This structural tension with private interests in the context of global governance informs zoonoses because (a) the processes of contemporary globalization are changing accepted notions of the role of the state (of which more later), and (b) scholars of public health have increasingly come to recognize that the definition of health itself (which the state must act to protect and promote) is flexible, constantly changing, and subject to the transformations occurring in modern, globalized consumer societies (1) . Indeed, a review of competing definitions of public health by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in the United States in 1988 led the IOM to define public health as "fulfilling society's interest in assuring conditions in which people can be healthy" (2) . This broad definition, were it to be taken seriously and public policy aligned with it, would create a politics in which state power potentially could invade every private activity that challenges health. Pursued with vigor the political power of the state could develop into a national "health police".