By NANCY LYBARGER
Indiana Correspondent

DUBOIS, Ind. — For the past four decades, a small force of scientists has been working on the top of a ridge in rural southern Indiana to help eradicate some of the worst poultry diseases.

Ag industry, state and Purdue University officials gathered at the Heeke Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory on September 11 to celebrate 40 years and dedicate a new building that will house a USDA Wildlife Services official, and extension forester and the USDA APHIS office, along with offering meeting and multipurpose rooms for the public.

Located at the Southern Indiana Purdue Ag Center (SIPAC), near Dubois, the diagnostic center is world-respected for its work, according to Ted Seger, president of Farbest Foods, the fourth largest turkey processor in the United States.

Farbest is based in Huntingburg, at the other end of the county from SIPAC. Seger said years ago, he heard from his late brother Steve and their father, Jerry, how important the diagnostic center was to the turkey industry in southern Indiana.

“I didn’t appreciate it then, but I do now,” said Seger, who is past chair of the National Turkey Federation, as well.

Seger was one of the speakers at the celebration. Before the diagnostic center was opened 40 years ago, Seger said poultry producers had to drive to Purdue for lab work. He congratulated the agribusiness sector, the state government and the university for working together to grow the fledgling poultry industry in the state. Indiana now ranks sixth in the United States for poultry production, he said.

Seger was preceded on the podium by emcee, Dr. Stephen Hooser, director of the Indiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory; Dr. Willie Reed, Dean of Purdue’s School of Veterinary Medicine; Dr. Randy Woodson, Purdue University Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost; Anne Hazlett, Indiana Ag Director and Dr. Bret Marsh, Indiana State Veterinarian.

In his remarks, Dr. Reed said he did relief work at Heeke in the 80s, so he got to see firsthand the value to the poultry and livestock industry the work conducted in the labs.
“It has played a crucial role in detecting animal and human diseases. It is the cheapest insurance we have to protect the livestock industry,” Reed said.

He noted diagnosticians at Heeke first detected the turkey coronavirus and worked with producers to eliminate the disease in Indiana flocks. Other diseases scientists at Heeke have detected were enteritis in young turkey poults and rabbit hemorrhagic disease, a foreign disease in wild rabbits. Reed said the diseases are under control or eliminated in Indiana through cooperative efforts among state, university and laboratory officials.
“It’s more important to the livestock industry now than in 1969,” he said, with new and reemerging diseases that threaten human and livestock health around the world.

Eleven years ago, Dr. Woodson, now Provost, was associate dean of agriculture and director of off-site centers operated by Purdue, with oversight for all diagnostic centers.

Woodson said the primary strength of the laboratory is its direct connection to end users. “It benefits them and the entire poultry industry,” he said.

Echoing Woodson, Dr. Jay Akridge, new Dean of the Purdue College of Agriculture, said, “There is no substitute for being here.”
SIPAC and the Heeke lab are located in the heart of the southern Indiana poultry industry, in close proximity to Farbest, Perdue Farms, Wabash Valley Produce, Tyson and Roseacre Farms.
Hazlett said the Heeke lab is a model for the rest of the country.
“Our diagnostic labs are well-prepared to respond to any type of animal disease outbreak,” she said.

Seger pointed out that in 1996 the total number of exams by Heeke diagnosticians totaled 14,000 while in 2008, the total number of exams rose to 55,000.

Dr. Marsh, head of State Board of Animal Health, reminded the assembly that people of the United States were reminded eight years ago on September 11 just how important food is to the country’s infrastructure.

Diagnostic labs like Heeke, Marsh said, provide services appreciated locally, in Indiana and the United States and around the world by livestock practitioners who make the choices about our food production. Seger said last year the United States exported 100 million pounds (live equivalent) of turkeys.

When it opened in 1969, the lab was known as the SIPAC Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory. Livestock and mammals were added to its services with an expansion project in 1977. The lab was renamed the Dennis H. Heeke Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in 1999, after the late Dennis H. Heeke, an Indiana state legislator who was influential in establishing the lab and promoting the poultry industry in southern Indiana.