One Welfare in Practice

The Role of the Veterinarian

Tanya Stephens

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000459609
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

Animal welfare has long been recognised as central to the role of the veterinary professional, but this is increasingly aligned with the welfare of humans and the broader environment in which we co-exist. This is the first book dedicated to the role of the veterinarian in One Welfare, a concept that recognises the interconnections between animal welfare, human wellbeing, and the environment.

The book demonstrates, through a wide range of international case studies, why professional ethics and the use of good evidence is integral to this role. Contributors bring a rich variety of writings, each with their own perception of the role of the veterinarian in improving animal welfare and human wellbeing. One Welfare in Practice: The Role of the Veterinarian emphasises the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and solutions: it is essential that veterinary practitioners recognise when other professionals or disciplines need to be consulted to benefit both animals and humans. With its multiple, fascinating approaches to One Welfare, this book will inform and inspire the veterinarian to find areas where collaborative action reaps the greatest rewards.

This unique book shows how veterinarians can and are contributing to improving animal and human welfare, offering practical advice as to how the profession can further engage in One Welfare in a range of settings.

1 One Health and One Welfare

Joann M. Lindenmayer

Tufts University School of Medicine

Gretchen E. Kaufman

Washington State University

Tufts University

DOI: 10.1201/9781003218333-1

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Lessons from One Health – A Short History
   1. Visualizing One Health
   2. Extending Health and Well-being to Animals and Ecosystems – Lessons Learned and Missed Opportunities from One Health
   3. Focus on People and Zoonoses
   4. Environment: The Missing Dimension
   5. Reconciling Equity and Trade-Offs
3. Enter One Welfare
   1. Illustrative Examples of One Health and Welfare Challenges and Successes
   2. COVID-19 and a Global Pandemic of Our Own Making
4. One Health and One Welfare as Partners
5. Conclusions
   1. One Health and One Welfare Structured Academic Controversy Model and a One Welfare Approach
   2. Background Information for Students
6. References

Until the lions have their own historians the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

African Proverb

Introduction

In this chapter, we will explore the connections between One Health and One Welfare and suggest how these two important and overlapping movements could benefit from each other and help us to work collaboratively towards common goals. Both concepts are based on the foundational idea that humans, other animals (wild and domestic) and the environment are interconnected and interdependent, and that these relationships are inescapable, inviolable and arise out of common origins and shared experiences.

The One Health concept requires us to recognize and appreciate the dynamic complexity of everything from minute ecosystems within cells to diverse populations that constitute macro-ecosystems. In doing so, we must move beyond the hundreds of years of training that has led us to think of health problems in simple reductionist terms of direct cause-and-effect relationships that can be studied and manipulated apart from the complex context in which they occur. One Health is not well served by this simplistic way of thinking, based on normal science, and would benefit from the more systemic approach offered by post-normal science, defined as a way of doing policy-related inquiry that is appropriate for complex cases where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent” that “does not pretend to be value free or ethically neutral” (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1990, 1992). Our understanding of the world emerges not from isolated, linear lines of scientific inquiry but rather from multiple, sometimes conflicting perspectives, and varying historical, moral and ethical frameworks, not all of which are based in science (Bunch and Waltner-Toews, 2015).

Although One Health began with the recognition of interconnected, interdependent relationships, it has most often examined issues through a biased scientific lens of human health and human activities. Even as an ethical perspective of One Health is beginning to be explored, it is being applied mainly to people. But as Dr. Albert Schweitzer noted decades ago, “We need a boundless ethics that includes the animals also” (Schweitzer, 1998). We posit that a moral and ethical framework needs to be developed for One Health that considers more than human dimensions, applies as well to our relationship with other animals and the environment and assists us to reach beyond normal science. One Welfare, based on similar foundational ideas but also grounded in the ethical concepts of welfare and well-being, may serve as the basis for a much needed ethical framework to guide One Health.

One Welfare begins with the perspectives that are not all based in “normal” science, complementing One Health with an important value dimension. Taken together, One Health and One Welfare can give us a way to think about forging a healthier path away from the widespread destruction that Homo sapiens alone, of the more than 8 million known species on earth (Zimmer, 2011), has caused and that imperils not only our survival but that of all other living species. One Health and One Welfare together provide us with the opportunity to think about how we can “stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature” (Sonya Renee Taylor, 2020). Accomplishing this will require applying not only the science of health, among others, but doing so within an ethical framework.

We put forward that One Health and One Welfare together can establish a basic ethic of respect for other living and nonliving elements of our planet, provide a foundation for the science of One Health and replace exploitation and annihilation with stewardship and responsibility for our planet and all its life forms.

