Veterinary Public Health: An Historical Perspective (EOLSSCODE 5)

(Contribution to Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (UNESCO, 2002), Chapter on Food Policy: 'Inspection, Quarantine & Quality Control')

Dr R.W.M.(Robin) Johnson is a former senior policy analyst in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Wellington, New Zealand. His interests are agricultural policy, agricultural trade, and the conduct of policy analysis in the bureaucracy.He has represented New Zealand at meetings at the FAO of the United Nations and the OECD. He has also worked as a consultant to FAO and the World Bank.

Executive Summary

Veterinary public health covers a very wide field of animal and human health, from diseases of wild animals to final consumer products. Its ramifications extend to trade in live animals as well as the management of disease. It has wide international implications in animal quarantine, the setting of standards in food quality, and international trade.

In the area of food quality, the WHO/FAO initiative of creating a global standard setting body (Codex Alimentarius) has resulted in a major advance in the harmonization of food quality standards. It may be noted, however, that veterinary public health is a wider concept than just applied to food products, as it also encompasses animal health, international movement of animals, and resulting public health concerns.

Globally, a large set of resources is required to maintain and support worldwide animal and animal product inspection systems. It has been shown that economies in the delivery of these services can be achieved through point control inspection systems.

Maintaining animal and animal product food health quality involves a major interference with domestic and international trade. There is a critical interface between government and private enterprise within countries where regulations have been imposed and conflicts have arisen. Command and control systems are still largely prevalent with opportunities for underlying resentment to surface.

In international terms, governments face off against each other in using such non-tariff measures to protect domestic industry. The Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures was a major achievement of the Uruguay Round. Harmonization of regulations offers greater opportunities for trade in animals and animal products between nations, though minimum standards have to be maintained. Protection of domestic industry is difficult to prove.

At the technical level, international co-operation in veterinary public health matters has been encouraged by intergovernmental scientific co-ordination organizations such as the Organisation Epizooties International, Codex Alimentarius, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. They have an enhanced role following the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures agreed by member countries of the WTO in 1994.

Keywords: Animal products, food safety, quarantine, inspection, veterinary public health, WTO

1. The Food Safety/Public Health Paradigm

There is a long history of concern for human health being affected by problems with the food we eat. This article is particularly concerned with foods of animal origin. As animals are mostly warm-blooded creatures like man, they share with man a propensity to host many organisms which have deleterious effects on both species. They are also subject to contagions among themselves, e.g., such as rinderpest. In addition, because animal foods are derived from living tissues, they are susceptible to problems of storage and spoilage. Finally, because animals eat many things that humans can, the food cycle can be re-infected with agents that cause animal or human disease and hence continue the cycle of bad food and spoilage.

Given these facts, public food safety in this area has to be seen as a holistic system that monitors and manages the production, feeding, slaughter and inspection of farm animals and animal products from birth to final consumption. Governments have put in place in the past, and will continue to introduce in the future, appropriate public health and animal health measures that monitor the current status of animal diseases, human pathogens, feed contamination, and problems of food storage. All of these require mainly goveernment sponsored and organized surveillance and inspection systems at some point.

There is some ambiguity in the literature about the nomenclature describing these systems. According to the OIE, veterinary public health includes zoonoses, food hygiene, drug residues and the environment. An American expert talks of veterinary public health and preventative medicine. A British author talks of contemporary veterinary medicine, but does not include food inspection. British legislation was oriented to quarantine against disease in live animal imports, and food quality was a matter for local health authorities. Since animal health is involved in this aspect of public health, the term veterinary public health is adopted here.

This paper is concerned with public policy for food and agriculture, with particular reference to animal health inspection. The following sections will therefore traverse most of the subject matter of veterinary public health. The WHO definition of veterinary public health is "veterinary public health comprises all the community efforts influencing and influenced by the veterinary medical arts and sciences applied to the prevention of disease, protection of life, and promotion of the well-being and efficiency of man", in its widest sense, as it applies to monitoring and controlling food quality in animal products entering the human food chain, and clarifying its role in public policy for food and agriculture. Obviously, the subject must include any veterinary, quarantine, or surveillance matter that affects the wholesomeness of food products derived from the animal kingdom.

2. Economics of Veterinary Public Health

Veterinary public health (v.p.h.) covers a wide range of economic issues. In the first place, it is a public service industry which provides animal and human health services to both producers, processors and consumers. These services add to the value of final goods produced at each stage of production. In a free market situation, extra services would not be demanded unless costs could be recovered. However, v.p.h. is not subject to free supply and demand because society requires that minimum standards of "quality" be maintained in all goods derived from animal products. Indeed, society operates to make such standards mandatory. The cost therefore has to be borne by the buyer/consumer or by the taxpayer.

Secondly, "quality" is very hard to define in goods derived from animals. In particular, as the following discussion will reveal, quality consists of characteristics that appeal to the senses (organoleptic) and characteristics that are hidden from the consumer (toxins etc). Therefore, the consumer has to be protected from what he/she cannot see.

Thirdly, animals and animal diseases are not static. In general, both are characterized by very high mobility which means that infectious agents are easily spread from animal to animal and from country to country. In economic terms, infection is the ultimate externality - it cannot be internalized in an animal, in a herd, or within a country without adequate control mechanisms (e.g., veterinary practice, quarantine, inspection).

Fourth, the means of control cannot be selective. There can be no exceptions with disease. Thus, in economic terms, hygiene restraints on production at all its stages must apply to everybody - in effect they have to be sanctions administered by and enforced by some central authority. Hence, hygiene controls are usually administered by Governments, and from an early stage in history, by international co-operation between the governments of different countries.

Fifth, very large organizational skills are required at government level to maintain animal disease surveillance (animal health), international trade in animals (animal quarantine), entry of animal food products into human consumption (meat inspection and food standards), and control of animal feeds (feed standards). These functions are usually found in Ministries or Departments of Agriculture under various differently named bureaux or sections.

