News

Posted One Health Initiative website September 25, 2015 http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php

Note: There have been many inquiries requesting an accurate historical account of the “One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono team” and the One Health Initiative website...

History of the One Health Initiative team (April 2006 through September 2015) and the One Health Initiative website since October 1, 2008

 

http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/Draft%205%20NEWS%20OHI%20ONE%20HEALTH.pdf  

By One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono team: Laura H. Kahn, MD, MPH, MPP ▪ Bruce Kaplan, DVM ▪ Thomas P. Monath, MD ▪ Jack Woodall, PhD ▪ Lisa A. Conti, DVM, MPH

 

Two separate historical interviews with One Health Initiative team members were published in the International Innovations magazine (Bristol, United Kingdom): June 2010 http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/One_Health_Brochure_H_Res.pdf and June 2011 http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/One_Health_EF_03.pdf.  Subsequently a more comprehensive documented historical description was published in 2013 entitled “One Health Initiative Advances Care for Humans, Animals and the Environment” http://www.solutions-site.org/node/875.   Below is a concise updated version as of September 24, 2015:

 

The One Health Concept is generally defined as a worldwide strategy for expanding interdisciplinary collaborations and communications in all aspects of health care for humans, animals and the environment. The synergism achieved will advance health care for the 21st century and beyond by accelerating biomedical research discoveries, enhancing public health efficacy, expeditiously expanding the scientific knowledge base, and improving medical education and clinical care. When properly implemented, it will help protect and save untold millions of lives in our present and future generations.  One Health has been the most commonly used term for the concept in the early 21 century.  This evolved from the term One Medicine used during the latter half of the 20th century, first coined and promoted by veterinarian Calvin W. Schwabe DVM, MPH, ScD http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/Who%20coined%20the%20term%20One%20Medicine%20by%20B%20%20Kaplan%20and%20C%20%20Scott%20May19%202011-CS.pdf.

 

The One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono team (OHI) was co-founded originally by physician Laura H. Kahn, MD, MPH, MPP http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/LauraKahnBiography%20Feb%202015.pdf, veterinarian Bruce Kaplan, DVM http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/Bruce%20Kaplan%20Biography%20February%202015.pdf (April 2006), and physician Thomas P. Monath, MD http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/Tom%20Monath%20Biography%20January2014%20(2015%20update).pdf (March 2007) in 2006-2007 for the sole purpose of promoting the One Health concept nationally and internationally. The OHI team was expanded to include health research scientist Jack Woodall, PhD http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/Jack%20Woodall%20OHI%20Bio%20Feb2015.pdf in February 2009 and public health veterinarian Lisa A. Conti, DVM, MPH http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/Lisa%20Conti%20Biography%20February%202015.pdf in January 2012.  Drs. Kahn, Kaplan and Monath [One Health Initiative website owner and his “brainchild”] initiated the OHI website http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/ October 1, 2008.  Dr. Kaplan is the primary OHI website contents manager/editor and Dr. Woodall, a co-founder of ProMED mail www.promedmail.org, is the contents manager of the OHI website’s popular ProMED Outbreak Reports page http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/promed.php. 

The OHI team’s purpose and goals are solely for educating international multidisciplinary scientific communities, political and governmental leaders, the general public, and news media about the One Health concept and helping to promote the One Health concept’s expeditious implementation worldwide.  This has been done via numerous national and international publications, e.g.   http://www.izs.it/vet_italiana/2007/43_1/5_19.pdf; http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(07)01082-0/pdf; http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080519/news_mz1e19kahn.html; http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/pdf/1756-3305-2-36.pdf; http://www.alnmag.com/article/case-one-health-paradigm-shift; http://www.izs.it/vet_italiana/2009/45_3/377.htm; http://www.izs.it/vet_italiana/2009/45_1/45_1.htm; http://ilarjournal.oxfordjournals.org/content/51/3/193.full.pdf+html... and book chapters http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php?query=Four+Landmark+One+Health+Textbooks+of+the+early+21st+Century+ as well as through the OHI website’s posting various One Health written contributions over the years, all of which have been documented on the OHI website. 

The June 2007 landmark American Medical Association (AMA) One Health resolution http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/AMA%20Resolution%20530%20a-07%20'One%20Health'%20Final%206%2025%2007.pdf was primarily drafted by Dr. Kahn at the bequest of the late AMA President and great One Health advocate Ronald Davis, MD; Drs. Monath and Kaplan assisted.  An established Honorary Advisory Board http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/advBoard.php, since December 1, 2010, consists of notable One Health VIPs from within the U.S., Canada and worldwide.

 

The OHI team has individually accepted national and international public speaker engagements, e.g. the milestone World Veterinary Association/World Medical Association One Health Conference http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php?query=World+Veterinary+Association%2FWorld+Medical+Association+Global+Conference+on+One+Health+%96+Report+and+Presentations [Drs. Kahn and Conti were keynote speakers at the May 2015 meeting in Spain.  They have been and continue being highly sought after knowledgeable One Health speakers in other forums].  The OHI team has also helped provide other prominent One Health speakers for various One Health meetings upon request(s) over the years.

