Policy research and public scholarship at disciplinary frontiers

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Policy research and public scholarship at
disciplinary frontiers

• Partnerships for Preparedness
• A Joint Symposium of the Association of Schools
  of Public Health and the Association of American
  Veterinary Medical Colleges
  
• April 2007
• Atlanta, Georgia

Justin Kastner, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Food S
afety Security Department of Diagnostic Medicine
/Pathobiology Kansas State University 785-532-4
820 jkastner_at_ksu.edu
Jason Ackleson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Govern
ment Department New Mexico State University jack
leso_at_nmsu.edu

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Why interdisciplinary research (IDR)?
Thought leaders and thought-leading institutions,
including the National Academies, encourage IDR.
Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary
Research, Committee on Science, Engineering, and
Public Policy (2004). Facilitating
Interdisciplinary Research. Washington, D.C.
The National Academies Press.
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The Frontier Program - http//fss.k-state.edu/fron
tier
Frontier interdisciplinary program for the
historical studies of border security, food
security, and trade policy Scholarship about fro
ntiers (borders) Scholarship at disciplinary and
institutional frontiers
Public and academic scholarship
Historically-rooted analysis Policy-relevant prod
ucts
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Educational benefits
As scholars cross disciplinary frontiers they...
...must translate discipline-specific language
...must interpret and explain assumptions
...inevitably must hone their critical thinking
skills
Education is what remains when the facts are no
longer relevant. Dr. K. Patricia Cross, parap
hrase courtesy of Dr. John Pickrell
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Graduate students and interns example projects

• The historical role of export certification
• For the Dictionary of Transnational History
  (encyclopedia)
  
• History of the germ theory of disease
• History of food safety standards
• Multicultural dimension of the food industry
• Rural Kansas hospital preparedness for pandemic
  influenza
  
• TSE surveillance and the sociology of risk
• GIS, FSS, and international relations

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Historical insights for the AAVMC-ASPH joint
symposium
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Texas Fever

• Texas longhorns trampling Kansas crops and
  spreading Texas Fever
  
• Texas Fever also termed Spanish fever,
  (incorrectly) splenic fever, and tick fever
  
• Texas longhorns
• immune from long-term exposure to the protozoan
  parasite
  
• carried and shed the tick
• Kansas cattle were susceptible
• 4 out of 5 infected animals died

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Texas Fever
February 11, 1865 Kansas acts
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of
Kansas ...If any person or persons other tha
n immigrants shall drive or cause to be driven
any cattle or other stock, by the single head or
in a drove or droves, through or into any county,
in this State from the State of Texas, or from
the territory south of the south line of this
State, he or she or they, for every such offense,
on conviction thereof in the district...court,
shall be fined in a sum not less than one
thousand dollars, and imprisonment in the
penitentiary of the State not less than one
year. ... Approved February 11, 1865. S.J.
CRAWFORD, Governor.
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Texas Fever
Trail drives of 1866 violent encounters
1867 Joseph McCoy Establishes at Abilene a d
epot or market to which a Texan drover could
bring his stock unmolested Entices the Union Pac
ific Railroad to accommodate cattle pens (and
give him a commission on every carload of cattle
shipped) Persuades the Kansas governor not to en
force quarantine against transient Texas cattle
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Texas Fever
1867 Kansas asks the USDA for help
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Investigations of Texas Fever lead to discovery
of other diseases

• 1868 John Gamgee
• British veterinary consultant
• Hired by the USDA to investigate outbreaks of
  Texas Fever in Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri
  
• Notes that contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia is
  also a problem in the U.S.

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Meanwhile...
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1879 An embarrassing year for U.S. animal
health food safety
Winter of 1878-1879 British veterinary authorit
ies intensify disease-control measures at ports
January 26, 1879 pleuro-pneumonia diagnosed
in U.S. cattle landed at Liverpool
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1879 An embarrassing year for U.S. animal
health food safety
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1879 An embarrassing year for U.S. animal
health food safety
U.S. cattle, swine, and sheep subject to
immediate-slaughter restrictions at ports due
to Contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia Foot and
mouth disease Classical swine fever, or hog chole
ra Immediate slaughter of U.S. pigs affords opp
ortunity to microscopically examine pork
Trichina spiralis suspicions confirmed
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March 28, 1879

• John Shaw Billings, MD
• Brilliant public-health thought leader
• Staff member, U.S. Army Surgeon-Generals office
• Laid the foundation for the National Library of
  Medicine, et cetera
  
• Believed that a newly-created National Board of
  Health should address the very important
  question of wholesome food supply.

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March 28, 1879

• Dr. J.S. Billings argued
• Both animal-health and food-safety policy should
  be crafted at the National Board of Health
  
• Combining human- and animal-disease studies is
  helpful because of the light which each will
  throw on the other.

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A missed opportunity?

• Contrary to Dr. J.S. Billingss hopes, the
  National Board of Health concerned with only
  human diseases
  
• The U.S. Veterinary Medical Association argues in
  January 1880 that the veterinary profession, who
  alone have made a special study of these
  epizootics, was best suited to deal with animal
  diseases
• 1881 U.S. government creates veterinary
  regulatory body, the Treasury Cattle Commission
  (in 1884, upgraded to the U.S. Bureau of Animal
  Industry)
• 1882 Congress formally declares that the
  National Board of Healths duties and
  investigations shall be confined to the diseases
  of cholera, small-pox and yellow fever.

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Frontier activities related to cross-border
cooperation
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Regionalization and Compartmentalization
The London Times May 13, 1890
Food safety and animal disease risk management s
hould be taken with reference to particular
commodity supply chains and geographic
regionsnot merely nation-states.
- Dr. Brian Evans (paraphrase)
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SW NM Border Security Task Force
Routinely-held, problem-solving forum for
citizens, stakeholders, policymakers, farmers,
and law enforcement personnel in the Southwest
New Mexico region
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• We are not students of some subject matter, but
  students of problems. And problems may cut right
  across the borders of any subject matter or
  discipline. 
• - The late Karl Popper, former professor at the
  London School of Economics and Political
  Science