wits-usda-officeofcommunicat(us).docVIP

WITS-USDA-OFFICE OF COMMUNICAT (US) Moderator: Elizabeth Conley June 18, 2014 8:00 am CT Coordinator: Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode until the duration of today’s call. Today’s conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host Ms. (Shreya Hayden). You may begin. (RJ Cabrera): Thank you. And this is (RJ Cabrera). Thank you (Shreya). (Shreya) will be monitoring this (unintelligible) throughout. I am the designated federal official for this committee. And I want to welcome everyone here - in the room - and also those who may be listening in. Is the first meeting of the 2013th term of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Animal Health. I am here with Ms. (Ann Dunigan). And she’s from policy program and development and will be with us for both days. She will be helping us facilitate discussions. She’ll help keeping us on topic and on time. Thanks to my director - - Ms. (Deanna Mitchel) - - who’s treated us to some centennial breakfast over here. If you haven’t seen that, you’re welcome to it. Thank you (Deanna). We’ve got a pretty full agenda. And we’ve removed specific type times. You’ll notice in your folders. Each of these mini members have folders with all of your summaries and the agenda for both days. Can I ask, maybe, someone on the phone if you could mute, please. You’re having some interference. We want to make sure there’s plenty of time for each speaker. But most importantly we want to make sure that the committee has adequate time for deliberations. We do have a plan - even though the agenda does not have specific times. We have a plan. And we’ll try to keep to that. Before we do introductions, I want everybody to know that these microphones are live. They will be on throughout the meeting. They pick up pretty clean sounds. You don’t have to worry about it.