Climate Change and Health Seminar Series: "A One Health Analysis of Food Safety & Security, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Climate Change in the 21st Century"

March 31, 2022

Information

Dr. Laura H. Kahn joined the Center on Climate Change and Health to discuss her interdisciplinary work with One Health and climate change.

March 28, 2022

ID7628

To CiteDCA Citation Guide

00:00<v Man>All right, go ahead.</v>
00:02<v ->Okay, we're waiting on everyone</v>
00:03nice to have you here after the spring break.
00:06So, I'll be very quick.
00:08So today we're very pleased
00:10to have Dr. Laura Kahn joining us.
00:13Dr. Kahn is a physician, policy researcher advocate also.
00:19In 2006 she published,
00:22Confronting Zoonoses, Linking Human and Veterinary Medicine
00:26in the CDC journal.
00:28And helped launch the One Health Initiative.
00:30So she's a co-founder of the One Health Initiative
00:34and a lecturer at the Princeton University.
00:37So without further ado, let's welcome Dr. Kahn.
00:41<v ->Well thank you so much Kai,</v>
00:43it's a pleasure for me to be with all of you,
00:47and, let me share my screen now.
00:52And,
00:54I have to apologize,
00:56I can try and go into presentation mode
00:58but oftentimes it freezes,
01:01but let me give it a shot and see if it works.
01:06So I'm going to talk with you
01:08a One Health analysis of food, safety and security,
01:10antimicrobial resistance and climate change
01:13in the 21st century, and yes, they are all connected.
01:20It's important for us to recognize
01:22that agriculture is the foundation of civilization.
01:26Climate change threatens agriculture and food security.
01:30Antimicrobials are the foundation of modern medicine,
01:34and antimicrobial resistance
01:36threatens antimicrobial use and food safety.
01:39And we need both if we want a modern advanced society.
01:45Just a few definitions.
01:47When I say food security I mean no hunger,
01:50and food safety means no foodborne illness.
01:53When I talk about antimicrobial resistance in this talk,
01:56I'm gonna focus on bacteria
01:59that are resistant to antibiotics.
02:03Now the One Health concept is very simply
02:06that human, animal, plant, environmental
02:08and ecosystem health are linked.
02:11And this concept provides a very useful framework
02:14for examining these complex issues
02:16such as those that I'm talking about today.
02:19And if we wanna develop effective policies
02:21to address these health threats,
02:23we must examine the root causes.
02:26And people interact with their environment every day
02:29by inhaling air, drinking water and other fluids,
02:34and eating the plants and animals that we call food.
02:38And I just wanna point out the One Health initiative website
02:40that my colleagues and I run.
02:43Now many people have tried to visualize
02:48the One Health concept,
02:50and some use intersecting circles
02:54with increasing coordination, communication, collaboration.
02:59Others have humans, animals, environments
03:02intersecting with One Health in the middle.
03:05The wildlife folks like to highlight wildlife health
03:09separate from domesticated animal health, and human health.
03:14And my colleagues in Sweden use an umbrella graphic
03:17that includes a lot of, but most importantly,
03:21zoonotic infections in one intersecting circle
03:26and comparative medicine and chronic diseases,
03:29translational medicine in the other.
03:33In this talk I'm going to focus on the zoonotic issues.
03:39Now, I visualize One Health as a multidimensional cube,
03:44a matrix, interdimensional matrix if you will.
03:48In one dimension are the One Health factors,
03:50humans, animals, plants, environments, and ecosystems.
03:55On another dimension, the complexity factors
03:58looking at providing scale, microbial,
04:01or cellular individual and population levels.
04:05And then you can have the political,
04:06social and economic factors along another dimension.
04:10And that can be represented by political borders,
04:13such as local, regional, national,
04:15or international and global.
04:17And there can be a fourth dimension
04:19which I'm not representing or trying to represent
04:22and that's the dimension of time,
04:24which can be in days, months, years, decades, or eras.
04:30Now you can squash the cube
04:33into a two dimensional framework,
04:36and then you can see the intersections
04:39between these different dimensions.
04:42And in this talk I'm going to define environments
04:45as the abiotic or the soil, water, air aspects
04:49of defined geographic areas,
04:51and ecosystems, the biotic interactions,
04:54the microbial, flora, and fauna,
04:57within defined geographic areas.
05:02So in this talk then we're to do a One Health analysis
05:05looking at different factors, One Health factors,
05:09complexity factors,
05:11and following it up with the political, social,
05:13and economic factors, just a brief, touching on that.
05:20So in other words
05:20let's do a One Health satellite perspective on these issues.
05:25Our first analysis.
05:28We have almost 8 billion humans on the planet.
05:32And according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization,
05:36we have around 30 billion terrestrial food animals.