Lessons from One Health – A Short History

The concept of One Health has its roots in ancient civilizations that made no distinction between healers of people and healers of animals and, although it has nearly completely fallen out of current practice and fashion, remnants of this idea persist among certain indigenous peoples (Callicott, 1982; Loppie, 2008; Dockery, 2010; Tignino, 2018; Jack, Gonet, Mease, and Nowak, 2020). Not until Hebrew prophets and Greek philosophers was the distinction drawn between man and other animals with respect to their morals, behaviour and mental processes (Schwabe, 1984), thereby setting humans apart from and superior to other animal species. In the 19th century, the physician-pathologist Dr. Rudolph Virchow studied spontaneously occurring diseases of domestic animals with the objective of applying what he learned to diseases in people, and wrote in 1856 that “Between animal and human medicine, there is no dividing line – nor should there be. The object is different but the experience obtained constitutes the basis of all medicine” (Klauder, 1958). His work, and that of others at the time, laid the groundwork for the study of comparative pathology among animals of all species, humans included, and he is credited with conceiving the concept of one medicine. Against this backdrop of a common scientific understanding of diseases, the microbiological revolution arrived in the mid-20th century. Coupled with the subsequent influence of biotechnology in the 21st century, physicians became increasingly specialized and collaborative efforts with veterinarians waned (Kahn, Monath, Bokma, Gibbs, and Aguirre, 2012).

One Medicine, a term formally defined and elaborated by veterinarian Dr. Calvin Schwabe, refocused attention on the common scientific origins of human and veterinary medicine (Schwabe, 1984). In the 21st century, two key advances propelled One Health to where it is today. The field of medicine expanded from treatment alone to include prevention, thereby paving the way for the evolution of One Medicine to One Health (United States Public Health Service, 1979; Etheridge, 1992). And in 2004, health experts from around the world met at the One World, One Health symposium to discuss movements of diseases among human, domestic animal and wildlife populations, leading to the publication of the Manhattan Principles (Cook, Karesh, and Osofsky, 2004). These gave greater weight to the value of biodiversity and extended One Health to encompass the environment and the health of people and other animals in ecosystems.

One Health is a concept that affirms the health interdependency of people, other animals and the environment. It is an approach to understanding and solving complex, shared health challenges and, as such, requires engagement by representatives of multiple disciplines and communities. Finally, it is the implementation of One Health in policies and programmes designed to improve the health of people, other animals and the environment. The most commonly applied definition of One Health states that it is “the integrative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals, and the environment” (American Veterinary Medical Association, 2020b). A newer definition states that One Health is a “collaborative, multisectoral, and trans-disciplinary approach – working at local, regional, national, and global levels – to achieve optimal health and well-being outcomes, recognizing the interconnections between people, animals, plants and their shared environment”(One Health Commission, 2020c).

One Health as we know it today was launched into prominence with the heightened recognition of threats to people posed by the emergence of animal diseases such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, which has the capacity to become pandemic and kill vast numbers of people (and poultry). For that reason, an early focus of One Health was dominated by concerns primarily for human health and secondarily for animal health as advanced by physicians, veterinarians and population health professionals, and was adopted by many as a strategy for achieving effective and economically efficient joint health outcomes that would not have been possible had there been no collaboration. This relationship was codified in 2010 in a Tripartite Agreement signed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) (World Health Organization, 2010). The agreement promotes cross-sectoral collaboration to address and reduce risks from zoonoses and other public health threats existing and emerging at the human-animal-ecosystems interface; similar collaborations were established in many other countries (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2020; Mbabu et al., 2014; Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, 2019; Pennsylvania State University, 2020). Because of these institutional arrangements at the highest levels, One Health in its most basic form has influenced investments, research funding and policy at international and national levels and is supported and recognized by many members of the international donor community (One Health European Joint Programme, 2020; United States Agency for International Development, 2018).

Visualizing One Health

Of four common graphic representations of One Health, including the generic One Health Venn Diagram (Figure 1.1), the One Health Triad (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020), the One Health Umbrella (Lerner and Berg, 2015), and a suggested new One Health World graphic (Figure 1.2), a survey of One Health experts found strong preferen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword: One Welfare for the Veterinarian
• Preface
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Editor
• Contributors
• Chapter 1 One Health and One Welfare
• Chapter 2 Sustainability: The Role of Veterinarians in Aligning Animal, Human and Environmental Well-Being
• Chapter 3 Climate Change as an Animal Welfare Problem: The Role of the Veterinarian
• Chapter 4 Animal Welfare Aspects of Land Clearing
• Chapter 5 Wildlife Utilisation and One Welfare
• Chapter 6 One Welfare and the Management of Vertebrate Pest Animals: A Complex Problem Needing an Interdisciplinary Approach
• Chapter 7 Managing Welfare and Well-being in Animal Disease Control Programmes
• Chapter 8 Rabies Control in Indonesia: Working Together to Protect Animal and Human Welfare
• Chapter 9 The Role of One Welfare in Development and Nutrition Security
• Chapter 10 The Laboratory Animal Veterinarian’s Contribution to One Welfare
• Chapter 11 Fish Welfare and One Welfare – A Veterinarian’s Perspective
• Chapter 12 Working Animals – One Health, One Welfare
• Chapter 13 Cow Shelters: Animal Welfare, Human Well-being and the Environment in an Indian Context
• Chapter 14 One Welfare Approach to the Sea Transport of Livestock
• Index