About the Book
This collection of reflective, critical, philosophical, and practical chapters represents the author’s 60 years as a veterinarian, ethologist, and bioethicist. The rising incidence of zoonotic diseases from farmed animals and wildlife in the expanding human population and so-called reverse zoonoses where humans are infecting other species are existential concerns. These concerns are linked with anthropogenic climate change and our impact on ecosystems which threaten biodiversity and the health and future of Homo sapiens and many other species.
These interconnected issues are examined in this book, broadening the scope and agenda of what is currently more narrowly practiced as preventive medicine. The author calls for greater emphasis on holistic preventive health-care maintenance in response to the escalating costs of human and companion animal health problems, the welfare of factory farmed animals, and endangered status of many wild species.
Our species now faces a complex existential crisis that must be addressed in an interdisciplinary way, because there are multiple contributing factors; factors that call for the insights of science and bioethics. Fearlessly tackling contentious issues and 'wicked problems,' Dr Michael W. Fox offers an integrated perspective of what One Health looks like on the ground.
Table of Contents:
1. Recognizing Sentience to Better Protect Living Beings 2. Determining Animals’ Quality of Life: Criteria and Assessment 3. The Importance of Natural Biodiversity for Health and Well-Being 4. A Beef About Beef: Reforms Long Overdue? 5. Wolves and Human Well-Being: Ecological and Public Health Connections 6. One Health: Incorporating Animal Rights and Conservation 7. Changing Our Diets for Our Health and Earth’s Sakes 8. Preventing Pandemics Like COVID-19 and Other Zoonoses 9. Veterinary Bioethics and Planetary Health 10. The Challenges and Future of the Veterinary Profession 11. The Veterinary and Allied Professions: Leading the Way to One Health 12. Humane and Environmental Education: No Child Uninformed 13. Postscript: For all our Relations: A Brief Autobiography
About the Author :
The author, born in England and now living in Golden Valley, Minnesota, UAS, is a graduate of the Royal Veterinary College, London, with a Ph. D degree in medicine and a Doctor of Science degree in ethology/animal behavior from the University of London, England. He is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons ,the British Veterinary Association, an Honor Roll Member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, a long-term member of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association and founding member of the International Association for Applied Animal Ethology. He helped make animal behavior and animal welfare science part of the veterinary teaching curriculum around the world, and more generally awakening public sensibility through his internationally syndicated newspaper column Animal Doctor both in the U.S. and in many other countries. He has authored over 40 books, including award-winning children’s fiction. His website is www.drfoxonehealth.com.
Review :
"In this new, distinctive book, Michael Fox is covering One Health in an entirely comprehensive, easy-to-understand form. He is one of the most, if not the most, qualified person in the world to author a book on this collection of topics. One Health, an integrated, environmentally sound method for preserving health, is transforming the way the world is approaching healthcare on all levels and for all living species: humans, animals, plants and beyond. I am thrilled, as I know readers will be very pleased, that the author has made this major effort to write this tome, possibly his last. His writing style is outstanding and his topics riveting, making it difficult to put down! I believe this book will become a gamechanger to better understand how healthcare needs to evolve to assure a healthy planet for future generations."
Craig Carter, Professor & Director Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine, Departments of Veterinary Science and College of Public Health, USA
"Dr. Michael Fox clearly and succinctly lays out the solution to the most critical problems facing humanity, the planet, and the animals with whom we share it. At a time when reasons for optimism are rapidly disappearing, this empowering book restores the possibility of change."
Neal D. Barnard, MD, FACC, Adjunct Professor, George Washington University School of Medicine
President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, DC
"As the name of this book suggests, our goal must become one health: human health, the health of other animals, and the health of the ecosystems that sustain life. Who better to share a vision of achieving one health than Dr. Michael Fox whose many decades as a veterinarian, scientist, author, and newspaper columnist give him unique insights into the connections we must consider in addressing the challenges we face and the ethics we must adopt in the process. In this collection, you'll discover ways to make better individual choices while transforming systems so that they are more humane and sustainable for all life."
Zoe Weil, President of the Institute for Humane Education and author of The Solutionary Way with a foreword by Jane Goodall
“Of all the emergent paradigms, the one health concept is inarguably among the most important, so it is vital that one our most forward thinking and revered scientists, Dr Michael Fox, has produced this timely and stimulating volume. In his book, Dr Fox sets out - as few or no other could - to integrate a vast panoply of evolutionary, medical, veterinary, anthropogenic, and many other factors. In do so, he engagingly explains the nature, ecology, and process integral to the one health issue. It follows, then, that this is a book for all people from any – literally any – field of interest.
Few can be left in doubt that health and disease are not simply about the battle between pathogens, immunity, and fitness, but also about the rights and wrongs of people and society, and how we address the planet on which we, and so many others, live. On many fronts, humans do not emerge well from this book, not least due to their persistent disrespect for the very home world that supports them, and our unmatched brutality to other lifeforms. Dr Fox does not shy away from any issues, including consciousness and enlightenment, because they manifestly reside as true pillars of any progress if people are to heal their ways and the wider environment. Benevolent consciousness is a big ask of humans, but if any book can offer a rational guide towards such enlightenment, then surely it can be found within these pages.”
Clifford Warwick, PGDip (MedSci), PhD, CBiol, CSci, EurProBiol, FRSB, Biologist & Medical Scientist, UK
“Dr Michael Fox’s new book One Health: Veterinary, Ethical, and Environmental Perspectives exposes and explores the loss of biodiversity on our planet and why we seriously need to take our earth and its species in a new direction. The data and facts he presents are overwhelming, but presented in a way that shows the urgency of what we need to do to be better stewards of one health and one earth. Climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, loss of microbial and animal species and electromagnetic field, toxins, and pesticides, as well as the overpopulation of humans taking over land, once part of natural habitat, is radically changing our earth. As Chief Seattle advised “Whatever falls the Earth, then falls the son to the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” Zoonosis and reverse zoonosis may be the pandemics of the future. Animal agriculture has been damaging our earth in such a serious way, and Michael Fox provides the data and statistics that should make this piece of everyday life front and center in our thoughts. Bioethics should direct veterinary medicine to do the best for the animal and somehow balance the financial, corporate and pet owners’ pressures. As a predominantly plant-based, holistic human, reflected in how I feed and treat my animals, this book makes so much sense. We need to bring it to everybody!”
Margo Roman, DVM, CVA, COT, CPT, MASH Main St Animal Services of Hopkinton, USA
