Look past the fur, hooves and lack of opposable thumbs and one can see the health of animals is closely linked to that of humans, especially when considering the threat of bioterrorism.

To counter that threat, veterinarian and U.S. Air Force Col. Donald Noah said in a speech Monday night that animal and human practitioners need to band together under the motto of “One Medicine” – the perspective that both branches of medicine must cooperate to respond to health risks across species barriers and protect the population.

“[One Medicine is] the recognition that humans and animals – and to a certain extent plants – share genetic material and physiologies that will allow us to respond in a unified way to insults upon those biological entities,” Noah said. “‘One Medicine’ recognizes that we are far more similar than we are dissimilar in the diseases that affect us and the preventions against them.”

Noah, deputy command surgeon at the United States Southern Command in Miami, said that while a conventional attack on the United States would be difficult to pull off, not everyone thinks about how vulnerable the country’s agricultural industries may be, and how damaging such an attack could become.

“We are an agrarian nation; that is the absolute strength of America,” Noah said. “Why do we forget that as Americans? Because we can – we have the luxury of taking our food and food safety for granted.”

Practicing veterinarians must engage human doctors in their communities to prepare for public health threats as well as take an active role in applying epidemiology and keeping tabs on public health, Noah said.

In regard to the academic world, he said veterinary researchers must ensure that future vets understand the principles of public health and risk communication as well as foreign animal and zoonotic diseases – diseases spread between animals and humans.

“We’re poised to take on some of these roles,” Noah said. “We just haven’t done it yet.”

Noah said the key to adapting veterinary medical education for these new needs is to promote flexibility across a wide range of ideas, and encourage students to become more generalized.

“The answer is not throw in a whole lot of new courses,” Noah said.

The crowd of about 60 people in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union consisted of primarily veterinary medicine students.

“I thought it was very interesting,” said Stephen Poduska, sophomore in veterinary medicine. “People don’t realize that veterinarians play a big part in the bioterrorism aspect of national defense.”

Kristin Scopel, sophomore in veterinary medicine and vice president of vet med professional society Omega Tau Sigma, thought Noah brought up important points about the crucial need for cooperation between the branches of medicine.

“I think he did a good job with tying everything together and giving examples of how one field feeds off the other, how they can help each other out and how its good that different branches come together,” Scopel said.