Biosecurity Papers and Presentations

These are papers and presentations arising out of the TAMU Biosecurity Economics Group.  These are being posted for purposes of documentation and not as endorsement of the content.

Operating under the FAZD Center – the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense

A Department of Homeland Security University Center of Excellence

and

Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University

Faculty Level Team Members Categories of papers listed below

David A. Bessler Decision Making

Frederick O. Boadu Market Analysis

Amy Hagerman Carcass Disposal

Bruce A. McCarl (Lead FAZD Economist)

Decision Making – Investigations regarding disease outbreak decision making

After Cryptococcus gattii infections started popping up in the Pacific Northwest in 2004, state, federal, and British Columbia health officials set up a working group to collect human and veterinary case information and isolates. Today in MMWR they reported that as of July they had received reports of 60 human cases of the fungal disease since January 2004 from four states: California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. C gattii spores can colonize the nasal cavity and spread to other sites, causing meningitis, pneumonia, and the development of lung, brain, or muscle cryptococcomas. Treatment includes prolonged intravenous antifungal drug therapy and resection of infected lung or brain tissue. The highest proportion of cases was in people aged 50 to 69 years, and among 47 patients for whom medical history is known, 38 had underlying conditions, including 3 with HIV infections. C gattii infections were the cause of death in 9 cases, and the disease may have played a role in 6 other deaths. CDC experts said the emergence of the fungus in a temperate climate could mean the pathogen has adapted to a new niche or that climate warming may have created more favorable conditions for it to survive and spread. Other possibilities, they said, are that environmental conditions that support the fungus may be broader than previously known and that some cases might have occurred in the Northwest in the past but gone unnoticed. The CDC urged physicians to consider C gattii infections in patients who have cryptococcal disease symptoms and to ask patients about travel to areas where the pathogen is endemic.
Jul 23 MMWR report

Strengthening measures to prevent and control outbreaks of animal diseases could result in the saving of large amounts of money for governments, the United Nations agriculture agency said today, announcing a new strategy to more effectively detect and combat the diseases.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said it had drawn on its experience in past animal health emergencies to develop the “One Health” initiative, which aims to improve global response to disease outbreaks, implement effective prevention and containment strategies and manage risks.

Check the One World tab over on the right to find out what this program is really about.

You are defined as an animal in the Terrestrial Animal Health Code:

Links:

www.nonaiswa.org/?p=1369

2008:  www.oie.int/eng/normes/Mcode/en_chapitre_1.2.2.htm

2009:  www.oie.int/eng/normes/Mcode/en_sommaire.htm

Glossary:  You are defined as an animal:  http://www.nonaiswa.org/?page_id=4432

Terrestrial Manual of Diagnostics & Vaccinations:  www.oie.int/fr/normes/mmanual/A_00032.htm

From the Code Glossary:

From the trenches,

Celeste

See NoNAISWA’s explosive expose:  The Dawn of a New Age of Food Control

The Great Food Heist http://www.nonaiswa.org/?p=4121

Marking the Beasts www.nonaiswa.org/?p=4198

The Mark of a Monumental Moment www.nonaiswa.org/?p=4248

The Modern Agricultural god of the Export Market http://www.nonaiswa.org/?p=4270

Behold:  A Snake in your Refrigerator http://www.nonaiswa.org/?p=4397

By Steve Green

S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010,  may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US.  It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.

“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.  It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.”  ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower

It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.

Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create — without judicial review — if it passes.  S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming.

Because vector abatement efforts require organization that reaches multiple levels (household, farm), such efforts will form an interactive customer base for the application of environmental tools such as spatial analysis and monitoring to other environmental services such as building code enforcement, water standards, and sanitation, as well as provide additional resources for gathering operational data on the status of populations.

Nutrition

Nutrition is the sum of the processes by which humans and other living organisms take in food and use it for growth and nourishment. Along with clean air, water, and shelter, nutritious food is a basic necessity of life. Failure to obtain sufficient calories and an adequate mixture of macronutrients (calories, fat, proteins, carbohydrates), micronutrients
(vitamins, minerals) and other bioactive components of food can result in illness and death. According to the United Nations Development Program, some 3.7 billion people worldwide are currently malnourished.  While malnutrition and hunger are predominantly problems in the developing world, the United States and other developed countries still have significant populations affected by insufficient food resources and undernutrition. Extreme weather events and
changes in temperature and precipitation patterns can directly damage or destroy crops and other food supplies, as well as interrupt transport and distribution of food. This may happen seasonally, but is anticipated to become a more chronic problem under changing climate conditions.  Indirectly, there is potential for harm from undernutrition or even
famine resulting from damage to agricultural crops and related trade, economic, and social instability; diversion of staple crops for use in biofuels (corn for ethanol or other biofuels); changes in agricultural practices including those intended to mitigate or adapt to climate change; impaired ability to grow crops due to changing environmental conditions and water availability; and reduced availability and nutritional quality of protein from fisheries, aquaculture, and other marine-based foods.

Quote from the book, Lab 257, “Advanced science applied to food production would aid America’s worldwide struggle of democracy over godless communism.  “History has indelibly written that revolution, anarchy, and tyranny are fellow travelers of hunger and malnutrition,” one USDA scientist said.  “Our plans for the future must include an ever-abundant supply of foods if we want people to be strong, and our nation to endure.”  Science would make the difference in the battle between Good and Evil.  Again:  science will make the difference in the battle between good and evil.

The crown jewel of this blossoming, futuristic agricultural empire would be Plum Island Biological Warfare Laboratory.

For years the eco-radical movement, with groups such as Earth First, PETA and the Foundation for Deep Ecology gained both skill and momentum.  In their beginnings they held classes for civil disobedience which in itself may not be a bad thing.  Unfortunately for all of us sitting in trees and being carried out of peaceful protests did not achieved what they desired, a world where animals known as sentient beings, had equal if not superior legal standing to human beings.  This new party is the “Humane Party” has a deep rooted philosophy of Deep Ecology which if implemented would banish human beings from most areas and set up islands and free range corridors for indigenous wildlife and extinction of domesticated animals.  In 1991 a plan was devised called the Wildlands Project which is slowly moving through state and the federal government under the innocuous  new name of Y2Y, Yukon to Yellowstone. To these folks their Deep Ecology Philosophy is a religion not animal care.   The Humane Party claims it has no affiliation with the Humane Society nor Humane Society of the US and yet its leader are deeply involved with Deep Ecology environmentalism, primacy of sentient beings,animal primacy lawyers who sue farmers, animal spirituality, PETA, while the campaign strategist is a Realtor.

International and transnational animal welfare ‘guidelines’ are popping up like wild flowers making the regulations for small farming almost impossible and then you have a taser company purposefully drugging animals and then tasering them!  Where is PETA and the US Humane Society and all the other radical animal welfarites?    Hello, what is wrong with this picture?

Getting shocked with a Taser while riding high on methamphetamines probably beats any white-knuckled cocaine experience hands down. And that’s exactly what happened to some lucky sheep in a new study that tested the effects of Tasers on meth-addled targets.