3. Origins of Disease

The idea that diseases can be transmitted from one animal to another has its origins in antiquity. The Romans believed that disease could be spread by airborne seeds or animalculae(not necessarily living) that were taken in through the nose and mouth. The Jewish Talmud describes demons as hiding ‘everywhere’ - in water, crumbs and air - implying contagiousness. The primitive Hindus associated sick rats with human plague, the first suggestion of a zoonosis. The Veronan Fracastorius, writing in the early 16th century, argued that diseases were transmitted by minute, invisible, particles. Lancisi, physician to Pope Clement XI, freed Rome from rinderpest by using a slaughter policy to prevent infection of unaffected animals.

The main advances in the identification of microbes as causes of infectious diseases occurred in the 19th century, although the concept of a living contagious agent, contagium animatum, was found in the 17th century. Edward Jenners development of a smallpox vaccine using cowpox infective material, and early biological warfare conducted by American settlers who gave blankets belonging to smallpox victims to Indians as presents, implicitly recognized contagion.

Viruses were also discovered in the late 19th century, although not actually ‘seen’ until the invention of the electron microscope in the 1930s. In 1892, Iwanowsky demonstrated that tobacco mosaic could be transmitted by sap that had been filtered through bacteria-proof filters. Beijerinck serially transmitted the disease using bacteria-free filtrates, and coined the term contagium vivum fluidum to describe the infectious living agent. In 1898-99, Loeffler and Frosch discovered the first animal virus, and in 1911, Rous reported the first virus-induced transmissible tumour. Towards the end of the 19th century, the first arthropod carrier (a tick) of an infectious disease was identified by Kilborne, Smith and Curtis, investigating Texas fever of cattle.

3.1. Domestication and Distribution of Animals

The dog, naturally a hunter, was the first animal to be domesticated over 14 000 years ago, says Thrusfield. Sheep and goats were domesticated by 9 000BC in the fertile Nile valley and were the basis of early pastoral cultures. These societies were succeeded by cattle cultures (4 000 BC) and by pigs. The records demonstrate that animals had a religious as well as an economic significance in early civilisations. A European wild ox (extinct) was essential to the religion of the Sumerians who migrated throughout Asia, North Africa and Europe in the third millennium BC taking their animals and their beliefs with them. India is the largest cattle culture that remains.

Cattle cultures persist in North East Africa: the result of interaction between the Ancient Egyptians and early Nilotic (Bantu) tribes. Cattle still play an important part in these cultures; they are food, companionship, and status, and religious symbols to the Suk and Dinka tribes and many others.

Horse cultures came to succeed some cattle cultures. The horse is represented in Iranian, Greek, and Celtic pantheons. It has become a symbol of veterinary medicine in the form of a centaur, of which, Chiron was considered to be the mythological founder of Greek medicine. style='letter-spacing:-.2pt'>The Spanish introduced cattle, sheep, pigs and goats to North America in the 16th century. Haired sheep were introduced to Africa by European slave traders. The Spanish brought turkeys to Europe from North America.

3.2. Early Strategies for Disease Prevention

The initial domestication of animals brought man into close contact with animals, and therefore with their diseases. While primitive theories of disease prevailed, economic survival ensured that primitive techniques of disease treatment evolved. Quarantine (derived from the Italian word meaning ‘forty’ - the traditional length, in days, of isolation in the Middle Ages) and slaughter became preventative strategies. The importance of the horse in military affairs led to the development of the profession of veterinarians. The bias towards horses lasted until the early 20th century when equine veterinary medicine was still considered to be a more respectable occupation than the care of other species!

There are records of animal plagues going back to the time of Christ. Anthrax was known in Rome in AD500, and foot-and-mouth disease in Italy in AD1400, and rinderpest in France in 1710-1714. Animal plagues, especially those of cattle, became particularly common in Europe in the mid 18th century with the introduction of rinderpest from Asia. Local outbreaks of disease were thought to be the result of local eruptions of noxious air: the miasma. The miasma were thought to originate from filth generated by man, rather than from natural sources. Again the theory, imperfect as it was, led to a stable phase of husbandry characterized by improvement of farm hygiene, slaughter, and treatment as control techniques. When rinderpest entered England from Holland in 1714, Thomas Bates, surgeon to George I, advocated fumigation of buildings, slaughter and burning of affected animals, and resting of contaminated pasture as typical tactics. Cattle owners were also compensated for loss.

Half the cattle in France were destroyed by rinderpest between 1710 and 1714. The disease occurred irregularly until 1750 when it again became a serious problem. Little was known about the disease. This provided impetus for the establishment of the first permanent veterinary school at Lyons in 1762. Alfort was founded in 1766, Hannover in 1778, London in 1791, Edinburgh in 1823, and Toulouse in 1825.

The lifting of animal importation restrictions in England in 1840-42 increased the risk of disease occurring in Britain. Sheep pox entered Britain in 1847 from Germany, and pleuropneumonia became a serious problem. Public concern, highlighted by the rinderpest outbreak of 1865, was responsible for the establishment of the British State Veterinary Service in the same year. Similar services were founded in other countries. Disease control had become a public policy matter.

A new era dawned with the discovery of the microbial basis of disease in the late 19th century. This postulated a specific single cause of an infectious disease and therefore implied a suitable control strategy directed against the causal agent. Treatment of disease could be based on laboratory analysis involving isolation of agents and identification of lesions followed by therapy. Control of disease by prevention and, subsequently, eradication involved mass testing of animals and immunisation when an increasing number of vaccines became available. The discovery of disease vectors facilitated disease prevention by vector control (e.g., malarial mosquito). An improved understanding of infectious agents life histories enabled their life cycles to be broken by manipulating the environment: the draining of land to prevent fascioliasis (liver fluke) is a good example. Bacterial diseases remained as major clinical problems until the discovery and synthesis of antibiotics in the 20th century, which increased the therapeutic power of the veterinarian.

3.3. Animals as Food Sources

Man has cultivated animals not only for food sources but also for purposes of transport and war. In primitive societies, food derived from animals did not lend itself to storage. It is recorded that salt was a highly sought after commodity in early times because of its capacity to preserve the flesh of animals. The domestication of animals was thus marked by consistent patterns of feast and famine according to the availability of fresh meat.

