Post

I think One Health is creating a lot of problems that it was initially claiming to solve, and I'd like to suggest the template of how this happens, because if this keeps going, we'll have (1) more disconnect between One Health and the real world and (2) less policy action.

1. There is a complex problems with root causes that are shared between fields and/or governance and policy-making bodies. In 2026 this is most problems that involve the environment. 2. There is policy action, although fragmented, and research efforts, although fragmented, on this problem.

3. One Health practitioners claim this problem as their own, and make two possibly counterproductive assumptions: - that this problem is now solvable only through a OH lens - that the OH intervention of this problem is the most/only effective one 4. People buy it (this is where it all breaks down)

5. As this problem is now officially a One Health problem, any group for which OH is not a core part of their mandate feels less inclined to work on it. This has become no one's responsibility. 6. OH groups complain about low policy will to act on this topic.

7. OH discussions re-coalesce around endless governance talk, and silos, and woe-is-us narratives. The problem goes unsolved, or concrete actions that are not explicitly advancing a OH agenda are discounted as not effective, not integrative. 9. Repeat.

These are not fighting words. I do One Health professionally both in academic research and scientific diplomacy contexts. But we need to be an order of magnitude better, and this means being an order of magnitude humbler. The purpose of OH is not hegemony in all environment-adjacent policy making.