Who we are? From the desk of the president

For the past 30 years, ISAH’s successful society life was based on organising a conference on all aspects of animal hygiene (animal husbandry and animal welfare, environmental protection and waste management, disinfection and biosecurity) every third year somewhere in a country with an active group of animal hygiene scientists. In most cases, there was an in-between Conference in another country which concentrated mostly on one of the sub-topics of animal hygiene. Apart from these conferences and scientific meetings, there was no real activity of ISAH.
The growing interest of veterinarians, animal scientists, epidemiologists, economists, agricultural engineers, etc. in the field of animal hygiene, and, most of all, the changing demands of the society and the consumers for optimising food safety, preventing epidemic and zoonotic diseases and increasing animal welfare and environmental protection in livestock production in terms of risk management instead of crisis management created a momentum for animal hygiene as a “multidisciplinary discipline” providing the society and policy makers the scientific basis for public dialogues and political decision making.
The various interpretations of the word hygiene and its common use in practice in a rather narrow acceptation, when compared to the scientific field covered by the society, led the EB of the ISAH to propose a change in the name whilst keeping the acronym. The new name proposed is : the International Society for Sustainable Animal Husbandry.
This momentum led to the decision of the Executive Board of ISAH to re-organise ISAH. In Warsaw, at the ISAH General Assembly on September 6, 2005, a new constitution was agreed upon with the following major characteristics of the society’s structure:

1. The General Assembly meeting during the ISAH Congress at two-year intervals
2. The Extended Executive Board consisting of all Country Representatives of ISAH, also meeting during the ISAH Congresses.
3. The Executive Board consisting of the following 5 ISAH “officers”, elected on September 6, 2005, by the ISAH General Assembly during the 12th ISAH Congress in Warsaw, Poland:
4. The standing President (Prof. Dr. Thomas Blaha, Germany) representing ISAH in all scientific and legal affairs;
5. The 1st Vice President (A. Aland, Estonia) organising Expert Groups on special subtopics, and leading the Scientific Board of ISAH consisting of the Expert Group Leaders;
6. The 2nd Vice President (J. Hartung, Germany) organising the 14th ISAH Congress in Vechta,Germany, July 2009;
7. The Secretary General (Dr. François Madec, France) leading the administrative affairs of ISAH;
8. The treasurer (Prof. Dr. Martin Tielen, The Netherlands) supervising the financial affairs of ISAH;

Interacting with each other constantly via electronic communication means and regular meeting at and in between the ISAH Congresses to develop further a fruitful scientific life of ISAH.
ISAH’s understanding of “Animal hygiene” is explained in Article 2 of the new ISAH Constitution:
“The field of animal hygiene includes the scientific analysis of the interactions between domestic animals and any abiotic and biotic factors of their direct and indirect environment with the aim to develop optimisation and intervention measures for preventing diseases (including zoonoses and food safety relevant infections and contaminations), promote the animal’s health and their species-specific welfare needs whilst maintaining a secure and sound environment”.
To make this understood by the public and other scientific societies as well as by international organization such as O.I.E., WHO and FAO, the ISAH logo is from now on accompanied buy the following tag line explaining ISAH’s purpose:

“Promoting Animal Health, Animal Welfare, Biosecurity, Environmental Protection and the Sustainability of Animal Husbandry”
The mission of ISAH, as outlined in the new ISAH Constitution, is to:

• Improve the knowledge on risk factors and on measures which prevent the development and spread of diseases and pathogens in animals including those that pose a risk to human health (Zoonoses and food safety relevant infections and contaminations such as residues in food derived from animals).
• Promote research and information flow from science to primary producers in the field of herd-health of livestock and poultry.
• Improve the knowledge on measures which will optimise animal welfare.
• Improve the knowledge on measures to minimize the potential adverse effects of animal production on the environment including those that pose a direct and/or indirect risk to human health.
• Promote the creation of interdisciplinary networks of scientists working in the field of animal hygiene and related areas.
• Transfer the “cutting-edge” knowledge and information on animal hygiene to veterinarians, animal scientists, animal producers, physicians and public health professionals as well as to decision makers in agribusiness and politics.