Legal Preparedness

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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) moves seamlessly across human health, animal health, agriculture, and the environment. Our policies and legal frameworks, however, often don’t.

“Legal Preparedness: Why One Health and the Fight Against AMR in the U.S. Takes More Than Science,” explores why durable progress on AMR requires more than technical guidance or innovation. It requires governance systems underpinned by strong legal and policy foundations that are designed to work together across sectors and levels of government before crises emerge. The piece unpacks:

• Why policy without legal authority often stalls
• Why laws that ignore operational realities go unused
• How legal preparedness bridges the gap between One Health theory and practice in the U.S.

Science tells us what needs to be done to address AMR. 

Legal Preparedness determines whether it can actually be done and sustained.

Published: February 2026