Evaluating antimicrobial resistance in the global shrimp industry.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing threat to global public health, and the overuse of antibiotics in animals has been identified as a major risk factor. With high levels of international trade and direct connectivity to the aquatic environment, shrimp aquaculture may play a role in global AMR dissemination. The vast majority of shrimp production occurs in low- and middle-income countries, where antibiotic quality and usage is widely unregulated, and where the integration of aquaculture with family livelihoods offers many opportunities for human, animal and environmental bacteria to come into close contact. Furthermore, in shrimp growing areas, untreated waste is often directly eliminated into local water sources. These risks are very different to many other major internationally-traded aquaculture commodities, such as salmon, which is produced in higher income countries where there are greater levels of regulation and well-established management practices. Assessing the true scale of the risk of AMR dissemination in the shrimp industry is a considerable challenge, not least because obtaining reliable data on antibiotic usage is very difficult. Combating the risks associated with AMR dissemination is also challenging due to the increasing trend towards intensification and its associated disease burden, and because many farmers currently have no alternatives to antibiotics for preventing crop failure. In this review, we critically assess the potential risks the shrimp industry poses to AMR dissemination. We also discuss some of the possible risk mitigation strategies that could be considered by the shrimp industry as it strives for a more sustainable future in production.

The parakeet protectors: Understanding opposition to introduced species management.

The surveillance and control of introduced and invasive species has become an increasingly important component of environmental management. However, initiatives targeting 'charismatic' wildlife can be controversial. Opposition to management, and the subsequent emergence of social conflict, present significant challenges for would-be managers. Understanding the substance and development of these disputes is therefore vital for improving the legitimacy and effectiveness of wildlife management. It also provides important insights into human-wildlife relations and the 'social dimensions' of wildlife management. Here, we examine how the attempted eradication of small populations of introduced monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) from England has been challenged and delayed by opposition from interested and affected communities. We consider how and why the UK Government's eradication initiative was opposed, focusing on three key themes: disagreements about justifying management, the development of affective attachments between people and parakeets, and the influence of distrustful and antagonistic relationships between proponents and opponents of management. We draw connections between our UK case and previous management disputes, primarily in the USA, and suggest that the resistance encountered in the UK might readily have been foreseen. We conclude by considering how management of this and other introduced species could be made less conflict-prone, and potentially more effective, by reconfiguring management approaches to be more anticipatory, flexible, sensitive, and inclusive.

Antibiotic resistance: using a cultural contexts of health approach to address a global health challenge

This policy brief has been developed in response to the contemporary challenge of antibiotic resistance (ABR). ABR poses a formidable threat to global health and sustainable development. It is now increasingly recognized that the systematic neglect of cultural factors is one of the biggest obstacles to achieving better health outcomes and better standards of living worldwide. Using a cultural contexts of health approach, the policy brief explores the centrality of culture to the challenge of ABR. The brief examines how the prescription and use of antibacterial medicines, the transmission of resistance, and the regulation and funding of research are influenced by cultural, social and commercial, as well as biological and technological factors. The brief moves beyond the ready equation of culture with individual behaviours and demonstrates how culture serve as an enabler of health and provide new possibilities for change.

Устойчивость к антибиотикам: у чет культ урных контекстов здоровья при решении глобальной проблемы здравоохранения

Подготовка настоящего аналитического обзора представляет собой одну из мер реагирования на существующую в современном мире проблему устойчивости к антибиотикам, которая является серьезной угрозой для глобального здравоохранения и устойчивого развития. Сегодня всё чаще приходится признавать, что пренебрежение культурными факторами, носящее систематический характер, стало одним из крупнейших препятствий на пути к улучшению здоровья и повышению качества жизни людей во всем мире. В настоящем обзоре, подготовленном с учетом культурных контекстов здоровья, рассматривается центральная роль культуры в борьбе с устойчивостью к антибиотикам и описывается, каким образом назначение и применение противомикробных препаратов, передача резистентности и регулирование и финансирование научных исследований связаны с воздействием культурных, социальных и коммерческих, а также биологических и технологических факторов. Авторы выходят за рамки упрощенного представления о культуре как о совокупности поведения индивидов и демонстрируют, что культура может выступать фактором, способствующим укреплению здоровья населения и создающим возможности для перемен.

More than one world, more than one health: re-configuring interspecies health.

'One World One Health' (OWOH), 'One Medicine' and 'One Health' are all injunctions to work across the domains of veterinary, human and environmental health. In large part they are institutional responses to growing concerns regarding shared health risks at the human, animal and environmental interfaces. Although these efforts to work across disciplinary boundaries are welcome, there are also risks in seeking unity, not least the tendency of one health visions to reduce diversity and to under-value the local, contingent and practical engagements that make health possible. This paper uses insights from Geography and Science and Technology Studies along with multi-sited and multi-species qualitative fieldwork on animal livestock and zoonotic influenzas in the UK, to highlight the importance of those practical engagements. After an introduction to one health, I argue that there is a tendency in OWOH visions to focus on contamination and transmission of pathogens rather than the socio-economic configuration of disease and health, and this tendency conforms to or performs what sociologist John Law calls a one world metaphysics. Following this, three related field cases are used to demonstrate that health is dependent upon a patchwork of practices, and is configured in practice by skilled people, animals, micro-organisms and their social relations. From surveillance for influenza viruses to tending animals, good health it turns out is dependent on an ability to construct common sense from a complex of signs, responses and actions. It takes, in other words, more than one world to make healthy outcomes. In light of this, the paper aims to, first, loosen any association between OWOH and a one world-ist metaphysics, and, second, to radicalize the inter-disciplinary foundations of OWOH by both widening the scope of disciplinarity as well as attending to how different knowledges are brought together.