The disposal of animal carcasses was a major problem in medieval society. Disposal of offal after slaughter went into open trenches and dead animals were sent to knackers yards. Knackers sold the skins of the animals and disposed of the carcasses in the field for birds and scavengers to dispose of. Knackers were segregated from normal society and even had their own cups in inns. There were some enlightened people who identified these problems early in the 19th century (see Box 1). It was later recognized that anthrax, a highly contagious disease of cattle, was spread from dead material. Cholera was also thought to be spread from such sites in the middle of the 19th century.

Box 1. Goethe and Veterinary Public Health

"The great poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe exercised the function of Minister of State under Grand Duke Carl August of Sachen-Weimar-Eisenach, founding a small veterinary school at Jena, in 1816, which operated for 30 years. In December 1831, a few months before his death, Goethe issued instructions to those in charge of the Jena Veterinary School to the effect that special attention should be paid to the burial of anatomical specimens, to ensure that the trenches and gardens of the school do not become overfilled, and were filled in promptly to be replaced by a new burial place. From the instructions contained in the manuscript and from his tribute paid to the personnel of this institution in a Jena newspaper, one can see how the poet was concerned about hygiene problems and carcass disposal in his capacity as an official in a small principality."

From Schonherr, W. (1991), History of veterinary public health in Europe in the 19th Century, OIE Revue Scientifique et Technique 10 (4), 985-994.

The Smithfield market was in existence in 1253. In 1326, Edward III granted by charter, to the citizens (and Corporation) of London, exclusive market rights and privileges within seven miles from the city. There are records of an Urban Sanitary Act in Britain as early as 1388. There had been trade guilds in Britain, including butchers, since the 8th century. In Scotland, they were called Fleshers Guilds and were incorporated before 1488. In Aberdeen, the records of the city state that in 1399, four appreciatores carnium(meat inspectors) were appointed to examine the quality of the flesh sold in the town. There is a clear pattern of legislation in Britain governing the control of plagues (particularly rinderpest) going back to 1714. The main legislation governing adulteration of food to protect consumers dates from 1875 - the Food and Drug Act.

Food preservation was very rudimentary. Slaughter took place in the autumn when temperatures dropped. There are records of ice houses on English estates in the 17th century, so this means of preservation was known at that time. Ice-packed cool stores were in common use before the advent of refrigeration. The liquefaction of gases by Faraday and Lavoisier and the invention of compression machines (c. 1834) enabled the commercial production of ice by 1855. The advent of refrigeration completely revolutionized not only the food storage problem but also world trade in temperate agricultural products of animal origin. For example, the first shipment of refrigerated beef from the US to the UK took place in 1875.

3.4. Control of Live Animals

Another characteristic of animal hygiene and food safety is that animals themselves are mobile and contribute to re-infection. Given the medieval problems of storage, it was customary to transport live animals to where they were required. Thus, the diseases of animals, which were either fatal to themselves, such as rinderpest, or a threat to humans, such as tuberculosis, were easily spread from district to district and from country to country. Added to this were the problems of the disposal of dead animals and effluent.

In the UK, George I authorized an eradication program for rinderpest in 1714 which was very successful. In 1746, an Order in Council was introduced which authorized quarantine measures and eradication after a further infection of rinderpest was discovered. In 1770, an Order in Council banned imports of cattle. This was relaxed in 1840 or 1842 (according to which authority you quote) and imports of live animals resumed. Further controls were imposed in 1847, 1848, 1857, and in 1865 the Cattle Disease Prevention Act covering quarantine requirements, notification requirements, and a veterinary establishment act was passed. A Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act was passed in 1869, which, with subsequent amendments formed the basis of modern legislation in the UK.

In the United States, the Massachusetts legislature authorised eradication of pleuropneumonia in 1859. The Bureau of Animal Husbandry was established in 1884. In 1887, authority was given to purchase and destroy cattle infected with, or exposed to, pleuropneumonia. In 1890, importation of diseased animals was prohibited and others quarantined.

4. The Development of Hygiene Inspection

In Europe, scientific and technical knowledge in the late 19th century enabled the association between human tuberculosis and the consumption of beef infected with the tuberculosis bacteria to be established. Pasteur was the first (in 1870) to suspect microbes to be the agents of disease, and Gerlach (in 1875) described bovine "pearl disease" and suggested it might be transmissible to humans. When the agent of tuberculosis was discovered in 1882 by Koch, a causal relationship was assumed to exist for the first time. Ten years later, in 1892, having confirmed that tuberculosis could be transmitted to man by infected beef, Ostertag was appointed to the first academic chair established anywhere in the world to cover the fields of meat inspection and milk hygiene at the University of Berlin. Under his authorship, the first Meat Inspection Act in the world was drawn up in 1900, following the promulgation of the first Epizootics Act in 1880.

Brucellosis or contagious abortion of cattle was discovered by Bang in 1896. Infected animals may harbour the agent in all organs and tissues, including the placenta and the mammary glands. Man can be infected through contact with infected animals or through the consumption of milk. Pasteurisation is an effective preventative measure. Trichinellosis in pigs was discovered by Paget in 1835, but was not recognized as a serious health problem until 1860 when Zenker, Virchow and Leuckart made discoveries clearly demonstrating the life-cycle, transmission and pathogenicity of the parasite. As a result of these discoveries, obligatory inspection of pork for the presence of trichinae was introduced in Prussia in 1877.

Rabies is a disease of the canine family, which can be passed to man - usually by the dogs bite. Its prevalence has declined in the 20th century due to unknown causes. The incidence of rabies in man can be controlled by prophylactic vaccination and post-exposure treatment, by reducing the risk of human exposure and, conclusively, by disease elimination.

Latent infection is another problem area - latent infection is where animals and animal stocks do not show sign of infection in their lifetime and appear healthy on gross inspection. In the case of Salmonella bacteria, for example, feeds, excrement and ground water become contaminated with agents of infection and they may be passed on to humans unknowingly. This raises the case for government intervention to protect the consumer from what he/she cannot see. Testing for Salmonella, Campylobacter, Toxoplasma, and other latent organisms is now the basis of all modern inspection systems with public health implications [see Box 2].

4.1. Contamination of Foods of Animal Origin

Chemical residues may be present in animals and may result in the contamination of food. Chemical residues may also belong to quite different chemical substance groups. There are different routes of contamination which may support one another. Contamination may result from either deliberate legal or illegal use of chemical substances or from substances present in the environment. Examples of the first type can be seen in the use of veterinary medicines and pesticides; examples of the second, in the use prohibited substances such as hormonal growth promoters; examples of the third, in the presence of heavy metals or chlorinated hydrocarbons from a contaminated environment.