05:41And as the famous children's book author, Taro Gomi writes,
05:45all animals eat, so everyone poops.
05:49And indeed, according to this paper
05:52published by David Berendes in Nature Sustainability,
05:56published in 2018, they estimate that humans
05:59and their domesticated food animals
06:02produce around 4 trillion kilograms
06:04of fecal matter each year,
06:07and that is increasing.
06:09And to just put it into perspective on how much that is,
06:144 trillion kilograms would fill over 1.6 million
06:18Olympic size swimming pools,
06:20or to put it another way, to bury the entire surface areas
06:24of Los Angeles and New York in six feet of feces,
06:29which is a lot of fecal matter.
06:32If you look at just human fecal matter,
06:36lot of people ares still defecating outdoors,
06:39called open defecation
06:41around 673 million, according to Statista, oops.
06:48A lot of these people are in developing countries
06:52in Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia and south America.
06:57A lot of people people don't have access
06:59to basic sanitation.
07:01And so they use open fields,
07:05which has health, environmental
07:08and human health consequences.
07:13Animals use open defecation all the time.
07:17I mean there's,
07:19sanitation systems are designed to process
07:22human fecal matter, they do not,
07:25they're not designed to process animal fecal matter.
07:31And there's very little research actually done
07:34on all the animal fecal matter.
07:36Now it's important to point out
07:37that 4 trillion kilograms of fecal matter that we produce,
07:4080% of it comes from animals.
07:44Very little study, this one study done in 2014
07:48in the Netherlands,
07:50looked at 34 countries
07:53to see if they had policies related to manure management.
07:5830 of them did, but, having legislation
08:02on what to do with all this fecal matter is one thing,
08:04but actually enforcing it is another.
08:07And most of these countries have weak enforcement
08:11on manure management.
08:15Now this is an issue that is not solely a problem
08:19for poor or developing countries, wealthy countries,
08:24such as the United States
08:25have large concentrated animal feeding operations
08:30that have hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of animals
08:34being raised in enclosed concentrated areas,
08:38and they're producing a lot of fecal matter.
08:41And indeed this one study, the latest one, 2008,
08:45the U.S. Government Accountability Office,
08:48found that there's no federal agency
08:50that consistently collects reliable data on these CAFOs,
08:55but they did find that some large operations
08:58can produce more than 1.6 million tons of manure a year.
09:06Some that can generate more raw waste
09:09than some U.S. cities produce annually.
09:12So, this is a major issue that's just not being discussed.
09:18There's a lot of pathogens in human fecal matter,
09:22I'm not going to go into the detail
09:24of all of these pathogens,
09:26but, just as there's lots of pathogens in human feces,
09:30there's lots of pathogens in animal feces,
09:34but again, very few studies examining these pathogens
09:38in animal feces, and few studies
09:41looking at their health implications
09:45on, foodborne pathogens, waterborne pathogens,
09:49or just a direct contamination of people.
09:56Nevertheless, in 2015, the World Health Organization
09:59released a report estimating
10:01the global burden of foodborne illness.
10:03They estimate that around 600 million people get sick,
10:07around 420,000 die.
10:10Children under the age of five makeup 40% of the cases.
10:14But most importantly,
10:17most of these illnesses
10:19are due to diarrhea disease agents.
10:23And most of these diarrhea disease agents
10:26are in fecal matter.
10:28Many of them in animal fecal matter.
10:34Sorry, it's problematic.
10:38Again, we focus primarily on human fecal matter
10:41and the sanitation systems that either do or don't exist,
10:45but nobody's talking about all of this animal fecal matter
10:48in the environment that's contaminating our food,
10:51our water, and the people living in those environ,
10:56making the people sick.
10:59So that now brings me to this second One Health analysis
11:04looking at plants.
11:06So the world has over 50,000 edible plants,
11:10but just three of them, rice, maize, and wheat
11:13provide 60% of the world's food energy intake.
11:17And these plants have health needs
11:20what's relevant in our discussion today
11:23are the macronutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
11:31Now in 1944, Norman Borlaug, pictured here
11:35who was a plant pathologist,
11:37worked for the Rockefeller Foundation
11:39to try to improve wheat harvest
11:42because a lot of the wheat crops
11:45were dying from disease
11:47and there were problematic growing conditions.
11:52So he developed some new wheat varieties
11:55and new crop management practices,
11:58which spread from Mexico to Asia and south America,
12:02and this was known as the Green Revolution.
12:06And the Green Revolution was tremendous
12:08in staving off famine for much of the world,
12:12and you can see in these graphs
12:14that for the same amount of land
12:16that was being used to grow the crops,
12:20the yields just took off, and it was just amazing.
12:27And you can see here
12:28the serial yield in some countries are very high.
