On Monday I had the great honor of presenting to the National Science and Technology Council’s Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Foreign Animal Disease Threats (FADT). The meeting was held in Washington, D.C. at the White House Conference Center.
For those of you who don’t know (and this included me until I was ask to participate), the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the federal research and development (R&D) enterprise. The FADT addresses both immediate and long-term action items related to foreign animal disease threats including data needs and coordination of modeling efforts; requirements and priorities for basic research and development; requirements and priorities for diagnostics and medical countermeasures; and requirements for decontamination, depopulation, and waste management techniques.
I gave a presentation on innovative methods of composting livestock contaminated with foreign animal diseases. My presentation covered several topics: composting methods used during the 2015 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreak in the United States, the national standard operating procedures (SOPs) developed for HPAI and livestock diseases, the adaptation of those SOPS for use internationally like the LPAI response in the Dominican Republic earlier this year and the use of Above Ground Burial as a carcass management method. If there is interest, I would be happy to share additional details on any of these topics.
