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 One Health opinion... One Health, Physicians (medical doctors), and more – June 28, 2016 National & International Status This One Health viewpoint/opinion is from the perspective of having longstanding involvement in the One Medicine/One Health movement and being associated with several of its past and present VIP leaders since 1962-63 beginning with the late doyen par excellence of worldwide veterinary public health, veterinarian James H. Steele, DVM, MPH during the 20th century and early 21st century.  The first decades of the 21st century involved engagement with Dr. Steele and principally the extraordinary One Health Initiative team leader-colleagues Laura H. Kahn, MD, MPH, MPP, Thomas P. Monath, MD, Jack Woodall, PhD, Lisa A. Conti, DVM, MPH, the late, great American Medical Association President, Ronald M. Davis, MD, MPH https://goo.gl/ul4Fhj, and others in the U.S. and worldwide. See http://goo.gl/s23bvb   Ronald M. Davis, MD President, American Medical Association Director, Center for Health Promotion & Disease Prevention. Henry Ford Health System One Ford Place, 5C Detroit, Michigan 48202-3450 July 3, 2007 – American Medical Association (AMA) Im delighted that the AMA House of Delegates has approved a resolution calling for increased collaboration between the human and veterinary medical communities and I look forward to seeing a stronger partnership between physicians and veterinarians.  Emerging infectious diseases, with the threats of cross-species transmission and pandemics, represent one of many reasons why the human and veterinary medical professions must work more closely together.  Historically, doctors of medicine (MD, DO etc.,), doctors of veterinary medicine (DVM, VMD, BVSc etc.), health scientist doctors of philosophy and science (PhD, DSc etc.) and others have played a significant role in advancing the concept of “One Medicine”, now commonly referred to as “One Health” nationally and internationally.  Primarily, this promotes the critically important One Health approach utilizing transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary co-equal collaborations for obtaining efficacious expeditious sustainable Global Health goals including public health and comparative medicine aspects so adeptly displayed under the One Health Umbrella graphic http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/OneHealth2. The One Health Umbrella concept was developed collaboratively by ONE HEALTH SWEDEN and One Health Initiative team physicians, veterinarians and a PhD health scientist working collaboratively in December 2013 and January 2014.  Notably, the lead ONE HEALTH SWEDEN physician, Björn Olsen, MD, is a Professor and Senior Physician of Infectious Diseases at Uppsala University and University Hospital (Sweden) and a member of the One Health Initiative Advisory Board http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/advBoard.php.  Dr. Olsen also established the first international open-access One Health Journal Infection Ecology and Epidemiology, The One Health Journal (Sweden) http://goo.gl/BjCCD1. One Health Initiative website letterhead maxims, i.e. “One Health is the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals, plants and our environment” and “One Health implementation will help protect and/or save untold millions of lives in our generation and for those to come” were presciently preceded by the famous quote “Between animal and human medicine there are no dividing lines--nor should there be. The object is different but the experience obtained constitutes the basis of all medicine” by physician, Rudolf Virchow, MD, 1821-1902, (Dr. Virchow is known as the ‘father of cellular pathology’).  There are abundant acknowledged professional endorsements http://goo.gl/WmSBCN and ample ongoing scientific evidence http://goo.gl/CBsqMr that it frequently has worked and does work like a charm! Notably, there was also “[physician/veterinarian,] John McFadyean,[DVM, MD, 1853-1941] whose first love was veterinary medicine, receiving his veterinary medical diploma from Edinburgh veterinary school in 1876.  McFadyean graduated from medical school in 1882 and received his science degree in 1883.  He wanted degrees in Medicine and Science to prepare himself for an academic career in pathology and microbiology, grounded in the work of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur. Although enthralled with the genius and discoveries of Koch, e.g. the famous Koch’s postulates … McFadayean respectfully challenged Koch’s erroneous assertion that Bovine TB was of little, if any concern, in its transmission to humans via milk and milk products.  Over a ten year span, Dr. McFadyean was proved correct and he was subsequently knighted in 1905 for his service to veterinary science and agriculture and for his brilliant work on the royal commission on TB.  He devoted his life to teaching pathology and anatomy, developing the field of veterinary research [subsequently called the “father of veterinary research”] and administering the London veterinary school. To this day, laboratory diagnosis of Anthrax can be confirmed by demonstrating the organism in blood, lesions or discharges using McFadyean’s methylene blue stain for the bacillus capsule.” 1.        Pattison, I. John Mcfadyean, Founder of Modern Veterinary Research. J.A. Allen 1981. 2.        Dunlop, R.H. & Williams, D.J. 1996.  Veterinary Medicine: an illustrated history.         Mosby, New York. Pp. 399-401.   The above two momentous One Health physicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries, among others, were model predecessors to many later-day 20th and 21st century visionary physician One Health supporters/advocates along with the organizations they have represented such as Virginia Dato, MD, MPH, and Kevin M. Sherin, MD, MPH, current One Health Initiative team Advisory Board members.  Both Drs. Dato and Sherin are past presidents of the American Association of Public Health Physicians http://www.aaphp.org/OneHealth.  