12:34However, there were problems with the Green Revolution.
12:38Intensive farming practices that were needed
12:41for this intensive yield from the land
12:45led to soil erosion, water shortages,
12:49micronutrient deficiencies in the soil,
12:52a dependency on high nitrogen synthetic fertilizers
12:56which we'll get to more in a minute.
12:58Vulnerability to pests and a high need for pesticides.
13:03And because these crops were genetically engineered,
13:08they were labeled genetically modified organisms
13:11which could lead to political opposition.
13:16Now in 1961, 1.5 times more animal manure
13:22was used as fertilizer than synthetic fertilizer,
13:26but because of the Green Revolution now in 20,
13:30in the late, in 2019 and onwards,
13:34four times more synthetic fertilizer
13:37now is being used than manure.
13:41And if manure is not being used as fertilizer
13:45then we have to ask,
13:46well, what's being done with it?
13:47Because again, we're producing
13:504 trillion kilograms of fecal matter,
13:5280% of which is from animals.
13:55And if it's not being used as fertilizer,
13:57than what's being done with it?
14:00Now, there are some advantages to using manure
14:03as fertilizer, because it does help renew,
14:06to nourish the soil that you don't necessarily get
14:11with the high nitrogen fertilizers.
14:15And that brings me now to my third One Health analysis,
14:18looking at environments and ecosystems.
14:20And you'll see where I'm coming,
14:23it will kind of all tie together with this section.
14:29Now, climate change threatens agriculture,
14:32and agriculture worsens climate change.
14:36And in order to truly understand climate change
14:39we need to think like geologists.
14:42And we need to look at the geologic timeline
14:45of the temperature of the planet.
14:48If we look at the Paleozoic era,
14:51yes, the planet was very hot,
14:53but it's important to point out
14:55that the land was barren because it was hot,
14:59and there was thriving life in the seas.
15:03We definitely do not wanna get back to this level of heat
15:08on our planet.
15:09With time, the planet began to cool,
15:12you get to the Pliocene era,
15:14and then the Pleistocene era, which was the ice age.
15:19Now, the planet, much of the planet
15:21was covered in thick layers of ice, humans did exist.
15:27Their survival was tenuous.
15:29And then inexplicably, around 10,000 years ago,
15:34the planet began to warm.
15:37The ice age ended
15:40and you get to the beginning of the Holocene.
15:44Now, so for the past 10,000 years,
15:46and this is sorry,
15:49this is when agriculture was developed
15:52about 10,000 years ago.
15:54And the reason why it could develop
15:55was because the planet was warm enough to allow it.
15:59So, when we talk about climate change,
16:02it means change from this Holocene baseline
16:06that has allowed agriculture and civilization to exist.
16:11Now, there was a little deviation
16:13below the Holocene baseline,
16:15and that was the little ice age.
16:18We have now gone up about one degree
16:21above this Holocene baseline,
16:24and we're starting to see the effects of climate change.
16:28Now the artists from, during the little ice age
16:31documented for us what it looked like.
16:34You had a lot of frozen,
16:37the Thames froze over in Britain, and they had frost fairs.
16:42They had frozen wasteland and Flanders ice skating
16:45on the main canal in Rotterdam.
16:48But most importantly,
16:49the little ice age was noted for crop failures,
16:51bread, riots, famine, and wars.
16:54So, when food security breaks down,
16:59so does civil society and you wind up with wars.
17:04And it's a very ugly,
17:07ugly situation indeed,
17:09one that we want to avoid at all costs.
17:14Now in 2010 the World Bank did some climate modeling,
17:18estimating agricultural yields in 2050
17:21due to climate change effects.
17:24Assuming current agricultural practices and crop varieties.
17:28And they determined that much of the planet
17:30is going to become too hot and too dry to grow food.
17:34And as again, as we said,
17:36we're already starting to see the impact of this.
17:40But even with that situation, even today though,
17:45we still have a lot of food insecurity, a lot of hunger,
17:49particularly in poor developing countries
17:53like Sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, south America,
17:58but even in the United States
18:00where the color is a monolithic blue,
18:03we have a lot of food insecurity here as well.
18:06So, this is a major issue
18:09that, one that really needs to get much more attention
18:14than it's getting.
18:18Now that brings me to greenhouse gases.
18:21Because manure and synthetic fertilizer
18:24emit greenhouse gases.
18:26In fact, they're major emitters of methane
18:29and nitrous oxide.
18:31Now, if we use carbon dioxide as the baseline,
18:35methane is about 28 times more potent
18:38than carbon dioxide at trapping heat,
18:42and nitrous oxide is about 265 times
18:46more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
18:49So these are greenhouse gases that are extremely potent
18:54and should be of major concern.
