeship before being allowed to shoe a horse for pay.

Under British law, only a registered (graduate) farrier may apply a horseshoe. Under the Farriers (Registration) Act of 1975 horse owners have the legal right to trim their own horses' feet, but may not put on shoes or attempt to change the shape of the horse's feet.

The new regulations specify the involvement of a veterinarian in the treatment and management of horses with hoof disease or lameness, but the language is quite vague as to when a horse's hoof problems are considered lameness vs. superficial or mechanical defects or hoof capsule deformation that may cause pain or gait abnormality.

In 2006, two British horse owners were convicted for following what were deemed to be "radical" methods advocated by German veterinarian Dr Hiltrud Strasser; the court held that the practices used lead to the unnecessary suffering of the horses in their care. No veterinary supervision was provided in that case, which involved laminitis. (See Hoof Blog posts for 17 July 2006, 31 August 2006 and 7 September 2006.)

The true acid test of the new guidelines will no doubt be the treatment of laminitis by hoof trimmers without veterinary supervision. Many claim to obtain excellent results on laminitic horses with changes in lifestyle, diet and judicious hoof trimming and dismiss the need for pain medication, radiographs and veterinary supervision. The new guidelines would suggest that trimmers should obtain precise interpretation of the new equine welfare violations if working without veterinary supervision.

"Having a code of practice will allow the (equine welfare) charities to intervene at an earlier point when they see someone is doing work that should be undertaken by a vet or farrier," commented the British Equine Veterinary Association's Chris House, who is chairman of the NEWC's equine hoofcare sub-committee.

Attached to this post are two jpeg files (below), each representing one page of the proposed British guidelines. If I have created these documents correctly, you should be able to click or double click on them (depending on your web browser setup) and they should enlarge to full page size for you to read on the screen or print out on letter-size paper. (Sorry, if it doesn't work on your system. They are large high-resolution files that may take some time to open or download.)

These documents are part of a legal process and should not be altered. Please respect the posting of these documents for your personal information. Remember that these are "in process" documents provided for comment and these regulations only affect hoof trimmers in the United Kingdom.

Blogger's Commentary: It's not likely that any proposed regulations could please all parties. I'd interpret these rules as a victory for hoof trimming as an unregulated profession in a country where almost everything else seems to be regulated. As I read this document, it is also an endorsement of the value of hoof boots when fitted properly and a warning that improper use of hoof boots would be contrary to horse welfare regulations.

Hoof Blog readers from Great Britain may comment to the NEWC using forms available on their website. Deadline for response is midnight, April 30, 2008.

Friends (No Longer) At Work: Florida Farrier Dirk Braak Shoes His Last Horse

Mr. Dirk Braak, an icon of farriers in the state of Florida, announced his retirement and stuck to it. He will no longer be shoeing horses for his long-time customers in the Tampa area.

Dirk's long career and colorful ways were beautifully documented in an article in today's Plant City Courier and Tribune.

Dirk learned his farrier skills at the Eastern School of Farriery (now Danny Ward's Horseshoeing School) in Martinsville, Virginia in 1967. His retirement date, April 8, is timed to the day so that his career will have spanned forty years since he left farrier school.

In the article, Dirk remembers that he slept in the front seat of his pickup truck while at school because he couldn't afford the dormitory fee. But he desperately wanted to learn to be a farrier.

After moving to Florida, Dirk sparked interest in farrier meetings in the Tampa area, which led to the formation of the Florida State Farrier's Association.

I have known Dirk for at least 25 years. He is passionate about his profession and has always been a leader. I can't imagine him doing anything else but I'm sure he will give anything he undertakes his all. I hope he will continue to wear his trademark suspenders!

His customers will have to learn what it's like to find and keep and pay a new farrier. How lucky they have been to have had Dirk on their farms and in their lives.

In addition to the story, the Tampa Bay Tribune has a slide show of Dirk working on their website. (Click or double-click on a photo to enlarge it for viewing.) Please read the article!

Good luck, Dirk, we'll miss you!

Photos of Dirk Braak courtesy of the Tampa Bay Tribune.

Anatomy Class in Vermont Today

The snow is falling and the roads don't look too inviting, so I won't be attending the Vermont Farriers Association's clinic today. Allie Hayes of Horsescience is giving one of her stellar anatomy classes, and I was hoping I could get there.

If you're already in Vermont, here are the coordinates: Howden Hall, 19 West Street, Bristol, Vermont (about 30 miles south of Burlington); time: 8:30 AM to 2:00 PM. Diane Saunders is the organizer: 802-453-3750.

The Vermont Farriers Association is a terrific organization that welcomes both mainstream farriers and newstream hoof trimmers, and they all seem to get along. Vermont's that kind of place. If you ever have a chance to attend a VFA event, go.

Click or double-click on the image at left to see an enlarged example of one of Allie's leg models. One of the "ah-ha!" moments at her clinics is seeing legs of horses at different stages of growth and development, side by side. Or, seeing a normal foal leg like this one compared to that of a foal with a limb deviation. What looks like minor "toe in" or "toe out" from the outside is interesting to study within the limb when you have an aid like this.

A "growth plate" is the softer cartilage portion of the foal's bones, where growth takes place. The plates gradually ossify (turn to bone) or "close", but at different stages of development, so that corrective trimming of the hoof may be helpful for certain deviations, but only until a certain age. You may have heard it asked of a Thoroughbred colt, "Have his knees closed yet?"

It makes a big difference where a conformational/skeletal deviation is, what type of deviations it is, and how old the foal is when treatment begins. Some deviations require surgical intervention, while some respond to splints, extension shoes, frequent hoof trimming and increase or decrease in exercise and nutritional values.

The leg you are seeing has been surgically prepared and then freeze-dried by Horsescience for use as a permanent study or teaching aid by equine professionals. Order yours at horsescience.com.

Vet school anatomy class image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Big Day for Horse Racing Dawns...on the Internet

It's a great day for horse racing. Some of the world's best horses, representing 16 different countries, have been keeping cool in air-conditioned quarantine stables at Nad Al Sheba Racecourse in Dubai, capital city of the United Arab Emirates. They will be on the track today for the world's richest day of racing: more than $20 million in prize money is at stake in the Dubai World Cup.

You might think that I'll be down at the pub with the big-screen high-definition television monitors to watch the races...but you're wrong. The Dubai World Cup will not be televised, except on the subscription-only racing networks for handicap aficionados with dish services.

So instead of explaining horse racing to the folks down at the pub, I'll be huddled over a computer monitor, since ESPN just announced that they will "broadcast" the races live on their espn360.com web site.

Make no mistake: the world's best horses, including the world's #1 racehorse (2007 Horse of the Year Curlin), will be running for more than $21 million, but there is not enough of an audience for television coverage by a network.

There is enough of an audience (ESPN believes) for a live broadcast of the Florida Derby from Gulfstream at 5 p.m., presumably because it is one of the final prep races for the Kentucky Derby.

People will watch poker, though. I'd rather watch Curlin.


Top American racehorse Curlin is the overwhelming favorite to win today's Dubai World Cup. If your internet service provider has an agreement with ESPN, you can watch the races live today on espn360.com. The Hoofcare office has Verizon dsl, which is an ESPN internet partner, so I can watch. The races start at 9:30 EST, with the Big Race going off around 1:30 p.m. EST. I think there is a nine-hour time difference, so do the math: these races will be under lights. Let's hope Curlin's a night owl. Two interesting factoids about this day of racing: admission to the racecourse is free to the public. And there's no betting.

Photo of Curlin by Dave Harmon, courtesy of Dubai World Cup Media Centre. Thanks!