4.2. Methods to Guarantee Hygiene in Foods of Animal Origin

Von Ostertag advocated passage of the first Meat Inspection Act in Germany in 1900. It was characteristic that the tasks involved were officially conferred on veterinarians who had the necessary expertise through their professional training. They were also empowered to decide on the acceptance of animals for slaughter (permission, ban, or permission with certain restrictions) and to evaluate the fitness of meat for consumption. These regulations, which essentially still apply today, served as a model for many governments when passing their own rules for inspection.

Box 2. Important zoonoses in meat hygiene in Europe (after Grossklaus et al)
Zoonosis	Occurrence in animals	Ease of diagnosis at meat inspection	Public health relevance
Salmonellosis	high	very low	high
Toxoplasmosis	low	extremely low	high
Cysticercosis	low	medium	high
Trichinellosis	very low	medium	high
Q fever	low	extremely low	high
Leptospirosis	medium	extremely low	low
Listeriosis	very low	extremely low	low
Sarcoporidiosis	high	medium	no data
Tuberculosis	extremely low	low	high
Brucellosis	extremely low	low	high

The mode of examination has been modified over the years but was always based on adequate ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection. Initially, the primary objective was the detection of infectious diseases (intensive clinical and/or pathological examination, bacterial examination of meat, detection of trichinae), whereas more recently attention has focused on the establishment of evidence of illegal methods of fattening, the detection of residues of medicines and environmental chemicals (residue analysis), and the damage caused by storage and transportation (lung manifestations, abscesses, bone fractures, mastitis).

In view of the greater mechanisation and acceleration of the slaughtering process, it has become increasingly difficult to provide for proper examination on the processing line. Methods to achieve this are discussed later [HACCP]. It has also become necessary to extend the anti-mortem inspection procedures back to the farm level to ensure adequate hygiene among the animal stocks themselves.

With the development of consumer products in the meat industry and the advent of modern packaging materials, backed by inspection systems, very high standards of hygiene can be achieved. Such standards safeguard the integrity of food in terms of consumer health and help promote uniform conditions of hygiene within and between countries. Measures of standardisation are now agreed by national, regional, and international bodies concerned with hygiene.

With the development of inspection procedures, considerable improvements have also taken place in the technology of slaughter, treatment, processing and preservation. Examples are the use of heat treatment to aid preservation (milk) and to sterilize by-products (blood), pasteurisation (liquid egg), heat treatment in canning, efficient cooling chains (slaughter, transport and storage), and deep freezing (poultry, fish and crustaceans). There is considerable international debate on the adequacy of these technologies.

4.3. Food Establishments

To avoid the contamination of originally uncontaminated foods, there is a need to extend controls to all food establishments as part of proper application of good manufacturing practice. At this end of the food chain, there is a need for co-operation between government and private interests. The principal objective should be to identify those phases in processing and handling which are critical with regard to hygiene, and to eliminate sources of contamination. The resulting network of controls should cover the entire path from primary production to the final product which is ready for consumption. In many countries, these responsibilities are split between different jurisdictions and are not harmonized adequately, if at all.

4.4. Animal Wastes

The safe disposal and productive utilization of animal wastes can make a major contribution to environmental hygiene. The volume of waste material, eighty percent of which consists of by-products from slaughter, can be passed on to rendering plants, to special industries which process it, and into sewage systems. The technological processes employed must be designed in such a way as to ensure adequate sterilisation, i.e., the elimination of agents of infection. For example, German legislation on the disposal of animal carcasses requires heating to 133 degrees celsius for 20 minutes and for processes to be organized so that no cross-contamination can take place. Some countries require pre-treatment of sewage materials.

4.5. The Aims of Inspection in Slaughter of Animals

5. Country Experience

5.1. Great Britain

Box 3. Reasons for Hygiene Measures
(after Petrey and Johnson 1993)
Measure/Practice	Reason
Ante-mortem inspection	Public health, animal health
Post-mortem inspection	Public health
Separation of product	Re-contamination
Area of origin	Animal health (Aujesky's disease)
Rendering	Re-infection of the food chain
Sterilisation	Re-infection of the food chain
Sealing/containment	Truth in labelling
Certification	Government guarantee, trade
Presentation	Absence of disease and abnormalities
Slaughter method	Halal requirement
Whole v part	Absence of systemic disease, ease of inspection
Identification of species	Religious preferences
Laboratory testing	Hidden substances, organisms

The control of meat inspection traditionally lay in the hands of city corporations. The corporations represented the ruling classes and the guilds represented the slaughter tradesmen and agreed rules evolved for the management of slaughtering premises and the disposal of carcasses. Some corporations moved to license private slaughterhouses while others built their own facilities and discouraged private slaughterhouses. Leighton and Douglas record that the town of Cardiff, under the Cardiff Corporation Act 1835, made private slaughterhouses illegal. The making of regulations for the licensing, registering, and inspection of slaughterhouses dates from the Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847, and were incorporated in later public health acts. Leighton and Douglas state that the exposure for sale of unsound food has always been an offence at common law.

Various Acts in England and Scotland, both public and private, have contained provisions relating to the making of regulations for meat inspection; these are the Public Health Act 1875, the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1890, with regard to England in general, the Public Health (London) Act 1891 with regard to the metropolis, and the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897, in regard to Scotland. Such regulations were to prevent cruelty, keep premises clean, provide for removing filth, supplying water, and provide for the imposition of penalties. Inspection by a veterinary surgeon was mandatory in Scotland but not in England. In 1908, in Edinburgh, the inspection of butcher's meat and other foodstuffs was made under the Public Health (Scotland) Act 1897, section 43, and the staff consisted of four qualified veterinary surgeons who reported to the Medical Officer of Health.

