Grievance and opportunity theories dominate research on the causes of civil war. However, theoretical and empirical problems limit their ability to explain variation in conflict onset. We argue that these problems partly stem from treating them as largely independent explanations. We integrate grievance and opportunity into a unified theory and argue that they are complements that jointly predict conflict. We apply insights from the interstate war literature to develop and test a theory of conflict onset that argues that the probability of civil war increases as the disparity between relative power and the status quo distribution of benefits increases.
Preparedness for the decontamination of affected environments, premises, facilities, and products is one prerequisite for an immediate response to an animal disease outbreak. Various information sources provide recommendations on how to proceed in an outbreak situation to eliminate biological contaminants and to stop the spread of the disease. In order to facilitate the identification of the right decontamination strategy, we present an overview of relevant references for a collection of pathogenic agents. The choice of pathogens is based on a survey of lists containing highly pathogenic agents and/or biological agents considered to be potential vehicles for deliberate contamination of food, feed, or farm animals. European legislation and guidelines from national and international institutions were screened to find decontamination protocols for each of the agents. Identified recommendations were evaluated with regard to their area of application, which could be facilities and equipment, wastes, food, and other animal products. The requirements of a disinfectant for large-scale incidents were gathered, and important characteristics (eg, inactivating spectrum, temperature range, toxicity to environment) of the main recommended disinfectants were summarized to assist in the choice of a suitable and efficient approach in a crisis situation induced by a specific high-risk animal or zoonotic pathogen. The literature search revealed numerous relevant recommendations but also legal gaps for certain diseases, such as Q fever or brucellosis, and legal difficulties for the use of recommended disinfectants. A lack of information about effective disinfectants was identified for some agents
In 2009, 1462 Escherichia coli isolates were collected in a systematic resistance monitoring approach from primary production, slaughterhouses and at retail and evaluated on the basis of epidemiological cut-off values. Besides resistance to antimicrobial classes that have been extensively used for a long time (e.g. sulphonamides and tetracyclines), resistance to (fluoro)quinolones and third-generation cephalosporins was observed. While in the poultry production chain the majority (60%) of isolates from laying hens was susceptible to all antimicrobials tested, most isolates from broilers, chicken meat and turkey meat showed resistance to at least one (85-93%) but frequently even to several antimicrobial classes (73-84%). In the cattle and pig production chain, the share of isolates showing resistance to at least one antimicrobial was lowest (16%) in dairy cows, whereas resistance to at least one antimicrobial ranged between 43% and 73% in veal calves, veal and pork. Resistance rates to ciprofloxacin and nalidixic acid in isolates from broilers were 41.1% and 43.1%, respectively. Likewise, high resistance rates to (fluoro)quinolones were observed in isolates from chicken meat and turkey meat. In contrast, ciprofloxacin resistance was less frequent in E. coli isolates from the cattle and pig production chain with highest rate in veal calves (13.3%). Highest resistance rates to cephalosporins were observed in broilers and chicken meat, with 5.9% and 6.2% of the isolates showing resistance. In dairy cattle and veal, no isolates with cephalosporin resistance were detected, whereas 3.3% of the isolates from veal calves showed resistance to ceftazidime. Resistance to (fluoro)quinolones and cephalosporins in E. coli isolates is of special concern because they are critically important antimicrobials in human antimicrobial therapy. The emergence of this resistance warrants increased monitoring. Together with continuous monitoring of antimicrobial usage, management strategies should be regularly assessed and adapted.
