Alternative Paradigms in Animal Health Decisions: A Framework for Treating Animals Not Only as Commodities

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Since zoonotic diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans, more comprehensive measures are needed when preventing and controlling these diseases. Because the value of animals is mainly based on monetary terms, animals are typically treated as commodities, impacting public health decisions. Therefore, a framework is proposed to value the health of animals beyond money for public health decision-making with a “One Health” approach. The aim is to have more comprehensive animal values based on the opinion of societies. However, tackling the dilemmas related to animal diseases, public health, and welfare still represents a challenge and a work in progress. ABSTRACT: Zoonoses are diseases transmitted from (vertebrate) animals to humans in the environment. The control and prevention of these diseases require an appropriate way to measure health value for prudent and well-balanced decisions in public health, production costs, and market values. Currently, the impact of diseases and animal disease control measures are typically assessed in monetary values, thus lacking consideration of other values such as emotional, societal, ecological, among others. Therefore, a framework is proposed that aims to explore, understand, and open up a conversation about the non-monetary value of animals through environmental and normative ethics. This method might help us complement the existing metrics in health, which are currently DALY and zDALY, adding more comprehensive values for animal and human health to the “One Health” approach. As an example of this framework application, participants can choose what they are willing to give in exchange for curing an animal in hypothetical scenarios selecting a human health condition to suffer, the amount of money, and lifetime as a tradeoff. Considering animals beyond their monetary value in public health decisions might contribute to a more rigorous assessment of the burden of zoonotic diseases, among other health decisions. This study is structured as follows: after a brief introduction of zoonoses, animal health, and health metrics, briefly, different environmental health perspectives are presented. Based on this, a framework for animal health decisions is proposed. This framework introduces the “anthropozoocentric interface” based on anthropocentrism and zoocentrism perspectives.