18:58I just wanna point out that basically
19:01these greenhouse gases that we're burning
19:03are decomposed plants and animals,
19:05pressure, heat, and time, produce coal, petroleum, gas.
19:10So we're just burning old, dead animals and plants
19:15up into the atmosphere.
19:16And that's what the fossil fuels basically are made from.
19:22In terms of what we in the United States emit
19:26according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
19:31we emit about 17% of our greenhouse gases
19:35are methane and nitrous oxide.
19:39Of the different economic sectors,
19:42agriculture produces about 10% of the greenhouse gases.
19:48But most importantly,
19:50if you look at the sources of methane and nitrous oxide,
19:54manure management produces 9% of methane,
19:58Enteric fermentation a whopping 27%.
20:02Nitrous oxide, manure management 4%,
20:06and a whopping 78% of agricultural soil management
20:11produces nitrous oxides.
20:14So in other words, Enteric fermentation, manure,
20:19and the use of high nitrogen fertilizer,
20:22agricultural soil management,
20:24major emitters of the most potent greenhouse gases
20:28that are trapping heat.
20:31Now you might ask, "Well, what is Enteric fermentation?"
20:34Well, cattle have four chambered stomachs,
20:37one of which is called the rumen,
20:40and it acts as a fermenter of the feeds,
20:43and that produces methane.
20:45And, when this methane builds up,
20:48the cow burps and releases it.
20:51And if you've got a lot of ruminants,
20:53you've got a lot of methane.
20:56Different animals produce different levels of methane,
21:01the beef, the ruminants, beef, dairy, and Buffalo
21:06produce a lot of enteric methane.
21:09Chickens not so much.
21:11Goats are ruminants, they also produce methane
21:14as do sheep but not pigs.
21:16So, chickens are probably more environmentally friendly
21:23than your average ruminant.
21:27Let's now shift gears and move from environments
21:30to ecosystems and talk a bit about antimicrobial resistance.
21:36Remember, it threatens the practice of modern medicine.
21:41Oops.
21:42And it turns out that any microbial resistance
21:45is ancient in everywhere.
21:48For a long time to people thought that,
21:50or scientists thought that
21:52microbes used antibiotics as a form of chemical warfare
21:55against each other.
21:56But it turns out it appears that they use minute amounts
22:00as a form of communication with each other
22:02which is a very different thing.
22:04And using metagenomics,
22:07where you extract DNA or genetic material
22:10directly from the soil,
22:12they have found resistance genes everywhere in the Arctic,
22:16in the Antarctic and places that have never seen
22:19anthropogenic exposure.
22:22And so we're dealing with a much bigger issue
22:26than we originally believed.
22:29This isn't something that is just due to our practice.
22:34This is preexisting,
22:35and our massive use of antibiotics in humans,
22:39in animals, on crops,
22:42is increasing the expression of these resistance genes
22:46and the bacteria are sharing them with each other
22:49much faster than we can develop new antimicrobials.
22:52So, we are working against nature and we're going to lose.
22:58So, how are we adversely impacting the global resistome?
23:02Again, poor sanitation leading to foodborne
23:06waterborne illnesses from all the manure in our environment.
23:10Indiscriminate and antibiotic use.
23:13Untreated human and animal waste.
23:15Land and water contamination.
23:18And then the wildlife spread these resistance genes as well.
23:22All of them together conspire
23:24to worsen antimicrobial resistance.
23:29Manure, particularly animal manure
23:32also can serve as a potential hotspot
23:34for microbes to share resistance genes with each other.
23:40So again, the manure connection.
23:45So let's now quickly go to the fourth analysis,
23:48looking at this political, social and economic factors.
23:53Food security is the foundation of civilization.
23:57It means no hungry people, and it's built on three pillars.
24:01Food availability, food access,
24:04or affordability, and food use food.
24:07Food security is so important
24:09that the UN listed it as number two
24:13of its sustainable development goals
24:15in terms of zero hunger.
24:18There are political implications of food insecurity.
24:23If food becomes unavailable or too expensive,
24:26civil society breaks down and people riot.
24:30So it's in government's interest
24:33to make sure that their people have enough food to eat.
24:38Now, there are countries that eat a lot more meat
24:41than other countries, particularly the United States.
24:45We are one of the highest consumers in the world,
24:47so we are in no moral position to tell anybody else
24:51what they can or cannot eat.
24:54But, eating meat is the norm in most countries,
24:58with one exception, India,
25:01where they have the largest fraction of vegetarians
25:04in the world.
25:05But even in India, demand for animal proteins
25:09such as Buffalo milk is increasing.
25:14It is possible to change national dietary preferences
25:18but it's not easy
25:20and it requires cultural and societal change.
25:24In the U.S. more Americans are cutting back on meat.
