The Veterinarian’s Contribution to Conservation Medicine and the ‘One Health’ Initiative

Posted on December 2, 2009

The patient is 4.54 billion years old, weighs 5.94 x 1024 tons, has a girth of 24,900 miles, is the third planet from the sun and looks like a blue marble from space. For medical record purposes, this female patient is called ‘Mother Earth’. Her skin, called tectonic plates, came to life (welcome RNA, DNA!) approximately 3,000 million years ago, is presently home to millions of species and is made up of 71% salt water oceans with the remainder being continents and islands. An upright walking ape showed up about 6 million years ago as an innocent and mutualistic inhabitant but more recently has turned acutely parasitic causing an insidious dermatopathy, of sort, by modifying and disturbing the good Mother’s fauna and flora. She now has chronic issues and veterinarians can be an integral part of her managed health care system and hopeful recovery.

The field of veterinary medicine is well known for its varied disciplines and comparative views as it pertains to animal health issues. Conversely, human medicine, despite all of its capacity and significant contributions, has been accused in the past of being too narrow and lacking a comparative health perspective. Conservation medicine can bring both groups of talent together for a multiple discipline approach to solving ecosystem health problems. It requires professionals from diverse backgrounds working together to address the complex issues affecting the health of ecosystems and its inhabitants. It unites the benefits of biomedical research, new diagnostic resources, public health, policy makers, basic scientists, biologists, environmentalists, veterinarians and human doctors to address conservation problems. It goes beyond our normal species specific approach. Simply put, the goal of conservation medicine is to achieve ecological health for ecosystems, land, water, plants, crops, domestic animals, terrestrial and aquatic wildlife, humans and invertebrates – it connects all species, great and small, in one health care system.

This brings up the new ecological buzzword of “One Health”. I am very glad and proud to see that our profession’s governing body, the American Veterinary Medical Association, has recently adopted an initiative in supporting the ideals of “One Health” (see http://www.avma.org/onehealth/). When there is a recognized human or wildlife or livestock health issue, we may be initially too narrow in our appraisal or appreciation of its true impact. In a more broad sense, there is only one health since we are all dependent upon the other and are interconnected by living in the same ecosystem. Something that affects one part will affect the other. If your pancreas is damaged, it is will affect the whole organism, right? A true life example is the plight of the mountain gorilla. They are at risk of human disease (influenza, measles, tuberculosis, enteric pathogens) and death due to urban encroachment, ecotourism, intensification of agricultural systems and unstable governments. They are forever vulnerable due to their innocent proximity within the rain forest ecosystem with man. I am sure you can think of other such examples.

Climate change, extinction, decreased biodiversity, habitat fragmentation, emerging diseases, pollution, resource depletion. These issues are no longer considered items of concern for the future. They are real issues and super scary facts facing our planet now based on scientific evidence and keep people like me awake at night worrying about its plight. Conservation medicine is a type of crisis management (or battle cry) since we need to respond to these issues before we lose important components or members of sensitive interconnected ecosystems. We learn early in veterinary school that it is better to prevent than waiting to intervene when the pathologic process is already underway. Veterinarians have made and will continue to make important contributions in the field of conservation medicine by assisting in defining and solving ecosystem problems. These include epidemiology, disease investigation, zoonoses, toxicology, anesthesia, pathology, ecology and conservation biology through our diverse interests and talents. Hopefully you can take time out of your studies and appreciate the valuable and unique education you are receiving.

Veterinarians, through conservation medicine and the ideals of One Health, are considered leaders in this new discipline and should be up to the challenge. There are now several veterinary schools with curriculum and departments dedicated to teaching conservation medicine to its students – if yours does not maybe you can encourage a change. If you want to learn even more about this, I recommend attending the Envirovet Institute summer program (see http://vetmed.illinois.edu/envirovet/), an educational and conservation medicine action group. Their mission is to teach veterinary students and veterinarians to anticipate, prevent, and overcome the adverse effects of modern societies on ecosystems and wildlife. They have done a great job of providing society with a nucleus of young veterinarians who are educated about environmental health issues and who understand how to develop transdisciplinary programs of research and intervention to create a brighter future. Mother Earth is a sensitive, delicate patient and needs talented and dedicated veterinarians to monitor her pulse and respond to her long term health care needs.