Im Jahre 2011 hat die EFSA die Risiken für den Verbraucher durch ESBL-/AmpC-bildende Keime in Lebensmitteln und Lebensmittel liefernden Tieren bewertet. Die Mensch-zu-Mensch-Übertragung in Krankenhäusern und in der Allgemeinbevölkerung wurde zu diesem Zeitpunkt hauptsächlich für die Verbreitung von ESBL-bildenden E. coli verantwortlich gemacht. ESBL-/AmpC-bildende E. coli sind in Deutschland, wie in vielen Mitgliedsstaaten der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, bei Lebensmittel liefernden Tieren und tierischen Lebensmitteln weitverbreitet. Eine Abschätzung der Bedeutung Lebensmittel liefernder Tiere als Reservoir für ESBL-/AmpC-bildende E. coli sowie für die ESBL-kodierenden Resistenzgene muss die beobachtete Heterogenität in den Resistenzgenen, Plasmiden und Keimen bei Tieren, Lebensmitteln und beim Menschen berücksichtigen. Hierbei müssen die klonale Ausbreitung von Keimen und Aspekte des horizontalen Gentransfers von Resistenzgenen, z. B. über Plasmide, betrachtet werden. Während niederländische Studien vorwiegend Geflügel als wichtiges Reservoir identifiziert hatten, zeigt eine Studie aus Dänemark einen Transfer von ESBL-Gene tragenden Resistenzplasmiden auf den Tierhalter ausgehend von Schweinen. Erste Quantifizierungsansätze zur Bedeutung von Nutztieren als Reservoir für ESBL-bildende E. coli in Deutschland zeigen, dass sich die Anteile der häufigsten ESBL-Gene bei E. coli-Isolaten von Tieren und Menschen deutlich unterscheiden. Werden auch Eigenschaften der Bakterienstämme berücksichtigt, wie z. B. die phänotypischen Resistenzen gegen verschiedene Antibiotikaklassen, zeigt nur ein kleiner Anteil der Isolate vom Menschen vergleichbare Muster mit Isolaten vom Tier. Die bisherigen Ergebnisse machen auch deutlich, dass bestimmte ESBL-Typen bei allen betrachteten Nutztiergruppen vorkommen. Derzeit kann die überwiegende Mehrzahl der Besiedelungen des Menschen mit ESBL-bildenden E. coli nicht über die Tierhaltung und Lebensmittel liefernde Tiere erklärt werden. Dies verdeutlicht, dass die Übertragungswege komplexer sind und weitere Reservoire und Infektionsquellen, einschließlich der Interaktion zwischen Menschen, zukünftig Berücksichtigung finden müssen. ; In 2011 EFSA has evaluated the risk for the consumer caused by ESBL-/AmpC-producing bacteria in food of animal origin and in livestock animals. Human-to-human transfer in hospitals and in the community was considered as the most relevant route of transmission for ESBL-producing E. coli. ESBL-/AmpC-producing E. coli are in Germany, as in many other Member States of the European Union, widely spread in food of animal origin and in livestock animals. In an assessment of the relevance of livestock animals as reservoir for ESBL-/AmpC-producing E. coli as well as for ESBL-coding resistance genes the heterogeneity of the resistance genes, plasmids and bacteria in animals, foods and humans needs to be considered. In this context, both, the clonal spread of bacteria as well as horizontal transfer of resistance genes, e. g. by plasmids, have to be analyzed. Whereas studies in the Netherlands identified poultry as the most relevant reservoir, the transfer of ESBL-gene carrying plasmids from pigs to the farmers was demonstrated in Denmark. First attempts to quantify the relevance of livestock animals as reservoir for ESBL-producing E. coli in Germany showed, that the proportions of the most frequent ESBL-resistance genes are quite different between animal and human derived E. coli isolates. If in addition properties of the bacterial cells, e.g. resistance to several antibiotic classes are considered, only a small proportion of human isolates showed the same patterns as animal isolates. The results achieved so far demonstrate that certain ESBL-types are prevalent in all livestock populations investigated. Currently, the majority of cases of colonizations with ESBL-producing E. coli among humans cannot be directly linked to livestock and food-producing animals as reservoirs. This reflects that transmission routes are more complex and other reservoirs and sources including human-human interactions have to be taken into consideration.
Transferring the knowledge of predictive microbiology into real world food manufacturing applications is still a major challenge for the whole food safety modelling community. To facilitate this process, a strategy for creating open, community driven and web-based predictive microbial model repositories is proposed. These collaborative model resources could significantly improve the transfer of knowledge from research into commercial and governmental applications and also increase efficiency, transparency and usability of predictive models. To demonstrate the feasibility, predictive models of Salmonella in beef previously published in the scientific literature were re-implemented using an open source software tool called PMM-Lab. The models were made publicly available in a Food Safety Model Repository within the OpenML for Predictive Modelling in Food community project. Three different approaches were used to create new models in the model repositories: (1) all information relevant for model re-implementation is available in a scientific publication, (2) model parameters can be imported from tabular parameter collections and (3) models have to be generated from experimental data or primary model parameters. All three approaches were demonstrated in the paper. The sample Food Safety Model Repository is available via: http://sourceforge.net/projects/microbialmodelingexchange/files/models and the PMM-Lab software can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/projects/pmmlab/. This work also illustrates that a standardized information exchange format for predictive microbial models, as the key component of this strategy, could be established by adoption of resources from the Systems Biology domain.
