One Health - Optimal Public Health Outcomes for Humans and Animals in Our Shared Environment

By: Robert M. Califf, MD, Commissioner of Food and Drugs

November 3, 2024, was One Health Day, bringing attention to the pressing need for collaborative solutions for interdependent human, animal, and environmental health concerns. I’d like to catch up with you today about a component of the FDA’s mission to collaborate across disciplines and sectors to promote the health of humans and animals; and taking into account agricultural and environmental issues, using science, technology, and innovation to better understand and define policies that involve these intersections.

For a long time, the FDA has used collaborations across scientific disciplines and across sectors to help support the development and regulation of products intended for human and animal health, for surveillance and to advance food safety. These approaches have also proved necessary to advance cross-cutting issues such as strengthening supply chains and addressing health misinformation. However, the continuous stream of complex issues, including outbreaks of COVID and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, as well as produce safety issues, a spike in mosquito, tick and midge borne diseases, and the ongoing concern with antimicrobial resistance, have highlighted the need to advance this work. 

These complex issues, which often involve multiple federal, state and/or local agencies as well as private industry, are hard to address for several reasons. The components of the government addressing human, animal and environmental health have different and intersecting authorities and responsibilities. It can be unclear which part of the government has the authority and the responsibility to primarily address an emerging crisis, particularly when roles and authorities overlap, and sometimes conflict. This requires additional discussion and time to provide coordinated responses and advice. Incidents may be emerging or far reaching, where pressing and important decisions may have to be made with substantial uncertainty because of relatively smaller and incomplete bodies of knowledge. The cause is often distant from the effect and multifactorial, a sector may need to act with immediate costs and minimal immediate reward in order to prevent damage to another sector.

The H5N1 outbreak in cattle has exemplified the fact that One Health success requires a scientific infrastructure that cuts across multiple disciplines that have significant differences in culture and focus in addition to collaboration across government. Additionally, it is clear that standing human relationships across these sectors are crucial so that we are ready when a crisis occurs.  

Center for Veterinary Medicine Symposium: “Paws, Claws, Hooves, Fins, and Feet—Advancements through a One Health Approach” 

As a part of our One Health strategy, the agency is developing and hosting a publicly-available One Health Symposium, “FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) Symposium: Paws, Claws, Hooves, Fins, and Feet—Advancements through a One Health Approach” on November 19, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The goal of the virtual symposium is to highlight CVM’s role in protecting human and animal health and to share information on the agency’s One Health approach to: 

• Animal drug safety surveillance; 
• Animal drug development for minor species, such as honeybees, and minor uses in major species, like cattle, dogs, and horses; 
• Animal cells, tissues, and cell- and tissue-based products, which are products made from, or that come from cells or tissues that are implanted, transplanted, infused, transferred, or given to an animal, like animal stem cells, and tissues such as blood or platelet-rich plasma; and
• Novel food ingredients that function in the gut of an animal to affect qualities like feed efficiency, waste output, and the reduction of pathogens in food products made from the animal. 

This public symposium is the first time that CVM has produced a One Health educational event open to external parties and offering continuing education credit.

The FDA does not walk the path to addressing these challenges alone. We benefit from a network of partners with differing missions, perspectives, expertise and authorities. Given the stakes of emerging health threats like H5N1 in dairy cattle and dairy workers, it is critical we work to more consistently put One Health approaches into practice in real world responses. Respect for the needs and perspectives of all involved and early agreement on hoped-for outcomes is needed to help resolve barriers to adopting these approaches to protect the health of humans, animals and the environment.  

Catch up with you next time.