The animal health foresight project

The Animal Health Foresight Project was co-sponsored by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This study is the most recent of a series of four international workshops of the International Working Group on Animal Disposal Alternatives (IWADA), created to determine alternative options for effective disease control without mass animal destruction. The study employed foresight technology to stimulate new thinking using the future perspective tools of challenge questions and scenario development. A total of 43 Canadian and American participants from industry, academia, the public and government made their contributions over the duration of four meetings. The group developed and analysed eight pictures of possible futures. Ten conclusions were formulated. Fundamental to these conclusions was the recognition of a need for a conceptual change to the management of animal health, a new paradigm. This paradigm was a policy change to the management of risks rather than disease elimination, a change in the roles for the establishment of policy and a convergence of animal health and public health. The new paradigm was incorporated into a hierarchy of decision-making options, out of which five principles for alternatives to mass animal destruction were identified.