One Medicine One Science and policy

Abstract

Today, humans, animals, and the environment are remarkably interconnected and interdependent at a global level through international commerce and movement. Thus, we have access to safe and nutritious food that fuels health, medicines and vaccines that protect us and our animals, and natural resources that support good living standards. However, conflicts arise as exponentially growing populations require more food, demand better living standards, and act to preserve the environment. How do we simultaneously produce more food, reduce disease, afford equitable living standards, and create an environment fit for humans, our animals, and wildlife? Science has played a critical role in finding solutions to many of these challenges, but difficult conflicts continue to emerge. For example, strategies that promote efficient production of food—such as concentrated farming systems, monoculture cropping, and chemical inputs of fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides—have unintended consequences that threaten human, animal, and environmental health ([ 1 ][1]). A more integrated, holistic problem-solving approach informed by science is needed for development of public policies that address these complex problems. A growing “one health” dialogue has focused on emerging disease surveillance, public health preparedness, and policy issues, with less attention being given to connecting these issues to the scientific foundations that underpin pathogen emergence, global health threats, food security, and environmental health. The imbalance has resulted in a compartmentalization of research and policy, sometimes diluting or compromising the efficacy of the one health movement. For example, lack of balanced scientific input imperils policies affecting antibiotic use for efficient food production and, more seriously, modification of plants for improved production of foods under adverse conditions in impoverished countries. There is value in looking back at instances of scientifically informed decision-making that have broadly benefited human, animal, and environmental health, such as the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1970 and the U.S. Clean Water Act of 1972. Human health security today relies on finding common ground at the intersection of humans, animals, and the environment among diverse opinions and values. The concept of One Medicine One Science–based forums that bring together a diversity of scientists, policy professionals, medical experts, food producers, and other relevant stakeholders provides an important opportunity to present scientific knowledge that objectively informs public policy development ([ 2 ][2]). In the absence of scientific information, for instance, concerns about foods genetically modified for enhanced traits have resulted in European markets being closed to African farmers trying to better their standard of living. It has also led to at-risk pregnant women and children lacking access to golden rice, whose high vitamin A content could alleviate as many as 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness in pregnant women and children every year ([ 3 ][3]). Scientifically informed public policies are also needed to find solutions to foreseeable food supply limitations, prepare for existing foreign animal and human disease pathogens (e.g., African swine fever virus and Chikungunya virus), and deal with environmental implications of extreme energy production (e.g., fracking effects on water quality) or industrial pollution of agricultural land in China (4). Overall, balancing competing priorities is a major challenge as societies seek to maximize human health, animal health and welfare, and environmental integrity. Reductionism may be a natural reaction to complexity, but we are in need of evolving ways to discuss, understand, and address these complex challenges. ![Figure][4] Strategies to increase food production, such as pesticide use, have unintended consequences. PHOTO: LENS/GETTY IMAGES 1. [↵][5] 1. R. S. DeFries, 2. J. A. Foley, 3. G. P. Asner , Front. Ecol. Environ. 2, 249 (2004). [OpenUrl][6][CrossRef][7][Web of Science][8] 2. [↵][9] 1. D. A. Travis 2. et al ., Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1334, 26 (2014). [OpenUrl][10][CrossRef][11][PubMed][12] 3. [↵][13] Golden Rice Project ([www.goldenrice.org][14]). 4. 1. C. Larson , Science 343, 1415 (2014). 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