REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES
to include American spelling of British
terms. NAL has already identified some
of these terms.
4. British-American differences in word
meaning as well as spelling will be noted
in future editions, the date of which has
not been established.
5. NAL will have the privilege of establishing
new terms as well as suggesting substitute
terms. Such changes will be subject to
approval by the CAB board established
for that purpose.
6. Dr. Joe Howard has agreed to accept such
defined words and terms from the American Society of Animal Science.
I N F O R M A T I O N STORAGE A N D R E T R I E V A L
COMMITTEE
On behalf of Mrs. Bernas Downing, Chairwoman, and members of the Information
Storage and Retrieval Committee, it is m y
pleasure to report very significant progress in
adopting a structured thesaurus for national
agricultural data bases. This has been the major
thrust of our committee ~ for the past eight
years. The National Agricultural Library
(NAL), under the directorship of Dr. Joseph
Howard, has agreed in principle to adopt the
recently published Commonwealth Agriculture
Bureaux's (CAB) structured thesaurus for the
information storage'and retrieval purposes in
the AGRICOLA data base.
For the past several years, NAL has been
providing coverage Of the world's agricultural
literature throug h the AGRICOLA data base
(formerly CAIN). As a vocabu!ary, NAL has
relied on a title-word free text system with
occasional title enrichment from an unstructured
word list. It has been our contention that NAL
should move toward a structured thesaurus.
Fortunately, other ~agricultural scientific societies and a Blue Ribbon Panel appointed by
Secretary Block for a review of NAL programs
h a v e supported our position. At the 1983
ASAS meetings Dr. Howard met with our
committee and informed us that NAL would
study the various alternatives and make a
decision soon.
In the meantime, CAB has been developing a
structured thesaurus as has FAO with the
assistance from the U.S. and other countries.
NAL considered these as well as giving some
consideration to the very costly alternative of
developing one from scratch. Very recently
NAL decided to adopt the CAB thesaurus.
There are details yet to be decided; but, in
general we can summarize the situation as
follows:
1. NAL has agreed in principle t ~ adopt the
CAB thesaurus as edited by G. Eric Tidbury and published in late 1983.
1983.
2. NAL has communicated this intent to the
agricultural libraries across the nation and
at least some libraries have initiated the
process of converting to this vocabulary.
3. CAB has agreed to NAL having the right
As a result of these encouraging developments,
we recommend that:
1. ASAS adopt the CAB thesaurus as the
structured vocabulary f o r assigning key
words to journal articles, abstracts,
symposia proceedings and other informat i o n that will be stored and retrieved for
scientific and applied uses.
2. ASAS purchase copies of the two volume
thesaurus (volume 1, letters A--I; volume
2, letters J - Z ) f o r each Section Editor,
the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial
Assistant.
3. The authors of papers start using the
thesaurus for assigning key words immediately and that the journal adopt the
structured vocabulary for this purpose at
the earliest possible date.
The above recommendations have been reviewed
and endorsed by the JAS Editorial Board.
We anticipate that the activities of this
committee in the coming year would be primarily devoted to assisting and encouraging the
adoption of the thesaurus and to developing a
mechanism for communicating needed revisions
of the vocabulary to NAL.
We appreciate the financial support given by
the Board in past years a n d the support of
other agricultural societies, including the
officers of the Federated Societies of Agricultural Sciences in encouraging NAL to make this
decision. We would strongly encourage other
agricultural societies to adopt the CAB thesaurus.
Virgil W. Hays
1699
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL SCIENCE, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1984
1700
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY
R E G U L A T O R Y AGENCIES C O M M I T T E E
ACTIVITIES
On February 28, 1984 the ASAS Regulatory
Agencies Committee met in College Park,
Maryland with representatives from FDA-BVM,
USDA-FSIS and interested industry persons.
The Committee was briefed on Sensitivity of
Method (SOM) document, Second Generation
Medicated Feed Program, Research at BVM,
FDA Revised Veterinary Policy, USDA Residue
Avoidance Program, USDA Residues Monitoring
and I R 4 and Minor Use Drugs.
The Minerals and Vitamins Subcommittee,
chaired by Dr. C. B. Ammerman has received
t h e papers which were presented at a symposium on "Newer Findings in Vitamins and
Mineral Nutrition" at the 1982 ASAS meeting.