As a result of the The Jungle affair (see next section), the Public Health (Regulations as to Food) Act 1907 was introduced empowering local authorities through their officers to examine meat as it arrives at ports. The regulations were designed to control the import of boneless meat and similar products, carcasses of pigs from which the lymphatic glands are absent (thus avoiding detection of tuberculosis), and to introduce the requirement for an official certificate of origin which shows that it has been passed at the time of slaughter. Duties of inspectors at Liverpool under the Diseases of Animals Act required them to inspect cattle steamers, both foreign and cross-channel, with reference to fittings, ventilation, and general hygiene conditions.

When the UK entered the Common Market in 1973, it became subject to the Veterinary Directives of the [now] European Community. The EU adopted new welfare at slaughter rules in 1993 (Directive 93/119/EC) and these are reflected in the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995. These made it an absolute offence to cause or permit an animal avoidable excitement, pain or suffering; provided specific rules on handling, stunning, slaughter or killing of animals; provided that persons carrying out these tasks must have the knowledge and skill to do their jobs humanely and efficiently; and must be competent and hold a registered licence; and that every slaughterhouse must have a competent person with authority to take action to safeguard welfare. The Meat Hygiene Service was launched on 1 April 1995, and it took over from 300 local authorities responsibility for enforcing meat hygiene, inspection and animal welfare and slaughter legislation for 1875 licensed fresh meat premises in England, Scotland and Wales. Public health and welfare are safeguarded in plants by Official Veterinary Surgeons and Meat Inspectors.

5.2. United States

In the United States, European countries were complaining that American meats were unwholesome as early as the 1870s. In 1878, the UK placed restrictions on the importation of US cattle for slaughter because of the presence of bovine pleuropneumonia and ordered that all such cattle must be slaughtered at the port of landing within 10 days. Italy and Hungary in 1879, followed by Germany, Spain, France, Turkey, Rumania and Greece, banned the import of pork from the US because of the presence of trichinae.

In the decade prior to 1891, amid large meat export losses, meat packers and livestock producers approached Congress for remedial action. In 1889, the secretary of agriculture had noted the need for a national program of livestock inspection of cattle at the time of slaughter that would result in the condemnation of carcasses unfit for food and guarantee the accepted product as untainted by disease. Congress responded by passing the first federal meat inspection law, which was signed by the president on 30 August 1890. The act provided only for the inspection of live animals for export, and inspection by the piece of intended meats for export, primarily salted pork and bacon. There was no determination of the health of the animals prior to slaughter. Due to the inadequacies of the law, foreign governments refused to recognize certificates issued under it and continued to exclude US meats.

On 3 March 1891, a second law was passed requiring ante-mortem inspection of cattle, hogs and sheep whose meat was intended for export or sale across state lines and authorising post-mortem inspection at the discretion of the secretary of agriculture. Inspection responsibilities were placed under the US Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, an agency created in 1884 to deal with the control and eradication of bovine pleuropneumonia. The federal meat inspection program was inaugurated on 12 May 1891 at Eastman and Co. abattoir, New York City, on cattle for export. In June 1891, inspection began in Chicago and other mid-western plants. Inspection first consisted of ante-mortem examinations and permissive post-mortem examinations, and was later extended to include microscopic examinations of pork for trichinae to meet German requirements. By 1893, microscopists were being used in Kansas plants. Further law changes in 1895 established better controls for carcasses and parts of carcasses condemned as a result of inspection procedures. State and municipal authorities were responsible for the destruction of condemned animals.

As a result of considerable further public outcry, as well as the result of the publication of Upton Sinclairs book about the Chicago meat works, The Jungle, the 1906 Meat Inspection Act was passed by Congress. The act provided for mandatory post-mortem inspection of all cattle, sheep, swine, and goats whose meat was to be sold interstate or in foreign commerce; for the destruction of all carcasses found to be unfit for human food; and for control over processing and labeling of foods derived from inspected and passed carcasses. It provided authority for the secretary of agriculture to draw up regulations governing sanitation in the packinghouse. Mandatory ante-mortem inspection was not provided for, but in practice was done under the discretionary authority granted to the secretary.

In 1907, legislation was passed providing for labeling reviews, for inspection of live horses; and for separation of diseased animals from other animals, and of slaughter areas from processing areas. In 1942, to meet the food emergencies of World War II, Congress enacted a law temporarily applying the provisions of the Meat Inspection Act to all meat plants involved in intrastate commerce. This law was repealed in 1947. In 1958, the national Humane Slaughter Act set standards for the equipment and methods used in slaughtering food animals to ensure the humane treatment of these animals. Finally, the Wholesome Meat Act 1967 was passed by congress, and all meat for sale had to pass inspection; inspection programs in states had to be equal to federal programs; transporters and cold-storage warehouses were made subject to the provisions; and requirements covering imported meats were made more stringent so that these products would be inspected by foreign programs at least equal to the United States.

5.2.1. Poultry (US)

At the time that the Meat Inspection Act 1906 was passed, there was no generally perceived need to include poultry and poultry products in the provisions of the act. It was not until the 1940s that poultry slaughter and processing reached the size and concentration that the need for regulatory supervision became evident. Three separate sets of regulations and eight different standards and grades for poultry were consolidated, revised, and published in the Federal Register on 15 November 1949 under the title "Regulations Governing the Grading and Inspection of Poultry and Domestic Rabbits and Edible Products Thereof and United States Specifications". The revised regulations became effective on 1 July 1951, and, for the first time, sanitation requirements became applicable to federally-inspected poultry dressing operations, and only poultry processed in compliance with these requirements could be inspected. Additionally, grading and grade labeling of ready-to-cook poultry were permitted only when the poultry had been inspected for wholesomeness under the department inspection program or an official inspection program approved by the department. Further legislation was passed in August 1957, the poultry products Inspection Act, that provided for mandatory inspection of all slaughtered poultry moving in interstate or foreign commerce; responsibility for administration resting with the USDA, Agricultural Marketing Service.

5.3. Australia and New Zealand

In the rest of the New World, Australia and New Zealand were also affected by changes in European import requirements, as well as South America and elsewhere. The Australian export trade in meat to the United Kingdom had its beginning when the worlds first freezing works was built on Sydneys waterfront in 1861, giving impetus to the establishment of formal inspection processes to satisfy overseas requirements for the domestic sale of meat. After a failed attempt on the Durham in 1873, the first successful cargo of frozen meat (and butter) arrived in London in 1880 on the Strathleven. The first frozen meat cargo to leave New Zealand (in 1882) was on the sailing ship Dunedin. The ship took 98 days to reach England!

