Laura Kahn, a researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School's Program on Science and Global Security (S&GS), has co-authored the article, "Teaching  'One Medicine, One Health,'" in the March edition of the American Journal of Medicine.

In the article Kahn and co-authors Tom Monath, a virologist and former public health official at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Bruce Kaplan, a veterinarian and former CDC public health epidemiologist, and James Steele, founder of the CDC’s veterinary public health division, call for a renewed collaboration between veterinarian and human health medicine, or “One Medicine.”

The authors write, “The concept that animal health and the environment influence human health has been around since ancient times.” They note that “as the 20th century [has] progressed, collaboration between medicine and veterinary medicine waned. In the 21st century, the emergence of deadly zoonotic diseases [diseases which spread from animals to people] such as human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and West Nile virus, present the urgent need that these professions renew and increase collaborative efforts.”

Kahn and her co-authors argue that the lack of veterinary-medical health collaborations “stem from the fact that medical schools typically do not emphasize the ecology of zoonotic pathogens, as is done in schools of veterinary medicine.”  The authors write, “Significant improvement for all could be achieved if both physicians and veterinarians educated their patients/clients about zoonotic risks of their pets.”

The answer, the researchers assert, can be found in “comparative medicine.”  Kahn and her colleagues write, “Comparative medicine, a field of study that exemplifies the ‘One Medicine’ concept, involves the study of host-p infectious diseases and their pathogenesis, which is critical to our understanding of zoonotic agents.”  One such example of the potential of comparative medicine, the authors point out, was in 1893, when a physician and veterinarian research team discovered that the cause of cattle fever. “Their work helped set the stage for the discovery by Walter Reed and his colleagues of the transmission of yellow fever,” the authors note.

“To confront the 21st century threats of emerging zoonotic diseases,” Kahn and her co-authors note, “we should learn from our predecessors in the 18th and 19th centuries. Visionary leaders and educators of medicine embraced the fact that zoonotic pathogens infect both humans and animals and, as a result, they encouraged their physician colleagues to work closely with their veterinary medical colleagues.”

The researchers conclude, “On June 25th, 2007, the American Medical Association House of Delegates approved a ‘One Health’ resolution, which promotes the partnership between human and veterinary medicine. The American Veterinary Medical Association set up a task force of prominent veterinarians, physicians, and allied health scientists in July 2007. It was charged with developing strategies to implement the ‘One Health’ concept. These are important steps toward our understanding of how to control, and ultimately, prevent zoonotic disease transmission, which would improve the health and lives of both animals and humans.”