Analysis: AMA, vets team to battle disease

CHICAGO, June 26 (UPI) -- Leaders of the American Medical Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association have pledged new cooperation in the war on animal-borne diseases that ultimately affect humans.

In a show of mutual support, Ron Davis, president-elect of the AMA of East Lansing, Mich., and Roger Mahr, president of the AVMA, heartily endorsed a resolution at the AMA House of Delegates under which both organizations would work together in cases involving diseases such as rabies, West Nile virus and avian influenza.

While the AMA has been somewhat reluctant in the past to forge cooperation with non-physician organizations, it has become increasingly apparent that diseases that show up in animals are often an important harbinger of a human outbreak soon to follow.

Laura Kahn, an internal medicine specialist and a researcher at the program on science and global security at Princeton University in New Jersey, noted how a synergy between medical and veterinary experts has served as an early-warning system for disease outbreaks in the past.

For example, medical, veterinary and wildlife disease experts coordinated operations during the West Nile virus outbreak; Ebola outbreaks in animals typically preface human outbreaks; sick cats were a warning about high mercury content in fish; and lead poisoning in dogs alerted doctors to dangers in lead paint to children.

"We are at a crossroads in history," Laura Kahn, one of the supporters of the resolution, told United Press International. "The threats we face in the 21st century require we work together to control and prevent the diseases that have the potential to devastate human and animal life."

In testimony before a special science and technology committee, the resolution drew praise from a wide range of medical specialties.

"The convergence of animal, human and ecosystem health clearly dictates that the 'one world, one health, one medicine' concept must be embraced. As veterinarians, collaborating and cooperating with our colleagues in human medicine, public health and environmental science is imperative," Mahr said.

The resolution, offered jointly by several medical groups, laments previous limited relationships between doctors and veterinarians and suggests that, by working more closely, including in medical education courses:

-- Prevention of cross-species disease transmission, and assessment and treatment of such diseases could be improved.

-- Joint efforts in the development and evaluation of new diagnostic methods, medicines and vaccines for the prevention and control of diseases across species could be enhanced.

Abigail Shefer, associate director for Science in the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, added government backing for the agreements. "We support the cooperation between human and animal medical science." Veterinarians are needed to diagnose, treat and track animal-to-human diseases, she said.

"It's hard to understand why this type of relationship hasn't occurred before this," said Raymond Dieter Jr. of Glen Ellyn, Ill., a delegate for the International College of Surgeons. "We have a lot to learn from the veterinarians."

The resolution was approved Monday without dissent by the entire AMA House of Delegates, the 555-person legislative body that guides the 238,977-member organization of doctors.