Records of early meat inspection procedures in Australia are sparse, but clearly, even by the early 1890s they were inadequate, as UK authorities complained of numerous onchocerca nodules left in beef briskets, and rejected some shipments of forequarter beef. As a result of overseas concern, the Commonwealth Government invoked its constitutional powers and appointed a veterinary officer to supervise inspection of export beef in Queensland. This was later extended to cover all states of Australia. In 1916, the Commonwealth Government expanded its role by establishing an inspection service of meat inspectors under Commonwealth jurisdiction. Primary inspection was carried out by meat inspectors with veterinarians advising and having overall responsibility.

In New Zealand, a Department of Agriculture was established in 1890 with J.A. Gilruth as Chief Veterinary Officer (later Professor of Veterinary Pathology at the University of Melbourne). In response to an outbreak of tuberculosis in dairy herds, the Slaughtering and Inspection Act 1890 was passed, which legislated for the compulsory inspection of meat for export, and established the first meat inspection service under Gilruth with supervising veterinarians and meat inspectors. The Act provided for all slaughtering of meat to be inspected, stock inspections to be carried out on farms and diseased stock destroyed, and compensation paid. Gilruth arranged for shipments of previously un-sterilised bone dust from Calcutta and Sydney (it was a carrier of anthrax) to be sterilised at port of dispatch, and also organized (at a place called Wallaceville) the first veterinary research laboratory in New Zealand. Most of the New Zealand export of meat was landed in the Port of London.

Inspection systems in both Australia and New Zealand were geared to the import requirements of the UK government. From 1908, this was controlled by the Public Health (Regulations as to Food) Act 1907 which resulted in port inspection by local authority officials. Among other things, certificates of origin at the time of slaughter were a mandatory requirement. The opening of the US market to imports of beef in 1957, caused a huge change of alignment of inspection facilities and costs in both countries. The Wholesome Meat Act 1967 subsequently laid down detailed requirements and standards for meat slaughtering, processing and storage within the United States and in those countries exporting meat to the US. A large investment in processing facilities was required of the processing companies to meet these requirements. In 1962, the UK entered the Common market, and New Zealands lamb trade was particularly affected by the application of the First Country Veterinary Directive, and later, the Third Country Veterinary Directive, especially with regard to plant hygiene, stock yards, and wall materials. These were modelled on continental systems of inspection. New Zealand and Australia have survived these impositions, and continue to trade with both the EU and the US. Australia and New Zealand have followed US practice and have adopted HACCP in recent years.

6. Process and Procedures

Economists would say that the imposition of necessary checks on diseases of animals entering the human food chain have had high transaction costs. By that they mean the time-honoured measures of quarantine, port inspection, animal health and food quality have been expensive in terms of the labour and administration resources involved. Such costs are met by taxpayers or are deducted from farmers' returns.

As will be discussed below, the need for greater efficiencies in these processes while still maintaining quality standards have led to new systems of food inspection in many countries (HACCP).

Inspection in slaughterhouses/abattoirs has been particularly costly in terms of skilled and lay employees. In most countries, supervision by qualified veterinarians is required, while on-line [chain] inspection has been the work of well-trained lay inspectors [It has to be remembered that every carcass has to inspected for faults in a very fast moving industrial process].

Quality requirements are generally specified in manuals. These not only serve to guide abattoir inspectors but also form the standard for imports of meat products across international borders. Most countries provide certificates that accompany every shipment of a given meat product. Some countries require that such certificates include specific clauses relating to their own legislative requirements. International manuals might specify conditions for the import of fresh and frozen meat and meat by-products, including prohibitions and import restrictions, labeling requirements and certification requirements (see Box 4).

As will be discussed below, these requirements are a definite impediment to trade, but are thought to be justified from the point of view of human health protection.

6.1. The Move to Food Safety

Traditional meat inspection has tended to focus on organoleptic inspection and the removal of visual pathological defects from the food chain (See Box 5). The true risk of these defects in human health terms has not been quantified in the past, but is now considered to be of far less importance than the microbiological contamination by pathogens derived from the gastro-intestinal tract or the skin of the animal, or from the operator, that occurs during the slaughter and dressing process. This view of the process is widely accepted internationally and countries are moving steadily to conform with its principles.

Formal process control and quality assurance systems within the production chain are now being adopted world-wide. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is one such system and derives from a scientifically-based production and inspection system first developed in the United States by NASA to ensure food safety for astronauts. The HACCP concept was pioneered in the 1960s by the Pillsbury Company, the United States Army and the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as a collaborative development for the production of safe foods for the United States space program. NASA wanted a "zero defects" program to guarantee the safety of the foods that the astronauts would consume in space. Pillsbury therefore introduced and adopted HACCP as the system that would provide the greatest safety while reducing dependence on end-product inspection and testing. HACCP focuses on preventative measures rather than end-products testing. Monitoring processes ensures food is produced in the safest possible way and that all potential hazards (e.g., micro-organisms, chemical hazards and physical hazards) are either prevented or reduced to negligible levels.

Box 4. United States Import Requirements for Meat and Meat products (after Petrey and Johnson 1993)
Requirement	Raison d'etre
Import prohibitions
Carcasses or parts of carcasses from which naturally associated tissues such as the peritoneum, pleura, or carcass lymph nodes have been removed, or that have required major rectification to bring them up to standard ( e.g. carcasses with deep-seated wounds or bruises or heavily contaminated carcasses)	Inspection Consumer aesthetics
Meat derived from bodies having tuberculosis in the carcass or viscera or animals which have reacted to a tuberculosis test	Public health
Horsemeat; Bobby calf veal, except boneless bobby calf veal and bone-in legs; Livers with portal lymph nodes missing; Edible lungs and lactating udders;	Consumer aesthetics
Pieces of fresh, frozen or cured meat smaller than 30mm cubes except where recognisable as an anatomical entity; Inedible rendered fat, not denatured; Any meat or meat product considered adulterated or mis-branded in terms of the US Meat regulations.	Truth-in-labelling
Import restrictions:
Imports restricted to slaughter and preparation of product from approved establishments; the establishment and its products are to be "at least equal to" requirements of the US Wholesale Meat Act 1967; imports restricted to product subject to an approved residue testing program, approved quality sampling program, and packing materials approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.	Public health
Certification requirements:
Imported product must meet completion requirements, transit requirements, label approval and residue pre-testing endorsement requirements.	Certification Truth-in-labelling
Fresh meat requirements:
Meat must be derived from livestock which have received ante and post mortem veterinary inspection in establishments approved for export into the US. Meat must not be adulterated or misbranded as defined by the regulations governing meat inspection of the US Department of Agriculture. Products have been handled in a sanitary manner and otherwise in compliance with requirements at least equal to those of the Wholesale Meat Act 1967 and regulations.	Public health Animal health Truth-in-labelling
Certificate must be endorsed for "spring lamb" and "yearling mutton" as specified	Identification of close substitutes

