Do animals hold the key to your health? | Aysha Akhtar | TEDxFoggyBottom

Aysha Akhtar, author of the book, Animals and Public Health, demonstrates the mutual benefit to both humans and animals when animals are protected. Aysha Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H., is a neurologist and public health specialist and is on a mission! She is demonstrating how there is a mutual benefit to both humans and animals when animals are protected. She is the author of the book, Animals and Public Health. Why treating animals better is critical to human welfare, which examines how the treatment of animals impacts human health. The book reveals how many of our most urgent and pressing public health threats are connected with the poor treatment of animals. In other words, as her book shows, treating animals better is not only good for animals, but also good for us. Dr. Akhtar is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, works for the Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and serves as LCDR in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. She is a regular blogger for the Huffington Post. You can read her blogs on how animal protection benefits humans here. Disclaimer: Dr. Akhtar is speaking at TEDxFoggyBottom on her individual capacity. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)