25:28Some of the reasons are concerns about their health,
25:31or the environment.
25:33But again, this is not an easy thing to do
25:36and you can't force people
25:38to demand that they all become vegetarian
25:42because it's, you know, eating meat is ingrained
25:46in many of our societal functions and religions.
25:52It's not, again, not an easy thing to change.
25:58So now a recap on our findings.
26:02Humans and domesticated animal populations are growing
26:05and producing increasing amounts of fecal matter each year.
26:09Animals produce 80% of it,
26:11but it's generally ignored.
26:14Human and animal fecal matter contain many pathogens,
26:17but sanitation systems are designed
26:20to process human fecal matter, not animal fecal matter.
26:24So the question is what's being done
26:26with all of this animal fecal matter produced in CAFOs,
26:31and in countries around the world?
26:33There's little oversight of it.
26:35Now plants need nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to grow
26:39which is contained in manure,
26:42but synthetic fertilizer uses predominates,
26:47and of course, all of this manure
26:49and this high nitrogen fertilizer
26:52is emitting methane and nitrous oxide
26:55which are potent greenhouse gases,
26:58worsening climate change.
27:00Manures also contaminating the global resistome
27:03which worsens antimicrobial resistance.
27:07And all of these together,
27:09these findings impact food safety
27:12in the practice of medicine, and food security
27:15and the continuation of agriculture and civilization.
27:20So you might be asking, "Well, what can be done?"
27:24Well in 2016, the UN General Assembly met
27:29to deliberate on antimicrobial resistance.
27:34They agreed that this is a crisis
27:38and requires political solutions,
27:41and tasked the World Health Assembly
27:45and the World Health Organization
27:47to develop global action plan.
27:51The global action plan that they developed
27:54to serve as a model for all nations to use.
27:57One of which had objective three,
28:00to reduce the incidence of infection
28:02through effective sanitation,
28:04hygiene and infection prevention measures.
28:07But nowhere in the action plan
28:10is the issue of animal manure management,
28:14and its ecosystem impact.
28:16And that is a major oversight, and we won't make any headway
28:22until that is addressed.
28:26Now there are strategies to reduce methane
28:28and nitrous oxide in terms of manure management.
28:31You can change the way manure is stored.
28:33You can have methane digesters capturing it,
28:38converting it into renewable energy.
28:40For agricultural soil management
28:43there are strategies to use low nitrogen fertilizer,
28:46you can have drip irrigation.
28:48No till farming where you're tilling,
28:51when you till you release methane, nitrous oxide.
28:55The use of cover crops.
28:56So there are strategies in agriculture
28:59where you can reduce the nitrous oxide emissions.
29:05Unfortunately, there's been no mention
29:08of agriculture's contributions
29:11to greenhouse gas emissions.
29:12There was no mention of it in the Paris Climate Agreement.
29:16There was no mention of it in COP26 in Glasgow.
29:21There was some mention of it,
29:23there's recognition of it at COP23 in Fiji in 2017,
29:30but most of the,
29:32and they weren't really able to get very far,
29:35but most of the discussion was on climate changes impact
29:41or threat to agriculture,
29:43not so much on agriculture's contributions
29:47to climate change.
29:48So, both of them need to be discussed.
29:53In California, there was a bill that was passed in 2014
29:58to reduce methane.
30:02They allocated 12 million to support
30:04dairy methane reduction projects using dairy digesters.
30:10New York State recently passed the Climate Leadership
30:15and Community Protection Act into law in 2019.
30:19And there is a brief little mention of management practices
30:25and land use and agriculture and forestry
30:28for long term carbon sequestration,
30:30but, not so much focusing on methane
30:34and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture.
30:39The U.S. Congress,
30:40there was the Agriculture Resilience Act of 2021
30:44that was introduced with a goal to re,
30:47for a 50% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions
30:51in agriculture, but this bill has not been passed.
30:56So there are efforts.
30:59They need political support to get this done.
31:02This is a role that we can all play.
31:06And to sum up, we wanna restore our beautiful planet.
31:09One Health recognizes that life is interconnected,
31:12and the matrix analysis that we've done
31:17shows that there are microbial connections
31:20between food safety and security,
31:22antimicrobial resistance and climate change.
31:25We all need to work together
31:28to promote One Health education,
31:30research, policy development, and outreach for the public
31:35and for the policy makers to understand
31:38these connections and why we need to address them
31:41if we wanna continue agriculture
31:45and food security and civilization on the one hand,
31:49and the continuation of antimicrobials
31:53and modern medicine on the other.
31:57If you're more interested in One Health
31:59I have a Coursera course available
32:02focusing on primarily zoonotic diseases,
32:06also food safety and security.
32:09I'd like to acknowledge my colleagues
32:11in the One Health initiative.
