Churchill to test scratch horses

[hi_im_god]

Originally Posted by Storm Cadet

I'm in the medical field with a patient load of over 350 patients each day and YES...we don't prescribe anti biotics until we get a positive test. Nowadays we do in house strep and mono tests that take 5 minutes. We get cultures back in 24 hours. We will call in the script ONLY with a positive culture.

In case you have not been reading the papers lately, MRSA staph super bugs are spreading here exactly because broad spectrum meds are dispensed before a correct diagnosis is made. And IF broad spectrum meds are given and taken, then a blood test culture test 24-48 hours later is now void and not valid.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/antibiotics/FL00075

http://www.drgreene.org/body.cfm?id=...detail&ref=519

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/85910.php

so my 25 year old knowlege from working in a microbiology lab during college is out of date?

i guess i can live with that.

so long as i never have to smell that smell again.

[Riot]

As soon as you give banamine, the WBC count is depressed in about 4-6 hours (along with the fever).

Animals, fortunately, haven't developed much resistance to antibiotics so far. They do have a fear of catching staph (and could be a MDRS) from their human handlers' hands during wound care handling, etc. Culturing animals for URI isn't common, and radiographing lungs is very difficult. Even an animal on antibiotic can have a culture taken, and the results interpreted in light of the MIC and drug dose the animal has been on, so antibiotics doesn't preclude subsequent culture if required. And that doesn't even address viral stuff.

This is stupid. If a trainer wants to scratch a horse, who cares? Sometimes
an animal is just "off", and the trainer justifiably trusts their sixth sense about not running the animal, even if there is no fever, no cough, no WBC depression or elevation, etc.

Nobody has business ordering a trainer (via intimidation) to run their horse.

My impression is the racing secretary can make the life of a trainer miserable in the future if it's a bad trainer habit to scratch constantly anyway(Cannon?)