One Health Seminar Series - 2009
MARCH 29, 2010
Carol Glaser DVM MPVM MD
Associate Clinical Professor UCSF Department of Pediatrics
'Human Health and Animal Health: Joining Disciplines'
Dr. Glaser became interested in public health during her veterinary education so she completed an MPVM after finishing her DVM. After her MPVM, she completed a Parasitology internship at the CDC and an MD at Tulane. Armed with both DVM and MD degrees, she finished a pediatric residency at UCSF Medical School and now works both as a clinical professor at UCSF and at the California Department of Public Health.
Dr. Glaser presented 5 case vignettes that highlight the need for a one-health approach:
Case 1 - An eight year old female patient with a rash, headache, and fever. If diagnosed correctly as Rat Bite Fever, it is very treatable. However, if a physician is unable to recognize it, it can be fatal.
Case 2 - A fourteen year old male patient who lived in a rural area had encephalopathy despite normal neural imaging. He was found to have bartonellosis.
Case 3 - A seventeen year old female patient described as "rabid" and "out of her mind." The physicians initially thought she got rabies after exposure to rats when cleaning a barn. However, rats are not generally sources of rabies and this mis-diagnosis prevented them from seeing the real cause of her disease sooner, an ovarian teratoma that produced antibodies to her brain cells.
Case 4 - A fifty-three year old female died in the ER one week after being bitten by a feral cat. She had contracted pasturella from the cat's saliva entering the bite wound.
Case 5 - A one month old infant with severe hydrocephalus was confirmed to be due to toxoplasmosis acquired from the mother during pregnancy.
Human medicine clinicians need to keep an open mind about unusual diseases, be aware of the limitations of standard laboratory diagnostics, and seek help from specialists or veterinarians when presented with cases that may be due to a zoonotic disease.
NOVEMBER 2, 2009
Jonna Mazet DVM MPVM PHD
UC Davis Professor and Director of Wildlife Health Center
'Research at the Human-Animal-Environment Interface'
Increasing interaction between animals and humans has led to an increased flow of pathogens between them and because of this flow, these inter-species pathogens result in zoonotic diseases. The Wildlife Health Center was founded in the early 1990s in order to help address such issues concerning not only animals but also humans. Just as human health interacts with animal health, both interact with the environment. As an epidemiologist, Dr. Mazet looks at the whole ecosystem in addition to the population of humans and animals within it. Since much of California is coastal, it is important to evaluate the health of the marine ecosystem and how its health interacts with us. Sea otters are an important monitor of the health of the marine ecosystem because they are at the top of the food chain. If something we do on shore impacts the marine environment, we should see this in changes in the sea otter population. Likewise, if something else in the environment threatens the sea otter population, it may also threaten us. An example of this is the recent discovery of Toxoplasma in sea otters, an organism that not only causes major problems for the sea otters but also for the people living along the coast. Upon investigation, it was found that Toxoplasma is getting entering the ocean via land water run-offs due to contamination of water by cats and wildlife shedding the organism in their feces. By deducing the cause of the problem in sea otters, we also learned the cause of the same problem seen in humans and can now work on remedying the situation.
NOVEMBER 18, 2009
Dave Jessup DVM MPVM DIPL. ACZM
Senior Wildlife Veterinarian California Department Fish & Game
'The Biggest Patient in the World: How We Diagnose and Treat Sick Ecosystems'
Dr. Jessup believes it is necessary to not only look at individual animals, but to also evaluate whole species and the overall health of an ecosystem. An example of this ecosystem approach is the Moss Landing mystery spill that occurred here in California. It began with a bird beaching event - hundreds of birds were found that had lost the ability to waterproof their feathers. The apparent cause of this loss of waterproofing was a strange yellow-green material found on their ventral feathers. Investigation of the area found a prominent scum line in the water which had attracted the birds. This scum was analyzed and determined to not be any kind of oil or commercial surfactant but was instead a microsporine protein released by a harmful Akashiwo sanguine algal bloom. Nutrients coming into the Monterey Bay from rivers circulate up the coast to Santa Cruz. In normal years, upwelling of cold water in the fall displaces the nutrient-rich warm water. This did not happen the year of the Moss Landing spill, however, and the resulting environmental conditions enabled the harmful algal bloom to develop. By understanding an ecosystem and the interconnection of all of its individual parts, veterinarians can anticipate, predict, and better diagnose similar situations that impact wildlife populations in order to appropriately intervene and medically manage the situation.
JANUARY 11, 2010
Barbara Natterson MD
Cardiology Professor UCLA
Featured in JAVMA: "One Health Wonders" October 2008
'The Multispecies Approach to Medicine'
After several tamarins at the LA Zoo died of heart failure, Dr. Natterson Horowitz was asked to help screen remaining animals with echocardiograms in order to identify at-risk individuals so they could be started on appropriate medications to arrest the progression of heart failure. Upon examination of imaging results and post-mortem specimens, it was discovered that the capture myopathy of the tamarins was similar to the takotsubo cardiomyopathy of humans, a fear-induced heart failure. Since that time, Dr. Natterson Horowitz and her colleagues, both physicians and veterinarians, have discovered other "One Health" overlaps in clinical cardiology. One such correlation between humans and animals can be found in psychological and behavioral areas such as schizophrenia and emotional cutting issues. We can learn from not only the similarities but the differences, as well. For example, giraffes have a combination of high blood pressure (300/200) and ventricular hypertrophy that would render humans "cardiac cripples" but appear to function just fine. Studying giraffe physiology can help guide human medicine research. Improving communication between human and animal medicine will help the two disciplines learn from one another. It would benefit all of us to break down the communication barriers, and study diseases as a team.