The reasons for, and the extent of, Governments involvement in meat inspection programmes internationally, is historic, and meat inspection remains one of the only areas in the commercial production of a commodity where governments intervene to the extent they do. Fundamental questions have now arisen as to the necessity for and cost effectiveness of the traditional organoleptic meat inspection program with all its ante and post mortem inspection and hygiene verification being carried out by government employees.

Box 5. Traditional Regulatory Approach

Regulatory Good Manufacturing Practice

Multitude of regulatory requirements based on veterinary good manufacturing practice. These are existing standards and procedures processors must comply with to get certification for market access.

Characteristics:

Meets existing market access requirements based on visible defects.

Does not deliver a consistent product in terms of microbiological loading therefore of unknown pathogen load and unable to guarantee shelf life when saving vacuum packed chilled product.

Microbiological loadings in range 10 to 100000 / sq cm.

Weak correlation between visible contamination rate detected at meat inspection and real microbiological loading. In some cases correlation is negative.

Unlikely to meet future market requirements where emphasis is on reduction of pathogens.

Approach is described as command and control and does not allow processors to take the primary responsibility for the food safety of their production.

Consumers are becoming more exacting and vocal in their demands for safe food. These demands come at a time when many Governments' financial resources preclude adding further costs to the food safety program. Within the US, Canada, and the EU, there is a move to shift the primary responsibility for the safety of food to food processors, and to improve the performance of programs by mandating that all processors design food safety programs and process foodstuffs in accordance with specified principles such as HACCP provides. There is thus a need to move away from command and control methods towards performance-based standards using pathogens as the indicator of performance (see Box 6). The outcome is reduced inspectorial input for traditional inspection, but a greater dependence on internal control processes. This enables regulatory costs to be contained, and enhances commercial productivity.

It is accepted that the bulk of pathological defects are of an aesthetic nature and have no impact on public health. Governments are therefore beginning to view these defects as primarily a commercial quality problem when compared with microbiological contamination of gastro-intestinal / skin / operator origin. Government employed veterinarians are giving way to government lay inspectors, and they in turn are giving way to industry personnel carrying out the same function, under government oversight and with technical support to a greater or lesser degree.

Within the European Union, various "Food Directives" have been promulgated, focusing on reduced levels of all zoonotic pathogens. HACCP is included as a requirement within a number of these Directives. In the US, the "Mega reg" proposal is geared toward pathogen reduction and process control through the mandatory application of HACCP. In Canada, Australia and New Zealand, HACCP is seen as a means of ensuring that industries meet their responsibilities for food safety and become less dependent on traditional process methods.

The concept of HACCP has been promulgated by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Recognizing the importance of HACCP to food control, the 20th session of the Commission adopted Guidelines for the Application of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system in July 1993. FAO notes that the application of HACCP is compatible with the implementation of quality management systems, such as the ISO 9000 series, and HACCP is the system of choice for the management of food safety within such systems. FAO has published a full-scale training manual for HACCP.

7. International Co-ordination

The World Health Organisation (WHO), based in Geneva, is the over-arching United Nations (UN) organisation with responsibility for international co-ordination of human health matters. Veterinary public health is the responsibility of the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) based in Paris which is an inter-governmental organisation outside the UN ambit, but which co-operates with it. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the UN has responsibility for all matters of food and agricultural production, from the production stage to marketing and hence also includes animal production and animal food products. Finally, WHO and FAO established the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 1962 to co-ordinate international matters concerning food standards, including both animal and plant products. International co-operaclation on health preceded international co-operation in trade. There are obviously overlapping jurisdictions between these four organisations, which are elucidated below.

Box 6. HACCP and Food Safety

Focus of Food Safety Program:

Focus on critical points where problems occur e.g. where contamination risks are greatest.

Gives a predictable outcome in terms of microbiological loading.

Relies on a prerequisite good manufacturing practice program in situ.

Lends itself to statistical analysis.

Good Manufacturing Practice Defined

HACCP delivers better results than traditional regulatory good manufacturing practice.

Can be modified in light of Research and Development carried out by processor providing program.

Characteristics:

Will meet future market access requirements based on control of microbiological contamination and presence of pathogens.

Will deliver a predictable product in terms of microbiological loading therefore giving better guarantees for shelf life when saving vacuum packed chilled product.

Microbiological loadings generally in range 10 to 1000 / sq cm but with the predictability, intervention steps can be taken when higher loadings are predicted.

Moves away from traditional command and control and allows processors to take the primary responsibility for the food safety of their production and introduces the opportunity for flexible processing alternatives.

Meets many commercial quality objectives as well as food safety objectives.

Meets diligence objectives and underpins ISO requirements.

The Office International d'Hygiene Publique (International Office of Public Hygiene)(IOPH), a precursor of WHO, was founded in Paris in 1907. An International Conference for the Study of Epizootics was held in Paris in 1920 at which it was proposed that surveillance and control of epizootics be part of IOPH. However, the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) was established in 1924 as a separate inter-governmental organisation.

The founders of OIE were mainly concerned with preventing devastating epizootics that could hamper world trade in products of animal origin. They were also concerned that the link to human health should not be overlooked. In the period since the creation of the WHO in 1948, the OIE has remained involved in veterinary public health issues, including zoonose, food hygiene, drug residues and the environment, and has encouraged international co-operation in zoonotic matters.

