BLACKSBURG, Va., April 22 -- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University issued the following news release:
In the late 1980s, Ray Kaplan'83, DVM '88drove out to a goat farm in Pennsylvania where animals were dying from haemonchosis, a parasitic infection. The owner had been treating the herd with thiabendazole, but the drug was no longer working.
Kaplan pulled outivermectin, a new class of dewormer that had come on the marketaround the time he startedveterinary school. The goats recovered almostimmediately.
"I was able to be a hero," Kaplan said. "Pull out the ivermectin and resolve it almost instantaneously."
It was also, though he did not know it yet, his first encounter with anthelmintic resistance, or the inherited ability ...