The Executive Board approved increasing meeting attendance of the AVMA liaison representatives to the Joint Subcommittee on Aquaculture, National Aquatic Animal Health Task Force working groups, from four to six per year, through 2005. The Aquaculture and Seafood Advisory Committee, which was recently renamed the Aquatic Veterinary Medicine Committee, requested the increase to allow adequate AVMA representation on additional working groups to discuss the elements of a future National Aquatic Animal Health Plan.

The elements discussed at the meetings will become templates for chapters of the NAAH Plan that, when implemented, will be the basis of responses in the United States to outbreaks of diseases in aquatic animals. It is anticipated that the NAAH Plan will be finalized by late 2005. The attendance at additional task force meetings will cost the AVMA $1,175 per year through 2005.