Comment from John Cain

I was one of the deer farmers that participated in testing the blood test for TB in deer (whitetails) in 2011. Our veterinarian came and did the standard scratch test and took blood samples from about 50 animals, and then had to come back to evaluate the scratch test results. Obviously it is much more time and cost efficient and less stress on the animals to have to work them only once. We were pleased with the procedure and results. Two of the does had a false positive reaction and had to be euthanized and evaluated by state vets, but were negative of course. We thank APHIS for approving this testing procedure. Our vet suggests that it would also be great for testing bucking bulls as they are a pain to have to scratch test twice.