Infectious diseases of animals and plants: an interdisciplinary approach.

Animal and plant diseases pose a serious and continuing threat to food security, food safety, national economies, biodiversity and the rural environment. New challenges, including climate change, regulatory developments, changes in the geographical concentration and size of livestock holdings, and increasing trade make this an appropriate time to assess the state of knowledge about the impact that diseases have and the ways in which they are managed and controlled. In this paper, the case is explored for an interdisciplinary approach to studying the management of infectious animal and plant diseases. Reframing the key issues through incorporating both social and natural science research can provide a holistic understanding of disease and increase the policy relevance and impact of research. Finally, in setting out the papers in this Theme Issue, a picture of current and future animal and plant disease threats is presented.

The changing role of veterinary expertise in the food chain.

This paper analyses how the changing governance of animal health has impacted upon veterinary expertise and its role in providing public health benefits. It argues that the social sciences can play an important role in understanding the nature of these changes, but also that their ideas and methods are, in part, responsible for them. The paper begins by examining how veterinary expertise came to be crucial to the regulation of the food chain in the twentieth century. The relationship between the veterinary profession and the state proved mutually beneficial, allowing the state to address the problems of animal health, and the veterinary profession to become identified as central to public health and food supply. However, this relationship has been gradually eroded by the application of neoliberal management techniques to the governance of animal health. This paper traces the impact of these techniques that have caused widespread unease within and beyond the veterinary profession about the consequences for its role in maintaining the public good of animal health. In conclusion, this paper suggests that the development of the social sciences in relation to animal health could contribute more helpfully to further changes in veterinary expertise.

Beyond policy networks: policy framing and the politics of expertise in the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease crisis.

For the past decade, the policy community/issue network typology of pressure group interaction has been used to explain policy outcomes and the policy-making process. To re-examine the validity of this typology, the paper focuses on the UK government's response to the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) crisis, and in particular the decision to pursue contiguous culling rather than vaccination to overcome the epidemic. Rather than illustrating the emergence of an issue network in agricultural policy, the decision-making process of the FMD outbreak demonstrates continuity with prior crises. In addition, the politicization of scientific expertise is identified as an emerging trend in crisis management. Policy framing is used to explain the impetus behind the contiguous cull decision, concluding that the legacy of previous policy choices conditioned the crisis response to a far greater degree than contemporaneous pressure group action.

Percentile values of isokinetic peak torque in children six through thirteen years old.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to standardize an isokinetic testing protocol for quadriceps and hamstrings in children who are typically developing and are six through 13 years of age, to establish percentile charts of isokinetic peak torque strength for quadriceps and hamstrings by gender and age, and to determine the best predictors of strength for each of three testing speeds. METHODS: A total of 3587 children were tested for isokinetic knee strength according to our protocol on Biodex System II and III isokinetic dynamometers. Therapists participating in the study were trained on the protocol and inter-rater reliability was established. Both dominant and nondominant legs were tested at three speeds. Data were collected on peak torque, time to peak torque, and agonist/antagonist ratio. Data were also gathered on maturation level, gender, height, weight, leg length, laterality, and activity level to allow for investigation of correlations with peak torque. All data were entered in an Excel spreadsheet. RESULTS: Percentile charts of normal isokinetic muscle strength were generated using SPSS 12.0 for each age and gender at three speeds (60, 120, and 180 degrees per second). Stepwise regression analysis determined height to be the best predictor of peak torque for both quadriceps and hamstrings at all speeds. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to report normative peak torque values for quadriceps and hamstrings in children. By using a standardized testing protocol and normative data, clinicians will be able to assess the degree of muscle weakness as well as the effectiveness of intervention strategies.