32:13And I'd like to thank all of you
32:15for your time and attention,
32:17and am happy to take any questions.
32:20So thank you.
32:23<v ->Thank you Laura. (audience applauding)</v>
32:28For our online audiences,
32:30if you do have any questions,
32:31so please type your question in the chat box.
32:35And while you're thinking about the questions,
32:37we do have already pre-collected
32:39the questions from our students.
32:42I mean they're over excited by this topic,
32:44and, we have a couple of questions to ask.
32:49The first one is regarding the, manure management.
32:53So, the students, couple of students were wondering like,
32:56are there any other ways that we can reduce the animal waste
33:02other than, just the manure you mentioned
33:05the anti, you know,
33:08mentioned the greenhouse gas emission issue,
33:10that, (indistinct) infectious disease issue.
33:14So what are the other ways that we can do about it?
33:19<v ->Well that's a great question.</v>
33:20We need to figure out what are we going to be doing
33:23with this trillion of kilograms of animal of waste
33:27that's being produced each year.
33:29Again, sanitation systems
33:31are designed to process human waste.
33:36There's no system
33:37that I'm aware of that is designed to process animal waste.
33:42And if animal waste isn't being used as fertilizer,
33:45then it's not clear what it's being used for.
33:47And I think this is, an opportunity
33:52public private partnership to try to figure out
33:56what to do with all of this animal waste.
34:01You know, I've just, all I've seen really
34:05is the methane digester collecting the methane from it,
34:09but, it's not really been used much
34:13for anything other than fertilizer.
34:15And if it's not being used for fertilizer,
34:17then it's not really being used for anything
34:19other than contaminating the soil,
34:22the water and the atmosphere.
34:23So it's a major unaddressed problem
34:27that we as a civilization must figure out
34:31if we want to have a more sustainable future.
34:38<v ->Thanks Laura.</v>
34:39We do have another question regarding the policy.
34:44We can see obstacles or implications
34:47for this One Health framework.
34:50I think, we see that a comment from Dean (indistinct)
34:54also kind of related this issue,
34:56so I will read this question first.
34:59So we have powerful economic interest in fossil fuels.
35:03Food industry is, what political and economic strategies
35:08have been successful to pivot the western interest
35:11to consider the alliances.
35:14So,
35:16for example, progressing such elements
35:18as the use of manure as fertilizer,
35:20use of low water agriculture practices.
35:23Animal feeding,
35:25feeding including 10% seaweed to reduce methane.
35:28There are industry and now there are products,
35:31electric, electric copper (indistinct) et cetera.
35:35<v ->Well, you know I'm very interested</v>
35:38that California and New York state
35:42were able to pass some legislation.
35:46I'm not aware of other states doing this.
35:49So, I'm very interested to find out
35:53what were the political conditions
35:56that allowed these states to do this.
35:59And I'm not aware of countries doing this, you know,
36:03focusing on these is these areas.
36:07So, I think it's a right for study,
36:12to figure out how we can tip the politics
36:17to get legislation in place or to get companies in place
36:24that are, you know, that their mission
36:26is to address manure's impact on the environment
36:33or on ecosystems.
36:36There is some research done at UC Davis
36:40on using seaweed to reduce Enteric fermentation.
36:47Now seaweed has a compound in it called bromoform.
36:51And apparently bromoform
36:53if it's released into the atmosphere
36:56it has deleterious effects on ozone.
37:02So, we don't want to solve one problem by worsening another.
37:07So we have to be very careful in whatever we do
37:10to make sure that our solutions
37:15don't cause unintended consequences.
37:18But, you know I think this is all still in its infancy.
37:23<v ->Thanks Laura, yeah.</v>
37:24I think a related question from students is that,
37:27this is a fascinating idea, the framework of One Health,
37:32and you actually mentioned a lot of those things
37:34in actually considering the policy engagement.
37:38So overall, the students are interested to know that,
37:42what do you think are the largest obstacle you see
37:45to kind of engage, or implement the One Health framework
37:49into the current policies?
37:52<v ->I think, well,</v>
37:55this concept has been largely driven by veterinarians.
37:59It's been very hard to get the medical,
38:01the human community engaged.
38:04They don't necessarily see the connections
38:07or the bigger picture.
38:09In terms of the medical profession it's under siege,
38:12at least in this country.
38:14There has been more interest in One Health in Europe,
38:17in, on the continent of Africa, Asia,
38:21less so in the United States again, not sure why.
38:25I think our divided politics is certainly not helping.
38:29So, my goal is to try and get the word out,
38:33my colleagues as well, through our advocacy work,
38:38through promoting the concept.
38:40And, I'm very grateful to you
38:43to give me an opportunity to speak to your students today.