More recently physicians at the Global Family Doctor’s organization - WONCA http://goo.gl/9CvJAX and http://goo.gl/RVrjIE, viz. Chief Executive Officer, physician Dr. Garth Manning http://goo.gl/08UP9s and Newsletter Editor, physician Dr. Karen Flagg (Australia) http://goo.gl/eQxncN have endorsed and helped promote the One Health concept. In brief, when one observes the documented numbers of international (and U.S.) individual physicians and physician supporter/advocate organizations http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/supporters.php now carrying the One Health torch, the expansionary evidence is indeed substantial! Private queries lately have been occasionally received by the One Health Initiative website saying: “I still can’t tell if the One Health Initiative concept has really caught on.  I think a lot of us believe in it, but don’t see much action.”  The response has become obvious for some time now: The OHI team’s website has chronicled/documented One Health progress since 2008, making an effort to be ecumenical towards all reputable One Health players (individuals and organizations) on the world scene, i.e. giving equal access to and posting all known pertinent and reputable One Health NEWS and Publication items.  All anyone needs to do is review (scan back) through the OHI website’s NEWS http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php and Publications http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications.php pages over the past several weeks, months and years.  The story is all there in black and white...showing the “One Health approach” exponentially exploding with lots of ‘action’!  In addition, the One Health Newsletter http://epi.ufl.edu/onehealth/news/one-health-newsletter/, an original product of the Florida State Health Department and subsequently transferred under the auspices of the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute (USA) has provided consistent outstanding publication access to all qualified One Health professionals and scientists.  The OHI team has worked closely with the One Health Newsletter editor(s) and editorial staff since its onset. Gregory Gray, MD, MPH, the early farsighted physician director of the University of Florida’s One Health Center of Excellence for Research & Training and a member of the OHI Advisory Board established the first (worldwide) One Health PhD program in public health http://goo.gl/VI5md4 beginning in the summer of 2012.   Currently Dr. Gray is a Professor, Duke University School of Medicine, Duke Infectious Diseases & Duke Global Health Institute, Durham, North Carolina (USA) and Program in Emerging Infectious Diseases Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore and he continues fostering numerous One Health endeavors worldwide.            Several examples are listed below of some remarkable pertinent One Heath textbooks surfacing on the scene beginning in 2010: Human-Animal Medicine – Clinical Approaches to Zoonoses, Toxicants and other Shared Health Risks https://goo.gl/JHmFLe - 1st Edition (2010) The physician co-author of this landmark One Health textbook is Peter M. Rabinowitz, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Department of Global Health, University of Washington, School of Public Health, Director of Human Animal Medicine Project (USA).  Dr. Rabinowitz is a member of the OHI Advisory Board and was formerly a strong One Health advocate at Yale Medical School. Zoonoses – Protecting People and Their Pets :: Click Here :: - 1st Edition (2013) Zoonotic Tuberculosis: Mycobacterium bovis and Other Pathogenic Mycobacteria :: Click Here :: - 3rd Edition (2014) Confronting Emerging Zoonoses: The One Health Paradigm (2014) :: Click Here :: Global Population Health and Well-Being in the 21st Century - Toward New Paradigms, Policy and Practice (2015) :: Click Here :: Also observe the significant evolution of four (4) outstanding international One Health Journals: http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/journals.php. The first landmark World Veterinary Association (WVA)/World Medical Association (WMA) Global Conference on One Health held in Spain in May 2015, brought together 330 delegates from 40 countries around the world to discuss the One Health Concept http://goo.gl/ij55zg.  The 2nd is scheduled for Japan in November 2016 http://goo.gl/srEGtA.  The stage had been previously set for these historic One Health conferences in 2013, as reported by the visionary former President of the World Medical Association, also a former AMA President and longstanding OHI Advisory Board member, physician Cecil B. Wilson, MD http://goo.gl/INz20v. “One Health” per se still has a long way to go yet for full acceptance and implementation...but over the last decade it has definitely been catching on big time and exponentially worldwide.  This has been true despite the ups and downs due primarily to inadequate “public affairs/media” expertise and a decided tendency for individuals and various One Health oriented institutions and organizations to become more or less insular, commonly called the “silo” effect. However, a “shining light on the hill” in the true spirit of the One Health example that demonstrates moving forward and away from the parochial standards of some other high profile One Health entities is the vital, invaluable co-equal collaborative activities of the U.S. One Health Commission, the One Health Initiative team, and the One Health Platform Foundation. Note recent international joint press releases for: Three leading international One Health groups, the One Health Commission, the One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono Team, and the One Health Platform Foundation are partnering to create a global “One Health Day”.  http://goo.gl/vfMDHU.   “Preparing society to create the world we need through ‘One Health’ education!” http://goo.gl/X4lT3I. In summary, the One Health movement is progressing nicely but needs continuous encouragement and promotion from all segments of society that recognize and appreciate its crucial merit for expediting and enhancing global health now and in future. Prepared by: Bruce Kaplan, DVM                                                                   Contents Manager/Editor One Health Initiative website Co-Founder One Health Initiative team/website http://goo.gl/KujQkP E-mail:  bkapdvm@verizon.net Phone/fax: 941-351-5014 www.onehealthinitiative.com   One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono Team: Laura H. Kahn, MD, MPH, MPP ▪ Bruce Kaplan, DVM ▪ Thomas P. Monath, MD ▪ Lisa A. Conti, DVM, MPH