These have been reviewed and revised and will
be published in the Journal of Animal Science
later this year. The subcommittee has been
concerned with regulatory aspects of minerals
and vitamins, including a petition on the
nutritional use of selenium in domestic animals
to be submitted to FDA by AFMA. The petition
will be concerned with increasing the allowed
use level of the element and decreasing certain
of the restrictions regarding physical handling
and management of the element as a required
nutrient. The Subcommittee plans to develop a
symposium on "Assessment of Mineral and
Vitamin Status of Domestic Animals" for the
1985 ASAS meeting.
The Hormone Subcommittee, chaired by Dr.
Steven L. Davis, sponsored an invited paper at
the 1983 ASAS meeting. The Subcommittee
prepared a list of FDA approved drugs with
hormone activity. Subcommittee members are
concerned with misuse of hormonal drugs, such
as the apparent DES problem with veal calves
which occurred last year.
The Antimicrobial Subcommittee, chaired
b y Dr. Roger Gerrits, has not had need for
much activity since the fluorish of activity
before the National Academy of Science
Report on Antibiotics in 1980. The Subcommittee continually monitors the situation,
which has political as well as scientific implications.
The Subcommittee on Minor Use of Drugs
and Pesticides has been in regular contact with
activities of IR-4 Minor Species Program. The
Subcommittee provides technical information
to IR-4 representatives concerning inquiries and
research interest regarding drugs for minor
species. Some of the problems the Subcommittee is concerned with are amprolium for coccidiosis, antibiotics for sheep and other minor
species, new antelmintics and ionophores.
The Quality and Safety of Animal Products
Subcommittee, chaired by Dr. James Guenther,
is maintaining good relations with Meat Packing
associations and National Livestock and Meat
Board. The Subcommittee. continually monitors present and potential problems in quality
and safety of animal products such as salt in
meat, nitrate, anabolic agents and use of
poultry offal in red meat products. Areas of
concern are food irradiation, fat in processed
meat and inspection of meat packers.
The Underutilized Subcommittee, chaired
by Dr. J. P. Fontenot has been involved with
FDA and AAFCO concerning use of animal
waste and other by-products as feedstuffs. The
Subcommittee has m o n i t o r e d the situation
since 1980, when FDA rescinded the 1967
statement on feeding animal waste, leaving
regulation of waste feeding to the states, and no
problems have arisen. In its expanded role the
Subcommittee is concerned with potential
problems and regulations regarding other
underutilized substances. The chairman of the
Subcommittee was chairman of a NRC subcommittee who prepared a report entitled
"Underutilized Resources as Animal Feedstuffs"
which was published by the National Academy
of Sciences in 1983.
Dr. V. W. Hays attended a press conference
in which a booklet on antibiotics was released
by the American Council of Science and
Health. He also participated in a visit with
White House advisors, coordinated by AFMA
and AHI, concerning use of antibiotics in
animal production. The Committee maintains
excellent relations with FDA, USDA and
other regulatory agencies as well as industry
groups. Regulatory and industry persons
express continued interest in the activities of
the Committee.
J. P. Fontenot, Chairman
ACADEMIC Q U A D R A T H LON
COMMITTEE REPORT
Table 1 explains participation of schools in
their 1984 Sectional Quadrathlon.
It should be noted that the primary purpose
of the Animal Science Academic Quadrathlon is
to promote student interest and knowledge
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY
in Animal Science at the local Quadrathlon on
campus. The campus Quadrathlon further gives
an opportunity for students and faculty to
work together.
The Sectional Quadrathlon gives students an
opportunity to meet, share ideas and compete
with students from other institutions. In
addition, they have the o p p o r t u n i t y to meet
with other Animal Science staff from other
schools and attend paper presentations.
The most important Quadrathlon is the one
held on campus. However, the Sectional Quadrathlon allows further intellectual growth
and enjoyment in working with students and
faculty interested in Animal Science. Winning
at the campus or Sectional Quadrathlon is not
emphasized. Instead, promotion o f interest and
knowledge in Animal Science is the primary
purpose.
Keith E. Gilster, Chairman