Page 6 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Antimicrobial stewardship in pigs – a UK perspective
DR Amanda Nevel, Senior Veterinary Man- ager at the Agriculture & Horticulture Devel- opment Board (AHDB Pork – the UK’s equiva- lent of Australian Pork Limited) is visiting Australia from July 31 to August 9.
At AHDB, Mandy is responsible for the health
and welfare team and leads the AHDB antibi- otic use group across cat- tle, sheep and pigs.
Mandy will be the keynote speaker at the Australian Pig Veteri- narians Annual Confer- ence being held in Cairns from July 31 to August 2, where she will be mak- ing several presentations
on antimicrobial stew- ardship.
These presentations will cover the approach taken to reduce antimi- crobial use in UK pig production, the introduc- tion of the antimicrobial use recording system, barriers to uptake, how barriers were overcome and results to date of their stewardship pro- gram.
The Australian pork in- dustry does not currently have recording systems in place to capture usage information.
The UK’s pig industry has successfully imple- mented recording sys- tems, with antimicrobial use declining by over 50 percent since 2015.
In 2015, usage was 278mg/PCU (population correction unit), reducing to 110mg/PCU in 2018.
This puts the UK in- dustry well on track to
achieve their target of 99mg/PCU by 2020.
To assist with interpre- tation, PCU is a unit of measurement developed by the European Medi- cines Agency that takes into account the animal population as well as the estimated weight of each particular animal at the time of treatment with antibiotics.
In addition to Mandy’s presentations at the 2019 Australian Pig Veterinar- ians Conference, APL is organising a number of meetings around Aus- tralia for veterinarians, producers and other in- dustry stakeholders to meet Mandy and obtain information to support the implementation of antimicrobial steward- ship by the Australian pork industry.
The dates and locations for these meetings are as follows:
• July 31-August 2 – at- tending and presenting at the 2019 Australian Pig Veterinarians Con- ference, Cairns, Queens- land.
• August 5 – Toowoo- mba, Queensland.
• August 6 – Young, NSW.
• August 7 – Bendigo, Victoria.
• August 8 – Rosewor- thy, South Australia.
• August 9 – Perth, Western Australia.
Industry meeting times and locations will be fi- nalised shortly and will be provided in the APL Communique.
For further information on Mandy’s background, please see ava.com.au
To RSVP or obtain fur- ther information, please contact Lechelle van Breda on 02 9270 8816 or lechelle.vanbreda@aus tralianpork.com.au
Dr Amanda Nevel
Dr Peter Yates AM delivered the Ralph Slatyer address on science and society at the opening of ‘Collaborate Innovate 2019’.
Fake news and
pseudoscience under
the microscope
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PETER Yates AM, co- founder and chairman of the Australian Science Media Centre and the Royal Institution of Aus- tralia, which includes Australian Science Channel and Cosmos magazine, delivered the prestigious Ralph Slatyer address on science and society at the opening of ‘Collaborate Innovate 2019’.
The annual conference of the Cooperative Re- search Centres Associa- tion at the Adelaide Hilton from May 28-30 joined researchers, educators and industry with a diverse community of CRCA members.
Ralph Slatyer AC sig- nificantly contributed to Australia in the sci- ence and public sectors, advocating moving to a knowledge economy, rath- er than heavily relying on agriculture and mining for exports.
He convinced the Hawke Government to set up Co- operative Research Cen- tres in 1990, the year in which Bob Hawke’s cam- paign was arguably the first to introduce ‘science’ into the political cam- paign theatre under the spectre of innovation.
Using the Office of the Chief Scientist, Slatyer managed a successful communications strategy.
Dr Yates’ address posed the question: would this be possible today?
“Science communica- tion has tended to be in- stitutionally based, with a heavy focus on evidence,” Dr Yates said.
“Even in the old me- dia world, this of itself created communications challenges, with scien- tists then expressing dis- appointment about the amount of science content in daily media.
“In the past 20 years, the media and commu- nications landscape has completely changed, mov- ing from a media industry with a small number of in- stitutional producers and distributers to multiple producers, from commer- cial companies to individ- uals with their own social media channels, creating
a vast array of distribution outlets.
“This de-institution- alisation of media pre- cipitated a new science communication challenge, including the large num- ber of specialist science reporters who lost their jobs.”
Dr Yates said almost unlimited distribution outlets opening up has unleashed the dilemma of fake news and selec- tive information including pseudoscience.
“Such misinformation has impacted on the cred- ibility of all forms of me- dia that focus on evidence such as science communi- cation,” he said.
“At the same time, po- liticisation of climate change science has dem- onstrated a new dilemma for science communica- tion, with evidence that the emotional bias of peo- ple towards the issue is as strong among highly educated and informed people as it is among less- informed people.
“More evidence or facts do not change their view.
“This suggests that to- day, effective science communication may need to be as much persuasion based as evidence based.
“In just 20 years, the fundamental tenets of science communication have been tipped on their head.”
In his Ralph Slatyer ad- dress, Dr Yates discussed how the communication of science can deal with this new paradigm.
Dr Yates has been at the forefront of the chal- lenges for science com- munication brought about by the digitisation and de-institutionalisation of traditional media for the past 15 years.
Prior to establishing the Australian Science Media Centre in 2004, he was CEO of Kerry Packer’s listed media and gaming company Publishing and Broadcasting Limited where he oversaw Chan- nel 9, many of Australia’s leading magazines in- cluding Women’ s Week- ly, Crown Casino and Ninemsn.
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Page 6 – Australian Pork Newspaper, June 2019
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