Paris - An Impressive Experience
After rearranging my life to make this trip happen, I arrived in Paris for Day 1 and 2 at the OIE. This was not meant to be a sightseeing endeavor and I was not expecting one. I wanted to spend as much time as possible meeting people working in these international organizations and learning about how they function. I was not disappointed. The first evening was spent meeting Dr. Alejandro Thiermann, Advisor to the Director General, President of the Terrestrial Animal Health Code and our gracious host at the OIE, as well as fellow program participants.
The group of participants was impressive. Public health veterinarians, researchers, and policymakers from the CDC, USDA, AVMA, University of Minnesota, University of Washington, Universidad de la Republica (Uruguay), Polish Chamber of Veterinary Surgeons, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and, of course, a few very fortunate DVM/MPH students contributed to a diverse group of individuals with impressive compiled knowledge and experience with animal health and food safety issues (I realize I just used “impressive” twice in proximate sentences, but the word cannot be overused to describe the participants or presenters I met on this trip, so kindly dismount your high-horse and let me gush). In particular, several participants were involved with responding to avian influenza (AI) outbreaks and directing national policy on AI issues—not exactly coincidental given Will Hueston and Bill Sischo, the co-conspirators responsible for this program, chose AI as the subject for the case study we used to integrate the material presented by each organization.
I’m not entirely sure how to describe the next 5 days. With up to 12 speakers addressing us daily, formal group discussions and interesting dinner and travel conversations with the group of expert participants, there’s simply no way for me to detail everything I learned from this experience. I’ve settled for describing a few of the highlights from each day. In general, I was extremely impressed with the welcome we received at each organization and time staff spent discussing their work with us. I’m grateful for their insights and sorry that I can’t do their efforts justice in this brief summary.
Day 2—OIE, Paris, France
The day started off with a welcome address from the Director General, Bernard Vallant, who described how the OIE has evolved and is partnering with other international organizations with public and animal health interests. We were truly fortunate that Dr. Vallant took time out of his demanding schedule to share his perspective with us. We then had a series of presentations on how the OIE operates to set science-based animal health standards and guidelines, and how compliance with standards is monitored.
One of the things really struck me was the emphasis on the OIE serving member nations. I had naively thought of the OIE as an international body that set standards nations voluntarily, but necessarily complied with to facilitate trade of animals and animal products and protect against foreign animal diseases. I knew that the OIE was composed of member states, but hadn’t thought about member states approving standards, only as having to comply with them. It’s a simple, but important shift in perspective to think of the OIE as being primarily responsible to its member states, and to think of member states setting its agenda and ultimately ratifying OIE standards. These are not committees of scientists writing standards that countries must follow. These are member delegates assembling committees of scientists to make recommendations on standards that delegates discuss and ultimately render judgment on what cuts the mustard as international standards—a very participatory, very political process, backed by science.
We discussed the challenges to reaching consensus among member states with varying capacities to address animal health issues and conflicting priorities. We also discussed how OIE monitors compliance with standards through the World Animal Health Information System and Database (WAHIS and WAHID) and how these systems work to provide transparency among member states. In the afternoon, we were joined by officials from the French Ministry of Agriculture who gave a presentation about the role of veterinarians in the French animal health and food safety system. They provided examples of how their integrated system, which includes private veterinarians with standin
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