38:48<v ->Thanks Laura, we're thrilled to have you here</v>
38:50and I'm sure this is a very exciting topic
38:52that we have a very large online audience
38:54and that's the one of the evidence or proof.
38:56So, another thing that the students
39:00are quite interested in is that, you know,
39:06you have a fascinating career as a researcher, as educator.
39:11So, our audience today, the students and PhD students,
39:17so they are wondering,
39:18can you talk a little more
39:20about your personal experience?
39:23About your route in the field as a woman in the STEM field.
39:27So it's kinda very general just for the students.
39:30Yeah.
39:32<v ->Well, you know, I wish I could say</v>
39:34that I had a laser focus on this,
39:39but, I started out in nursing.
39:43My interest was always in public health,
39:46and, I worked as a nurse for a couple of years
39:49before deciding to go premed
39:52and then went back to do a Postbaccalaureate.
39:54This was long before they had Postbaccalaureate programs.
39:59But I did that and got into medical school.
40:01My interest was always in, again, public health,
40:05the big picture.
40:07I did a, internal medicine residency
40:12and then got a master's in public health
40:14and a general medicine fellowship at Columbia.
40:18And was working in government doing,
40:24first, I was doing drug safety oversight at the FDA,
40:28and then moved to the New Jersey Department of Health,
40:31where I was doing hospital quality oversight,
40:35when I decided to get a master's in public policy,
40:38and there were a variety of reasons for that.
40:41And just as I was about to start my master in public policy,
40:45this was in the fall of 2001.
40:49And, if you remember what happened in the fall of 2001,
40:53it was, turned our world upside down
40:56the terrorist attacks of 9/11,
40:59followed a month later by the anthrax crisis,
41:03and that changed the trajectory of my career.
41:06I went into bio defense.
41:10And, I took a course,
41:12prevention against weapons of mass destruction,
41:15where the focus was on nuclear issues, nuclear discernment,
41:18but I was interested in the biological aspects of it.
41:23I joined that research group,
41:26and, in the course of my policy research,
41:29reading the veterinary medical literature,
41:32it was stunning to me that there was this overlap
41:35between the agents of bioterrorism on the one hand,
41:39and emerging infectious diseases on the other,
41:43in that the vast majority of both were zoonotic,
41:46meaning that they were diseases of animals
41:48that infect people.
41:50And yet, I discovered that physicians
41:54and veterinarians rarely ever talked to each other.
41:57And in fact, in my entire medical training
41:59I never once heard the term zoonosis,
42:02that's a veterinary term, it's not a medical term.
42:06So, it was this huge issue
42:09that was just not getting addressed.
42:11And, that's what prompted me to do my research
42:15and to write up that article
42:16in the emerging infectious disease journal in 2006.
42:21And I got a huge response from the veterinarians,
42:24and I heard not, I heard crickets from the physicians,
42:27and that lack of interest has continued.
42:33Not clear if COVID 19 will change things,
42:37but I'm not so sure.
42:41<v ->Thanks Laura.</v>
42:42I think this is a fascinating story,
42:44I'm sure people, students will be inspired by your story.
42:49And, since you mentioned the COVID 19,
42:52one of the questions students have exactly,
42:56how has the One Health community responded to the COVID 19?
42:59especially, regarding the start of this pandemic
43:04has a lot to do with animals in China, treating everything.
43:08So what do you comment on that?
43:12<v ->Yeah.</v>
43:13Well, those of us in biodefense,
43:15I mean, this was a catastrophe waiting to happen
43:19for a variety of reasons.
43:21I mean, one of the,
43:22I mean, it was very clear and I'm,
43:25right now I'm researching and writing a book
43:27about One Health and the COVID 19 pandemic.
43:32So I'm using this framework
43:34to examine this pandemic from all angles.
43:38And, there's several things that have come out
43:41in my investigation.
43:44If you compare this pandemic with SARS
43:48that emerged in 2002-2003 in the Guandong province of China,
43:56and with MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome
44:00that emerged from Saudi Arabia in 2012.
44:06In both those spillover events
44:11there was very clear evidence of a natural spillover event.
44:16In the case of SARS, there was, almost an exact match
44:22of the virus in animals with the human strain.
44:29And also importantly,
44:31there was occupational evidence
44:34that the people who were working with the animals
44:37had a higher rate of antibodies,
44:41higher sero prevalence rate of antibodies
44:45to the virus compared to the general population.
44:49You saw that with SARS.
44:51Similarly with MERS, there was clear,
44:55the virus was identified,
44:58isolated from Dromedary camels.
45:02And they looked back there was serologic evidence
45:06from the camels going back decades,
45:10showing that the virus had been is circulating
45:12in these animals long before
45:14there was a spillover event into a human.
45:17And again, they did a serologic survey of large,
45:22like 10,000 people in Saudi Arabia.
