ABSTRACT

There is growing evidence of the interconnectivity between animals, humans, and the environment, which has manifested in the One Health perspective that takes all three into account for a more comprehensive vision of health. Over the past century, agriculture has become increasingly industrialized with a particular rise in the amount of livestock raised and meat produced. In order to fulfill such market demands, livestock farmers and agricultural corporations have artificially selected for and bred their cash animals to be more and more metabolically efficient via genetic and human-driven means. However, by selecting for more metabolically efficient animals, we may have inadvertently been selecting for obesogenic gut microbiota. This is further compounded by the potential obesogenic and microbiome-altering role antibiotics play in livestock. Evidence suggests that there is the potential for interspecies gut microbe transmissibility. It is notable that there has been a concurrent multispecies obesity epidemic across the same timeframe, which raises questions about potential connections between these epidemics. If it is the case that humans have inadvertently influenced their own obesity epidemic via the artificial selection of and antibiotic administration to livestock, then this holds significant ethical implications. This analysis considers current meat consumption trends, the impacts of livestock on climate change, and animal ethics. The paper concludes that due to the potential significant impact yet tenuous nature of the evidence on this subject stemming from research silos, there is a definitive ethical impetus for researchers to bridge these silos to better understand the true nature of the issue. This case is emblematic of an overarching ethics-driven need for deeper collaboration between isolated but related research disciplines to better characterize issues of public health relevance. It also raises concerns regarding inherent value-driven strife that may arise between competing One Health domains.

摘要

越来越多的证据表明动物，人与环境之间的相互联系，这一点在“一个健康”的观点中得到了体现，该观点将这三个方面都纳入了对健康的更全面了解。在过去的一个世纪中，农业已变得越来越工业化，牲畜和肉类的产量特别增加。为了满足这样的市场需求，牲畜养殖者和农业公司通过遗传和人工驱动手段人工选择并繁育了他们的现金动物，使其代谢效率越来越高。但是，通过选择代谢效率更高的动物，我们可能会无意中选择了致肥胖的肠道菌群。抗生素在牲畜中发挥潜在的致肥胖作用和改变微生物组的作用进一步加剧了这种情况。有证据表明，种间肠道微生物具有潜在的传播能力。值得注意的是，在同一时间段内并存的多物种肥胖病流行，这引发了人们对这些流行病之间潜在联系的质疑。如果情况是人类通过对牲畜的人工选择和抗生素管理而无意中影响了自己的肥胖病流行，那么这将具有重大的伦理意义。该分析考虑了当前的肉类消费趋势，牲畜对气候变化的影响以及动物伦理。该论文的结论是，由于研究孤岛，该问题的潜在重大影响和微不足道的性质，研究人员有一定的道德动力来弥合这些孤岛，以更好地了解问题的真实本质。该案例象征着以道德为主导的总体需求，即需要在孤立但相关的研究学科之间进行更深层次的合作，以更好地描述与公共卫生相关的问题。这也引发了人们对相互竞争的“一站式”服务域之间可能发生的内在价值驱动冲突的担忧。