This article presents a historical perspective on agroterrorism cases from 1945 until 2012. The threat groups and perpetrators associated with bio- and agroterrorism are clustered into several groups: apocalyptic sects, lone wolves, political groups, and religious groups. We used open-source information, and 4 biological agroterrorism cases are described: (1) in 1952, Mau Mau poisoned cattle in Kenya by using a plant toxin from the African milk bush plant; (2) in 1985, the USDA claimed that Mexican contract workers were involved in deliberately spreading screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax) among livestock; (3) in 2000, Palestinian media reported that Israeli settlers released sewer water into Palestinian agricultural fields; and (4) in 2011, a person was sentenced to prison after threatening US and UK livestock with the deliberate spread of foot-and-mouth disease virus. All 4 cases can be assigned to political groups. These cases have not attracted much attention in literature nor in the public media, and the credibility of the sources of information varies. We concluded that agroterrorism has not been a problem during the period studied. Lessons learned from the few cases have generated awareness about the fact that nontypical biological weapons and non-high-risk agents, such as African milk bush, screwworm, and sewer water, have been used by attackers to influence local decision makers. This review will be useful in improving future preparedness planning and developing countermeasures
Storage time and temperature are known to be important factors in determining Salmonella growth in table eggs. It is assumed that growth of Salmonella within eggs starts when the egg yolk membrane breaks down, allowing Salmonella to enter and grow. The length of time for which the yolk membrane remains intact is time and temperature dependent. The present study addresses the question whether the current legal requirement in Germany to cool table eggs marketed 18 days after laying needs to be updated. Detailed data on the current storage and transport conditions in Germany were collected. On the basis of these data, typical combinations of temperature and time were selected. For these different time-temperature scenarios, the consequences regarding the probability of growth of Salmonella Enteritidis inside the eggs were calculated. A probabilistic model consisting of nine modules reflecting storage/transport stages from farm to retail in Germany was used to calculate whether the yolk membrane remains intact during the individual steps. Growth of Salmonella was simulated without cooling (room temperature) as well as with two different cooling scenarios (4–6 °C and 8–12 °C), which are temperature ranges used in Germany by various retailers. Simulations of these scenarios resulted in relative low numbers of eggs with Salmonella growth until purchase (89 out of 50,000 eggs in the uncooled scenario, 10 out of 50,000 eggs stored at 8–12 °C and 5 out of 50,000 eggs stored at 4–6 °C). These results show that for an average egg trading time of 7.5 days, as was observed for Germany, the probability for the consumer to purchase eggs where no Salmonella growth has started and yolk membrane integrity still exists is high. However, the model supports the necessity for egg cooling after the yolk membrane integrity time is exhausted. Furthermore, the model shows clearly that cooling will extend the time period before the egg yolk membrane breaks down. According to our results, the requirement to cool eggs from the 18th day onwards after laying, as required by legislation in Germany, is reasonable, as it matches the time point of the yolk membrane breakdown for the average egg kept at 18–20 °C. Therefore, continuation of this regulation is strongly supported.
A number of zero tolerance provisions are contained in both food and animal feed law, e.g. for chemical substances whose occurrence is not permitted or is directly prohibited in food or animal feed. In the European Union, bans of this kind were introduced to give consumers and animals the greatest possible protection from substances with a possible hazard potential within the intendment of the hazard prevention principles and current precautionary measures. This also applies to substances for which an acceptable daily intake cannot be derived and a maximum residue limit cannot, therefore, be established, e.g. due to missing or inadequate toxicological data. Zero tolerances are also under discussion as trade barriers because their use has triggered numerous legal disputes. This paper draws together the results of an evaluation of alternative risk assessment methods to be used for the risk assessment of substances to which currently only zero tolerances apply. It will demonstrate that, depending on the available toxicological data, a scientifically sound risk assessment may still be possible. In this context, the two concepts - margin of exposure and threshold of toxicological concern - are very promising approaches. Until the scientific and sociopolitical discussions have been completed, it is essential that the principle of zero tolerances be upheld, especially for those substances which may be genotoxic carcinogens. In microbiology, there is no legal room for manoeuvre with regard to food safety criteria established for reasons of consumer health protection on the basis of scientific assessments