45:26And again, there was occupational evidence,
45:30exposure of those who were working in the slaughter house
45:33or those who were working with the camels
45:35had a much higher sero prevalence rate of antibodies
45:41to MERS than to the general population.
45:44Now, none of those things are evident with COVID 19.
45:49There has been zero animal,
45:53there's been no animal host,
45:55intermediate host of this virus, unlike SARS and MERS.
46:00And there's no serologic evidence of occupational exposure
46:05in the animal work, in the workers in the Wuhan market.
46:13That paints a similar picture
46:16to what we saw with SARS and MERS.
46:19So, that leads us to a conundrum as to how this started,
46:25because we need to figure out how this started
46:28so we can prevent another one from happening.
46:32And, I know this is a very political issue
46:37in terms of the origin of the virus,
46:40but right now there is no evidence
46:42that it was a natural spillover event.
46:46<v ->Thanks Laura.</v>
46:48I do want to give the opportunity to, for an audience,
46:51if you have any other questions
46:54so feel free to speak up.
46:59And also for online audience,
47:01if you have any other questions,
47:03please type in the chat box.
47:09Yeah.
47:10Professor (indistinct).
47:12<v ->Yeah hi, thanks for that great talk.</v>
47:15I just wanted to raise a point
47:17that re-enforces the complexity of these issues,
47:20which is the capture of methane from manure,
47:25and using it as so-called renewable natural gas,
47:28which is what some people are calling it.
47:31And so, a lot of environmental justice people,
47:35are actually against the use of that in CAFOs.
47:40Cause they feel that it essentially entrenches the CAFOs
47:45when, CAFOs as you pointed out
47:48have a lot of problems
47:50for the surrounding communities, et cetera,
47:53where a lot of people feel they need to be fundamentally
47:56reformed as a, and that the renewable natural gas
48:00is a form of greenwashing.
48:03So I don't know if you've heard that argument,
48:04but I just wanted to put that out there
48:06and see how you respond.
48:08<v ->Yeah, thank you for that comment.</v>
48:10Well, yes, I know a lot of people
48:13in the environmental community
48:14are against doing anything with the CAFOs
48:16'cause they feel they should all be going out of business.
48:20I think given that eating meat is the norm
48:24in most countries,
48:27I think expecting people to become vegetarian
48:30or vegan is unrealistic.
48:33I did not include my slide
48:35on the pros and cons to eating meat.
48:38There are pros of course, and there are cons.
48:42And some have argued that we evolved into modern humans
48:45because we hunted cooked and ate meat.
48:49You know, again, that's debatable,
48:51but, nevertheless, that it is deeply ingrained
48:56in our cultures and our religions,
48:59and I think we need to be realistic
49:03in what we're dealing with.
49:05So, we need to try and make civilization
49:08as sustainable as possible,
49:11and figure out ways to curtail the negative externalities
49:16of these industries,
49:19recognizing that, it would be ideal
49:22if everyone became vegetarian,
49:24but again, I think that's,
49:25I mean, we're divided politically as it is,
49:29demanding that people change
49:32their deeply ingrained eating behavior, not easy to do.
49:37I mean, it's hard to do, as a practicing physician,
49:41to tell somebody to cut back on meat,
49:44telling an entire culture or an entire society,
49:48it's just not realistic in my book.
49:54<v ->Thanks Laura.</v>
49:55I think, are kind of related to question
49:58to your last point, is the students also recognize that
50:01it's (indistinct) to just shut down the meat consumption.
50:05So the students, they have an interesting question for you
50:08is that, do you think like to what extent
50:11do the more, so called, the affluent countries
50:14that have lot of power resources
50:16need to subsidize better sanitation systems in places
50:22for, with low middle income countries
50:24that they are lacking the resources.
50:28So do you think this, yeah.
50:29<v ->Well.</v>
50:30Yeah, I mean, we have a responsibility.
50:35I mean, since we've been such major energy users
50:38and meat consumers in this country,
50:41I think we have an obligation to other countries
50:44to try to ensure their survival.
50:49There's much more that we can be doing,
50:51and I think those are important topics for, worthy of study
50:56and you know, and other courses.
50:59So, again, there's much that can be done that we must do.
51:06<v ->Thanks Laura.</v>
51:08Any other follow on questions?
51:14So thank you,
51:15thank you Dr. Kahn for a wonderful talk,
51:17and thanks for everyone for joining us online
51:20and also in person.
51:21<v ->Well, thank you so much for having me,</v>
51:23it was a pleasure to be with all of you.
51:25<v ->Thank you so much.</v>
51:26Just a reminder,
51:27our recording will be online on central website,
51:30so thanks again Dr. Kahn.
51:32(audience applauding)