 

The OHI team works collaboratively with many prominent One Health national and international organizations like the American Association of Public Health Physicians http://www.aaphp.org/onehealth; the U.S. One Health Commission (OHC) OHC and OHI letter to the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association)/ https://www.onehealthcommission.org/en/why_one_health/ohc_history/—notably, Dr. Monath served on the AVMA One Health Task Force in 2008, the precursor to the OHC and thereafter represented the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH) on the early commission activities—; One Health Sweden http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/One%20Health%20Sweden%20Bjorn%20Olsen%20OHI%20websiteJune%2029%202013.pdf [indeed the OHI team, working collaboratively with One Health Sweden physician and veterinarian representatives at a meeting in Sarasota, Florida, December 2013, helped develop the widely accepted and internationally recognized One Health umbrella graphic http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/OneHealth2]; and the nascent One Health Platform http://onehealthplatform.com/engine/.  The OHI team currently participates in all known international One Health Journal endeavors http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/journals.php.

 

In addition, since its inception, the OHI team/OHI website has worked closely with the One Health Newsletter, a widely read online One Health product of the University of Florida (Emerging Pathogens Institute-USA)—formerly produced by the Florida State Department of Health (USA), see http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/newsletter.php, http://epi.ufl.edu/onehealth/news/one-health-newsletter/ and http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php?query=One+Health+Newsletter+-+Volume+8%2C+Issue+2+-+Published+July+3%2C+2015+%28USA%29. 

 

The policy of the One Health Initiative team has always been to provide and continues to provide free access for reading and submitting acceptable One Health News, Publications, and Upcoming Events items for posting on the OHI website.  All reputable One Health organizations, and individuals in the U.S. and worldwide are recognized and welcomed as supporters/advocates http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/supporters.php without discrimination. The OHI team works pro bono and requires/accepts no fees whatsoever from any and all One Health supporter/advocate organizations and individuals who wish to participate.

 

Over the last few years the OHI team website’s monthly individual visits are roughly estimated to be about 20,000 from over 150 countries.  The OHI team’s email distribution list http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/contact.php totals 1168 individuals from 69 countries including: United States, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lithuania, Malasia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan,  Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Viet Nam, and Zambia.  The “One Health Initiative” Supporters list http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/supporters.php totals 865 to date.  A September 24, 2015 OHI Publications page item http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/ENDORSEMENTS.pdf lists some prominent U.S. and international individual and organizational One Health Endorsements (multidisciplinary) from June 2011 to July 2015

 

The OHI website has been referred to internationally by many as the clearing house for all pertinent One Health information worldwide and recently some prominent One Health advocates have called it the New York Times of One Health. The OHI website is now known to have had at least 118 reciprocal links http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/reciprocal_link/RECIPROCAL%20LINK%20September%2022,%202015.pdf, like CEEZAD http://www.ceezad.org/resources/links.html and others, from within the U.S. and internationally.  Most significantly, there is further evidence regarding the national and international One Health informational website status: among the recognized high profile search engines, the top three, i.e., Google, Bing and Yahoo list the One Health Initiative website www.onehealthinitiative.com first or among the first when either “One Health Initiative” or “One Health” are typed in.

 

Nonetheless, there are numerous other informative One Health oriented national and international websites from U.S. Government agencies e.g. the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) http://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/;  U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant and Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) https://www.aphis.usda.gov/wps/portal/banner/help?1dmy&urile=wcm%3Apath%3A%2FAPHIS_Content_Library%2FSA_Our_Focus%2FSA_Animal_Health%2FSA_One_Health; U.S. and worldwide university institutions, e.g. University of Pennsylvania http://www.vet.upenn.edu/about/what-we-do, Kansas State University http://onehealthkansas.k-state.edu/, The University of Washington http://deohs.washington.edu/cohr/, the One Health Commission (OHC) http://www.onehealthcommission.org, a U.S. based incorporated organization, The Royal Veterinary College, University of London http://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/one-health, and many others.

 

The One Health concept has been successfully applied to many clinical health and public health milieus during the 19^th, 20th and early 21^st centuries.  Some significant examples of clinical health advances through comparative medical/surgical endeavors occurred during the past centuries using the One Health approach, i.e. these include public health and comparative medicine issues such as Heart Disease, Cancer, Orthopedic Disease, Anesthesiology, Obesity, Parasitic Diseases, Tuberculosis, Global Infectious Disease, Influenza,  Human Hepatitis C virus, Tickborne Diseases, Food Safety, Hendra virus vaccine, Aspergillus felis, Immunizations (vaccinations), Lou Gehrig’s Disease,  Ebola, Antibiotic Use and Resistance, Staphylococcus resistant infections, Environmental health Policymaking, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever viruses, Renderpest, Emergency/Disaster preparedness and many others. *SEE: *http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/ONE%20HEALTH%20a%20significant%20international%20public%20health%20comparative%20medicine%20OHI%20POSTING%20May%2013%202015.pdf

 

Also documented on the OHI website is a relatively recent distinctive comparative medicine promotional activity termed “Zoobiquity” http://zoobiquity.com/ by its founder physician Barbara Natterson Horowitz, MD.  This concept is essentially synonymous with “comparative medicine/translational medicine”, recognizes some unique examples, reinforces the wisdom for encouraging physician-veterinarian collaborations and fits well under the One Health umbrella.  Although there have certainly not been enough comparative medical/surgical research efforts (i.e., utilizing an interdisciplinary collaborative One Health approach), the One Health Initiative website has been posting important examples of One Health research advances since 2009 and these were noted on this 2009-2012 link: http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/Zoobiquity%20book%20foundations%20&%20principles%20posted%20OHI%20website%20since%202009.pdf; more recently a more expanded list was chronicled in the above *paragraph.

 

As mentioned, there are many other significant illustrations of “One Health” clinical research and public health successes extending back through the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st centuries and before.  Public health achievements utilizing the One Health approach are prolific as are clinical health endeavors.  Both have been described in the OHI website NEWS http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php and Publications pages  http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications.php as well as in many other referenced publications worldwide.