Communicable diseases | TableDebates

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What is the connection between infectious diseases in humans and livestock?

Diseases that pass between animals and humans are responsible for many of the diseases affecting people worldwide, especially in developing countries. Animals (wild and domestic) also play an important role in the emergence and spread of entirely novel human diseases, with the potential for large impacts on human health, such as bird flu. Another aspect of this to which livestock contribute, is the rise and spread of resistance to antibiotic drugs. One outcome of sustainable food systems is that they should be health promoting. It is, therefore, useful to understand the interconnection between infectious diseases in human and animals, and how these risks may be amplified or reduced by changes in farming systems.

Food safety economics

The book “Food Safety Economics - Incentives for a Safer Food Supply”, edited by Tanya Roberts, explores how regulations have affected the economic incentives influencing food safety.

Photo: natalienicolecrane, fishing at lake victoria, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0 generic.

Human health alters the sustainability of fishing practices in East Africa

A common hypothesis used to link declining human health to environmental outcomes predicts that illness will reduce human populations or harvest effort, thus benefitting the environment. When investigating the behaviour of fishers around Lake Victoria in Kenya, this research found little evidence that illness reduced fishing effort to indirectly benefit the environment. Instead, ill fishers shifted their fishing methods – using more illegal methods concentrated in inshore areas, that are less physically demanding but environmentally destructive.

Photo: Michael Knowles, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0

Science for Environment policy brief: synthetic biology and biodiversity

This report provides an update on the fields of synthetic biology and the latest breeding techniques involving molecular biology. It sees modern techniques of creating new cultivars as a continuation of selective breeding which was started by humans around 10,000 years ago.

Highlights from OneHealth project

The OneHealth project, launched in 2015, explores the relationship between infectious diseases, biodiversity and ecosystems, the economics of disease and disease drivers, and the impacts of climate change and demography on health.

Photo: USDA, pigs, Flickr, creative commons licence 2.0

Antibiotic resistance is also a food and climate issue

In this blog David McCoy, director of Medact, argues that UK farmers and government should work hard to reduce on-farm antibiotic use. With evidence building that antimicrobial resistance in farm animals can be transferred across to humans, the issue is becoming increasingly urgent.

EU Ministers decision on antibiotics use and animal welfare

Ministers of the European Parliament have voted to adopt a new EU regulation aimed at improving the welfare of animals, encouraging farmers to practice good husbandry that helps prevent disease outbreaks and importantly intensify the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Apocalypse pig –how the last antibiotics are starting to fail

A new form of antibiotic resistance was recently identified and the results of the ongoing research project have been published in The Lancet Infectious Disease. The Lancet published the paper as part of their series on antimicrobial access and resistance to coincide with the WHO’s World Antibiotic Awareness Week for Nov 16–22, 2015.

Seminar summary: What role for grazing livestock in a world of climate change and diet-related disease?

The Sustainable Food Trust recently held an event to discuss the question: ‘What role for grazing livestock in a world of climate change and diet-related disease?’