Department-Wide Meeting 

 On January 27, HSHHS employees gathered for a department-wide meeting at the George R. Brown Convention Center, the first such meeting in nearly seven years. The afternoon began with a presentation by Director Dr. M. desVignes-Kendrick and continued with video vignettes, presentations, skits and more. The meeting concluded with keynote speaker, Paul Nannis, Director, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Legislation for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

 People sometimes confuse the HDHHS Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC), with animal shelters or animal protection organizations. It's easy to see why. Both BARC and animal shelters do a lot of education and outreach concerning responsible pet ownership. Both BARC and animal shelters accept unwanted animals from the public and keep the animals on the premises. Both BARC and humane organizations encourage spaying, neutering and pet adoptions. Most humane organizations euthanize unwanted animals, as does BARC. Finally, BARC has cooperative programs and services with animal protection organizations. 

However, there is an essential difference between BARC and these worthy privately funded organizations. BARC is a government supported public health facility chartered to protect humans from rabies, other animal-borne diseases and animal bites. Most humane organizations are chartered to protect animals. While they may do many things alike, they do them for different reasons. 

Of course, there are also differences. Perhaps most obvious are differences in scale. Most humane animal protection organizations accept animals brought to them. BARC also accepts animals, but in addition, goes into the community to retrieve animals. The HDHHS Animal Control Of ricer often does this at a risk to his own health. Whether a dog defending her puppies or a pit bull defending its yard, animals can inflict serious injuries.