8. Morality, morbidity and mortality: an ethical analysis of culling nonhuman animals

Mepham, Ben

doi:10.3920/978-90-8686-808-7_8

Cited by 8 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…This can be regarded as part and parcel of the mentioned barriers to protect humans and animals from contagion. However, vaccination frequently turns out to be too complicated, too expensive or too insecure (Mepham 2016). Hence, the eradication of pathogens remains a crucial countermeasure in the face of infectious diseases.…”

Section: Three Frames Of Health In Veterinary Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the eradication of pathogens can and does frequently entail the eradication of the actual host or even the possible host. Though there is frequent criticism of practices of (prophylactic) mass culling in public debates and in the academic ethical discourse (Cohen and Stassen 2016;Mepham 2016;Degeling et al 2016), this is often countered by pointing out the allegedly unavoidable need of these practices against the backdrop of scientific (and thus supposedly incontestable) evidence (Latour 1999;Hinchliffe 2016: 30). Within such an objectivist understanding of disease (and health), illness or animal welfare and even animal lives come into play as a secondary moral issue only.…”

Section: Three Frames Of Health In Veterinary Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, mass culling (of infected and of healthy animals for prophylactic reasons) presents a usual step in combatting FMD. Well-known examples for these policies are the outbreaks of FMD around the turn of the millennium in Great Britain and the Netherlands (Mepham 2016;Cohen and Stassen 2016).…”

Section: Three Frames Of Health In Veterinary Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, zoonotic vectors are arguably reduced to their role as a potential threat to health. However, there is a virtually unambiguous consensus that the methods of stamping out should guarantee minimum stress and pain for the animals (Mepham 2016).…”

Section: (Iv) Three Frames Of Health Overlapping In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mepham (2016) points out that in mass culling the avoidance of pain can hardly be guaranteed, particularly due to time pressure. 14 A literature search regarding Bpigs^and Bobesity^leads us almost exclusively to articles in which pigs serve as porcine models for human pathologies (e.g Spurlock and Gabler 2008)…”

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confidence: 99%

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Veterinarians between the Frontlines?! The Concept of One Health and Three Frames of Health in Veterinary Medicine

Huth¹,

Weich²,

Grimm³

2019

Food ethics

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The BOne Health^initiative promises to combine different health-related issues concerning humans and animals in an overarching concept and in related practices to the benefit of both humans and animals. Far from dismissing One Health, this paper nevertheless argues that different veterinary interventions are determined by social practices and connected expectations and are, thus, hardly compliant with only one single conceptualization of health, as the One Health concept suggests. One Health relies on a naturalistic understanding of health focusing on similar bodies that show a similar etiology. However, logics, normativity, and practices exhibit differences when it comes to combatting infectious diseases, maintaining productivity of livestock animals or preventing companion animals from suffering. Therefore, drawing from Charles Rosenberg's groundbreaking texts on framing disease, we suggest to conceive of health as dispersed in different frames. Thus, this paper proposes to interpret health as complex and multi-layered concept. We distinguish and introduce an objectivist, a functional, and a sentientistic frame of health. Instead of reducing the differential veterinary practices to one paradigmatic understanding, health is seen as a model case of Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblance. Different and distinct perspectives on veterinary medicine show sufficient overlapping that allows for a common conceptualization, but there is not one single underlying logic suitable to understand and ethically reflect all veterinary interventions. This differentiability promises to reduce moral stress in veterinary professionals since it allows the interpretation of various, seemingly contradicting practices as dependent on multi-layered and socially determined scopes of responsibility.

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Section: Three Frames Of Health In Veterinary Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Three Frames Of Health In Veterinary Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Three Frames Of Health In Veterinary Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (Iv) Three Frames Of Health Overlapping In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Veterinarians between the Frontlines?! The Concept of One Health and Three Frames of Health in Veterinary Medicine

Huth¹,

Weich²,

Grimm³

2019

Food ethics

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Reimagining Human Responsibility Towards Animals for Disaster Management in the Anthropocene

Vieira¹,

Anthony

2021

The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics

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Animals, like human beings, are prone to suffering harms, such as disease, injury and death, as a result of anthropogenic and natural disasters. Animals are disproportionately prone to risk and adversely affected by disasters, and thus require humane and respectful care when disasters strike, due to socially situated vulnerabilities based on how human communities assess and value their moral standing and function. The inability to integrate animals into disaster risk and management practices and processes can sometimes be associated with a lack of understanding about what animal ethics and animal health and welfare require when designing disaster management programs. This chapter seeks to reimagine human responsibility towards animals for disaster management. The pervasiveness of disasters and their impacts on animals, human-animal and animal-environment relationships underscore the importance of effective animal disaster management supported by sound ethical decision-making processes. To this end, we delineate six ethically responsible animal caretaking aims for consideration when developing disaster management plans and policies. These aims, which address central vulnerabilities experienced by domesticated animals during disasters, are meant to be action-guiding within the disaster management context. They include: (1) Save lives and mitigate harm; (2) Protect animal welfare and respect animals’ experiences; (3) Observe, recognize and promote distributive justice; (4) Advance public involvement; (5) Empower caregivers, guardians, owners and community members; (6) Bolster public health and veterinary community professionalism, including engagement in multidisciplinary teams and applied scientific developments. To bring about these aims, we offer a set of practical and straightforward action steps for animal caregivers and disaster management teams to ensure that animals’ interests are systematically promoted in disaster management. They include: (1) Respect and humane treatment; (2) Collaboration and effective disaster communication; (3) Strengthening systems of information sharing, surveillance, scientific research, management and training; (4) Community outreach and proactive contact; (5) Cultural sensitivity and attitudes check, and (6) Reflection, review and reform.

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Ethical Decision-Making in Zoonotic Disease Control

Herten

Buikstra

Bovenkerk

et al. 2020

J Agric Environ Ethics

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To tackle zoonotic disease threats, a One Health approach is currently commonplace and generally understood as an integrated effort of multiple disciplines to promote the health of humans, animals and the environment. To implement One Health strategies in zoonotic disease control, many countries set up early warning systems, in which human and veterinary health professionals cooperate. These systems, like the Dutch Zoonoses Structure, can be successful to detect emerging disease threats. However, these systems are not well equipped to handle moral dilemmas that can arise in zoonotic disease control, like the culling of healthy animals. This research studies the role of normative presuppositions of professionals involved in zoonotic disease control policies in the Netherlands. We found that these professionals in general adhered to a holistic view of the One Health concept, however, in practice an anthropocentric approach was dominant. Public health was identified as the trumping moral value, which reveals an inherent field of tension with the core of One Health thinking. The lack of ethical expertise in control systems for zoonotic diseases can lead to misconception of ethical principles, like the precautionary principle which is frequently evoked to justify disease control measures.

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8. Morality, morbidity and mortality: an ethical analysis of culling nonhuman animals

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

Veterinarians between the Frontlines?! The Concept of One Health and Three Frames of Health in Veterinary Medicine

Veterinarians between the Frontlines?! The Concept of One Health and Three Frames of Health in Veterinary Medicine

Reimagining Human Responsibility Towards Animals for Disaster Management in the Anthropocene

Ethical Decision-Making in Zoonotic Disease Control

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