At the second General Session in May 1928, the International Committee of the OIE recommended measures for the control of zoonoses. Canine rabies was the first zoonosis to be studied, and work on this disease has continued to the present time. In 1951, there was a world wide convention on rabies control. Brucellosis in animals has also been a long lasting theme at the Sessions of the OIE. Among other zoonoses given priority, in view of their human health consequences for international trade in animals and animal products, were tuberculosis, echinococcosis/hydatidosis, anthrax, Q fever, glanders, cysticercosis, trichinellosis, psittacosis, and tularaemia.

Since 1930, the OIE Committee has also dealt with questions of food hygiene, devoting some of its work to the scrutiny of health certificates for meat and meat products. The Committee has formulated recommendations on food poisoning, salmonellosis, trichinellosis and listeriosis, as well as veterinary supervision of milk production, inspection of food of animal origin, food additives, hormones and residues of veterinary drugs. In March 1999, the OIE comprised 153 member countries, and listed its main objectives are to:

International co-ordination of human health matters was taken over by WHO in 1948. The link to animal health was consolidated by the establishment of a veterinary section in the Division of Communicable Diseases of WHO in 1949. The experts suggest this date as the beginning of the study of veterinary public health as a distinct field of study. WHO programs in this area have concentrated on the major zoonoses, milk, meat hygeine, comparative medicine, and veterinary education. Much of the work in the early years was undertaken in close co-operation with the FAO with its concern for the improvement of agricultural production and methods of food production.

The FAO was established by the United Nations in 1944 at Hot Springs. It is the specialized UN agency dealing with all aspects of food quality and safety throughout each of the stages of food production, storage, transportation, processing and marketing. Work in this area is carried out by the Food Quality and Standards Service of the FAO Food and Nutrition Division. Activities include providing policy advice to member countries; executing food quality control and safety development projects, including the development of food standards and technical regulations; food quality and safety assurance programmes for the food industry; establishing national export food certification programmes; monitoring programmes for food contaminants; and conducting regional and national seminars and workshops on food control issues.

Codex Alimentarius (Codex) is a code of food standards for all nations. It was developed by an international commission established in 1962 by the FAO and the WHO. Its establishment recognized the need for international standards to guide the world food industry and to protect the health of consumers. Since it was established, Codex has produced sets of standards, guidelines and principles on more than 219 food commodities and 35 hygienic and technological practice codes, evaluations of 500 food additives and contaminants, and the setting of more than 3000 maximum residue limits.

In the realm of animal products and veterinary drugs, there are Codex Committees on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods, Meat, Meat Hygiene, Processed Meat and Poultry Products, and Milk and Milk Products. The Committees act as subsidiary bodies of the Codex Alimentarius Commission as established by the FAO and the WHO in 1962.

8. International Trade

In devising rules for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947, explicit recognition was made of the need for countries to maintain sanitary and phytosanitary standards. While the general aim was to encourage trade by the reduction of quantitative restrictions and tariffs, it was recognized that domestic policy measures that maintain human and animal health should be seen as exceptions to the new rules. Article XX provides:

Subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on international trade, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any contracting party of measures:....(b) necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health;....(g) relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources, if such measures are made effective in conjunction with restrictions on domestic production or consumption ... (GATT 1986, pp.37-38).

Thus the GATT Articles recognize that animal and human health measures are legitimate domestic policy objectives, and also state that the same standards must apply to imports from other countries as those that apply domestically.

In the Uruguay Round of the GATT, a common set of rules and disciplines was adopted to guide the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (The Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures). In the language of international diplomacy, greater transparency in measures was sought in the sense that countries could achieve a greater understanding of other countries' problems and an acceptance of a set of common standards. Greater international harmonisation of standards, rules and procedures using the international scientific organisations would produce trade benefits. Better frameworks for consultation and dispute settlement would also assist. Acceptance of equivalence, whereby countries would be able to adopt different measures providing they achieve the same objectives was sought.

It is thus hypothesized that trading opportunities between countries can be improved if individual countries can agree on a common set of rules for the conduct of trade. Rules provide common reference points and assist arbitration between countries in cases of conflict. At the same time, Article XX made clear that justifiable domestic measures associated with human and animal health constituted a general exception to the original rules of the 1947 GATT. Policy makers should be alert, however, to any measures that are introduced that are simply a disguised form of protection.

8.1 Assessing the New Rules

As the history of sanitary and phytosanitary policy measures demonstrates, there are now a myriad of country regulations and acts governing live animal trade, quarantine, product inspection, disposal, and presentation of animals and animal products. On the one hand, these regulations serve to maintain animal and human health in the respective countries. On the other hand, they also serve to prevent the movement of tradable goods, especially where there is little ground for their imposition, or the problem they were designed to meet no longer exists.

The main mechanism to deal with these matters is through the disputes procedures of the GATT (now the WTO). The Agreement does specify that there must be a scientific justification for each measure in dispute, and that the international science co-ordination bodies (OIE, Codex, Plant Protection Convention) should be involved in the process. Research of these issues is quite difficult and very little has been reported in the international literature. Petrey and Johnson report a survey of Pacific Basin Countries with regard to meat inspection procedures, and they state:

“...these meat measures are historically the result of bilateral negotiation between countries. To that extent, they are fully transparent to the parties involved. The wider question, however, is whether such measures are transparent in relation to the problem they seek to contain? Is the underlying problem a true health risk or a form of non-tariff protection? Detailed rules for assessment of health risk along the lines proposed in the Uruguay Round would represent a significant advance in this direction.

From the data collected ... the following justifications for sanitary regulations in the meat trade area can be identified: threats to animal health; threats to public health; need for truth-in-labelling; meeting consumer aesthetics; maintenance of product quality; maintaining security from tampering; meeting customary practice; protection of domestic production; need for market discipline; and prevention of entry into the edible food chain. Within such a broad framework, case-by-case studies would be required to identify the original motives for each domestic policy measure and whether it was justified in WTO terms.”

Glossary

Arthropod: Animals with segmented body and jointed limbs e.g., insects, spiders, crustaceans

Epidemiology: Science of epidemics in human populations, but also used for animals

Vector: Carrier of disease or infection from one organism to another, usually an arthropod

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Veterinary Public Health: An Historical Perspective

Contents