Ex Ante Preparedness vs. Ex Post Response to Animal Disease Introductions: Better Safe than Sorry?

This article examines a tradeoff between ex ante preparedness costs and ex post costs of response to a potential introduction of an infectious animal disease. In a simplified case study setting we examine the conditions for optimality of enhanced detection system considering various characteristics of a potential infectious cattle disease outbreak, costs of program implementation, severity of the disease outbreak, and relative effectiveness of ex ante preparedness and ex post response actions. We show that the decision to invest in ex ante preparedness activities depends on such factors as likelihood of disease introduction, disease spread rate, relative costs, ancillary benefits and effectiveness of mitigation strategies. Ex Ante Preparedness vs. Ex Post response to Animal Disease Introductions: Better Safe than Sorry? U.S. agriculture, which in 2002 accounted for $250 billion in gross domestic product and employed nearly 1.6 million people while feeding the US population (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2004), represents a significant component of US economy. Possible intentional or unintentional disruptions in functionality of agricultural industry could result in substantial economic losses (Thompson et al., 2003; Mangen and Barrell 2003; Henson and Mazzocchi 2002). Some have identified food and water contamination as a relatively easy way to initiate a possible bioterrorism attack (Khan et al. 2001). From an economic perspective, a major consequence of a possible intentional or unintentional agricultural contamination is that it would cause disruptions in agricultural commodity and related markets due to possible perceived human health implications (Henson and Mazzocchi, p. 371, 2002). In addition, potentially expensive and intrusive mitigation actions could also represent a significant portion of total costs. Agriculturally related contamination events could have large consequences for consumers, producers and international trade as seen during recent mad cow events as they influenced conditions in the US, Canada, UK, and Asia. This possible disruption has raised many issues regarding protection of vulnerable components of the economy against potential events and regarding efficient response to possible attacks. One such issue involves the balance between ex ante and ex post efforts to rapidly respond to possible events and minimize the associated damages. The key point here is the distinction between costs of ex ante and ex post decision making. While costs of most ex ante actions are encountered regardless of event occurrence, ex post