21,23, Bradbury

21 By the early 1980s two of the pathogenic poultry mycoplasmas, M. gallisepticum and M. synoviae had been successfully eradicated from chicken and turkey primary breeding stock, and this success was soon to be followed by the eradication of M. meleagridis from primary turkey breeders. There was then a genuine belief amongst avian mycoplasmologists that these organisms might become the dinosaurs of the 20th century poultry pathogens. However, another mycoplasma pathogen, M. iowae, was later recognised as an economic problem in turkeys and was also subjected to eradication programmes. It seems somewhat ironic, therefore, that the first two mycoplasmas to be eradicated from primary breeders are the ones that have persisted in commercial stock and are arguably ‘ever present pathogens’, while M. meleagridis and M. iowae are now seldom encountered.