Scott Weese

Dr. Jeffrey Scott Weese is a Canadian veterinary internist based in Guelph, Ontario.

He is notable in the COVID-19 pandemic due to his participation on the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. He is an advocate for the One Health concept of unified health between humans, animals and nature in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.^{1) 2)}

Weese is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.³⁾

Weese is the Editor-in-Chief for Clinician's Brief, a veterinary continuing education and drug formulary review. He also reviews content for Plumb’s Veterinary Drugs. Both are published by Brief Media.^{4) 5)}

In October 2020, Weese was inducted as a Fellow with the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS).⁶⁾

Weese is a member of the Canadian Advisory Group on Antimicrobial Resistance. Fellow members include Allison McGeer, Andrew Morris and John Conly.⁷⁾

Weese is a co-applicant on a grant request to the Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network, led by Kieran Moore, Chief Medical Officer of Health for Public Health Ontario.⁸⁾

More about Lyme Disease history ⁹⁾

Weese was paid by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association to develop veterinarian antibacterial guidelines.^{10) 11)} The CVMA is funded by Merck, Scotiabank, and IDEXX, and is an advocate of the One Health theory of medicine, and the World Health Organization and United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.¹²⁾

Weese holds a Canada Research Chair in Zoonotic Diseases.¹³⁾

Weese is an educational speaker with Lakeridge Health.¹⁴⁾

Lakeridge Health receives funding through the Ajax Pickering Hospital Foundation, Bowmanville Hospital Foundation, Durham Fights COVID-19 Campaign, Lakeridge Health Foundation and Port Perry Hospital Foundation. Among the donors are Toyota, Nestlé, Durham District School Board, NorthWest Healthcare Properties, Amazon, Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, McDonald's, Shoppers Drug Mart, Walmart, Shell, Scotiabank, National Bank of Canada, Fidelity. TD Bank Group, Sony, RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), Patreon, CIBC, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bell Canada, BMO Financial Group, Allergan, IBM, United Way, and Toyota.^{15) 16) 17) 18) 19)}

Weese received fees from Mars Veterinary Health (via Banfield Pet Hospital) for consulting work on antimicrobial stewardship and surveillance.^{20) 21)}

Weese is a Partner of the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases.²²⁾

The Ontario Animal Health Network and Public Health Agency of Canada provided a grant to Weese to fund SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in animals. Additional funders were the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), American Kennel Club, Equine Guelph, and OPC Pet Trust.²³⁾

Weese is a member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.²⁴⁾

Weese co-authored the December 2021 update to “A Guide to Mitigating the Risk of Infection in Veterinary Practices During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in partnership with the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association.²⁵⁾ Prior to that, he prepared OVMA's May 2020 report, “COVID-19: A Guide to Reopening Veterinary Medicine in Ontario”.²⁶⁾

Weese is a member of the Expert Advisory Group for the Stewardship of Antimicrobials by Veterinarians Initiative (SAVI).²⁷⁾ He featured in a SAVI video discussing antimicrobial stewardship.²⁸⁾

Weese is a Professor at the Ontario Veterinary College, and Director for the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses at the University of Guelph.²⁹⁾ He is also Chief of Infection Control at the OVC Teaching Hospital.³⁰⁾

Weese has received payment for lectures and speaker bureaus from Merck, Zoetis, Vetoquinol, and Mars Incorporated, including for COVID-19 related talks.³¹⁾

Weese's research interests are bacterial infections in animals and humans, methicillin-resistant staphylococcal infections, Clostridium difficile, antimicrobial resistance, emerging infectious diseases, infection control.³²⁾

He has received research grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation, Ontario Veterinary College Pet Trust, and Equine Guelph (sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim - manufacturer of veterinary ivermectin - Merck, and ExxonMobil).^{33) 34)}

He is part of a team with Dorothee Bienzle studying SARS-CoV-2 infection in pets.³⁵⁾

Dr. Weese has authored or co-authored over 200 papers in peer reviewed journals, edited two books and speaks extensively on infectious disease topics.³⁶⁾

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic Weese has been featured in several mainstream media articles discussing aspects of the crisis.

• On April 7, 2020, Weese discussed tigers and other cats that had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in Toronto, Hong Kong and Belgium.³⁷⁾
• On April 8, 2020, Weese explained that the intention of the veterinary community was to limit the number of procedures being done within a clinic in favour of moving to telehealth services, and that cloth masks were in use by vets and technicians.³⁸⁾
• On April 13, 2020, Weese argued that social distancing rules should apply to dogs and cats as well as humans.³⁹⁾
• Also on April 13, 2020, he advised staying away from livestock when sick despite low risk to animals and food safety from COVID-19.⁴⁰⁾
• On May 20, 2020, Weese cautioned against reopening from lockdown too fast. “We can't just go back to normal. There's going to be a new normal for quite a while.”⁴¹⁾
• On June 19, 2020, he spoke to the Washington Post about the need to trace contacts between humans and animals.⁴²⁾

In 2016, Weese launched the Pet Tick Tracker to help monitor changes in tick populations. He has teamed up with Drs. Katie Clow and Michelle Evason to create Pets and Ticks – a “comprehensive website that brings the Pet Tick Tracker together with up-to-date, evidence-based information on ticks in Canada.”^{43) 44)}

Weese is the author of Worms & Germs, a blog about safe pet ownership. There, he has written about the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in animals, COVID-19 in hamsters, cattle and deer, and infection risk mitigation in veterinary practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.^{45) 46) 47) 48)}