Public health always involves some construction of "the public" and its presumptive interests as defined by state authority. Public authority over the monitoring and control of historic zoonoses has involved a full range of extensions authority of state authority to those areas from which such disease arises. And, while some of these extensions are well established, others reappear in response to changing social demands and technologies. As new diseases emerge, each simultaneously is "fitted" into the prevailing model of regulation, even as they challenge that application. National and transnational regulation of beef herds under threat of a BSE infection is a case in point. Equally important, however, has been the level of state fiscal support for public health. Even as the dynamics of globalization increase health threats to the public, the prevailing ideology of neo-liberalism through which state policy is filtered leads to a diminution of state authority and diminished resources for public health disease control (5).