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The Livestock Revolution, Sustainable Development, Zoonotic Disease
Conference Audio and Video - Gary Smith
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Gary Smith, MA, DPhil University of Pennsylvania
Audio of Dr. Smith's lecture (MP3 format; 27 minutes) Video of Dr. Smith's lecture (RealVideo format; 27 minutes) |
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Biography Dr. Smith is Professor of Population Biology and Epidemiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been Chief of the Section of Epidemiology and Public Health since 1995. He has a secondary appointment in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Penn's School of Medicine and is an Associate Scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics as well as being an Affiliated Faculty Member of Penn's Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response and a Faculty Associate of the Penn Institute of Urban Studies. Originally from Britain, where he was awarded degrees in Zoology, Education, and Ecology from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and York, Dr. Smith has worked in the United States since 1986. In 1992 he served on an FAO/WHO Expert Committee on the implementation of farm models in the developing world (in Nairobi, Kenya); he served on the Pennsylvania Food Quality Assurance Committee between 1995-1996; in 1999 he was a member of a European Union Expert Committee on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) risk (in Brussels) and in 2003 he served on a Whitehouse Blue Ribband Panel on Agroterrorism for the Federal Office of Science and Technology Policy. He has twice been asked to testify before the Pennsylvania House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee (on Foot and Mouth Disease, and on Agroterrorism). Currently a Standing Member of the Microbiology and Infectious Disease Review Committee for the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Smith has been a specialist editor for over half a dozen scientific journals and now serves as on the editorial review board for the International Journal of Applied Research in Veterinary Medicine. He is the author of over a hundred scientific articles, reviews, book chapters and books. His research deals with the epidemiology and population dynamics of infections disease in humans and wild and domestic animal species. He has extensive experience of mathematical modeling in the context of infectious and parasitic disease control strategies (included the evolution of drug resistance) and has published case-control studies on a range of infectious diseases of animals and humans. |
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Abstract The Impact of Non-Zoonotic Animal Disease Epidemics on Public Health and Well Being The consequences of large scale non-zoonotic infectious disease epidemics in domestic animals can be summarized by the following categories: direct economic losses; indirect multiplier affects (for example to agriculture-related industries, trade and tourism); logistical, environmental, social and political difficulties associated with the disposal of carcasses; controversy concerning methods and loss of confidence in government; public anxiety in the face of diseases whose direct health consequences for people are misunderstood; multiple opportunities for fraud and other criminal acts; damaging academic controversy; and changes in the incidence of other animal diseases several of which may be zoonotic. These consequences pervasive, and adversely influence human health and well being in multiple ways. |