JANUARY 22, 2010
Daniel Martineau DVM DIPL. ACVP
Professor of Pathology University of Montreal
'Effects of human pollution on beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River'
Over the course of sixteen years, Dr. Martineau determined the cause of death of 129 St. Lawrence river beluga whales. He found that the leading cause of death was cancer with 27% of the adults affected. This population of beluga whales suffer from the highest rate of cancer of any wild mammal species and this rate is comparable to that of human adults in the United States (25%). A different population of the same species was found to not suffer from cancer at all, which raises the question of what is causing such high rates of cancer in the St. Lawrence River beluga whales. The likely culprit is industrial pollution from the Great Lakes watershed drainage. Chemicals found to contaminate the river include PAH, a carcinogen, as well as PCB and DDT, which are known to be toxic to both humans and animals. The whales acquire these toxins through their bottom-feeding habits, accumulating the toxins in their tissues throughout their lives. Cancer is not the only outcome of their exposure to toxins - the toxins increase their susceptibility to disease by weakening their immune systems and compromise their reproductive ability. Cancer and other health degradations due to toxic chemicals is seen not only in the beluga whales but also the humans living along the St. Lawrence River. People in the region have a higher rate of cancer than people living in other areas of Canada. Government agencies, wildlife advocates, and the public worked to reduce toxic contamination of the river and improve conservation efforts for the beluga whales, an effort that will benefit not only the whales but the humans since humans and animals all share the same environment.
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Mary Croughan PHD EPIDEMIOLOGY
Chair UC Academic Senate, UCSF professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology
'The Role of the MPVM and Epidemiology in One Health'
In 1966, Dr. Calvin Schwabe established the Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, the first of its kind in the world at a veterinary school. The author of more than 200 publications, he promoted the concept of "One Medicine," which attempts to bring the fields of human and animal health care together. This idea of his eventually became the Calvin Schwabe One Health Project that hosts this lecture series in support of the Project's commitment to work towards better health for humans, animals, and their environment. One of the first MPVM students who studied under Dr. Schwabe, Dr. Croughan discussed her career as an example of the many avenues available to students in the pursuit of a one health approach to human, animal, and environmental health. Over the years she has looked at issues such as Sudden Infant Death syndrome and how causes of death have changed over time.
APRIL 12, 2010
Alonso Aguirre DVM MS PHD
Vice President Conservation Medicine Program Wildlife Trust
Author of the book: Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice
'Challenges in Conservation Medicine'
Dr. Aguirre stressed the importance of studying and preserving biodiversity, preventing epidemics, and engaging local communities in research and conservation efforts that impact the environment they live in. In recent years, the human population has increased rapidly and dramatically, resulting in ecosystem damage and the extinction of animal species. For example, in our efforts to feed ourselves, we are systematically depleting fish populations. Our modern technology has lead to increased movement of pathogens, build-up of toxic chemicals, and climate change. Climate changes as well as increased human mobility are contributing to the emergence of diseases such as avian influenza that have impacts not only on health but economics. In order to effectively work towards preventing and resolving issues such as this, we need to start looking at conservation medicine from a global perspective.
MAY 10, 2010
UC DAVIS PEER PRESENTATION: ONE HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
Charles Rupprecht VMD PhD
Chief of CDC Rabies Branch
'Rabies Prevention and Conrol'
Rabies manifests as an acute progressive encephalomyelitis caused by lyssaviruses. Viruses are maintained in hosts through point mutations and genetic drift and there are many variations of virus that result in clinical disease. Racoons are the largest reservoirs of the virus for the half of the country east of the Mississippi River but in California, skunks are of most concern. Bats also serve as rabies reservoirs. The CDC and other agencies are working not only on prevention and control but also elimination of the disease. Research has shown that it is possible to completely eradicate rabies from dogs. Veterinary public health and the use of herd immunity models for domestic and wild animals continue to be prominent in the efforts for control of rabies in humans and animals.
MAY 17, 2010
UC DAVIS PEER PRESENTATION: ONE HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
Brant Schumaker DVM MPVM PhD candidate
Dr. Schumaker entered veterinary school with a strict small animal medicine emphasis because he thought it was the only way to build a career and make a living. During school he began to pursue wildlife medicine and is currently studying how diseases move between populations, particularly brucellosis which has a zoonotic potential for passing to humans through milk.
MAY 17, 2010
UC DAVIS PEER PRESENTATION: ONE HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
Liz Van Wormer DVM MPVM PhD candidate
Dr. Wormer also thought that small animal medicine was the only way to make a living. After participating in the Envirovet program, she saw that there are many careers in wildlife medicine and is currently studying the connection between marine and terrestrial disease for organisms such as Toxoplasma gondii.
MAY 17, 2010
UC DAVIS PEER PRESENTATION: ONE HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
Terra Kelley DVM PhD candidate
Dr. Kelley had studied conservation biology and natural resource management prior to veterinary school and has looked into several issues such as the effects of oil on wildlife species, avian influenza, and lead poisoning of avian species from ingestion of ammunition used by hunters in California.
