In Memory of Rick Speare

When Rick Speare died in a car accident on 5th June 2016 while heading to Cairns to teach parasitology, the world lost a phenomenal force for good. Both Rick and his wife Kerry Kelly have inspired many with their compassion, not just for the world at large but for all the immediate people and animals around them. Rick made brilliant contributions to research on wildlife and public health. With his combination of idealism, originality, positivity and pragmatism, he undertook extraordinary efforts to ensure that his research findings made a difference. He had a huge impact on conservation and human health, but he also changed the lives of many people he mentored by believing in their potential and giving them a chance to succeed.

Rick was awarded his Bachelor of Veterinary Science (1st class honours) in November 1970 and his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (1st class honours) in November 1975, both degrees from the University of Queensland. During the period of his medical course, he also ran a part-time veterinary practice in Brisbane, Western Australia and Papua New Guinea. In 1976, he became the Resident Medical Officer at Townsville General Hospital, and subsequently in 1977, he became Medical Registrar at the same hospital and Resident Medical Officer at Alice Springs Hospital. Rick commenced his Ph.D studies at James Cook University in 1981 under the supervision of Bruce Copeman while maintaining his hand in both veterinary and human clinical medicine. His Ph.D was on the taxonomy of Strongyloides; as an example of his in-depth approach to study, he discovered as an aside that the priority name was Strongiloides, although the latter name had not been in use for over 70 years. He decided not to disrupt nomenclature stability but still consulted the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, who concurred with his view but very much appreciated his interest. Rick had a long involvement in wildlife health, although due to the lack of funding opportunities in this field in Australia until recently, much of the early work was done in his spare time: this included pioneering work on raising orphan kangaroo joeys and parasite discoveries based on dissection of road kills. In those days his house was lined with artificial pouches for orphaned joeys, and his home freezer was full of carcasses.

In 1980, his wife Kerry undertook a diploma in Tropical Medicine in London, and although Rick was charged with family duties, he managed to spend time in a private veterinary practice and in the Parasitic Worms Section of The Natural History Museum, London, leaving behind such significant mementos as a stuffed koala with a hat of dangling corks which, when wound up, sings Waltzing Matilda—to this day a prized component of their ‘colonial’ collection. Later that year they travelled to Paris with young son Luke and Kerry nearly 8 months pregnant with their daughter Sally. Here he joined an Aussie colleague on sabbatical at the Laboratoire de Vers, Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle to write several papers on a remarkable nematode in kangaroos and wallabies.

In 1987 Kerry obtained a medical position in Lilongwe, Malawi. Rick and Luke followed the rest of the family after Rick was finally forced to finish his PhD studies. He once remarked that he could not understand why anyone would want to finish. He found a position as Medical Officer at Kamuzu Central Hospital as a medical pathologist, spending most of his time conducting post mortems on AIDS patients.

He returned to Townsville in 1988 as a Research Fellow in the Department of Tropical Veterinary Science at James Cook University and started studying diseases of amphibians, initially looking for a biological control agent for cane toads. During a social outing near Townsville, he collected some sick frogs, leading to the isolation and subsequent work on ranaviruses in amphibians. However, although these viruses killed cane toads, they also killed the native frogs and were therefore not ideal biological control agents.

In January 1991 Rick transferred from Veterinary Science to become Associate Professor and Director of the Anton Breinl Centre for Tropical Health and Medicine based in the original building at Townsville General Hospital. He was a fitting successor to Dr Anton Breinl, especially when you entered the main door and saw the glass case containing Breinl’s scientific equipment—his microscope and his shotgun. Breinl was a medical graduate with a major interest in diseases transmitted from wildlife to humans. Rick continued to be the consultant veterinarian for the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service and wildlife carers in Townsville on weekends and after hours.

Rick’s very broad expertise allowed him to quickly solve problems by integrating disparate evidence across disciplines, while specialists around him struggled. One of the most urgent biological mysteries in the 1980s and 1990’s was why frogs around the world were disappearing. In 1993, Rick was asked to assist the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service with investigations into frog decline, and he became involved in his spare time while working in public health. Rick led the Australian research team which discovered that chytridiomycosis was the cause of this worldwide amphibian decline and extinction. He provided insight using his epidemiological knowledge to show that the patterns of the sudden declines in Queensland were consistent with a spreading infectious disease. Further research on this disease included in-depth studies on epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis and management. Chytridiomycosis became recognised as the worst disease affecting vertebrate biodiversity in recorded history.

Rick had an extraordinary involvement in ensuring that his findings resulted in policy changes to improve amphibian conservation, nationally and internationally. He was heavily involved in production of threat abatement plans, and was often called upon as a consultant to government departments. As a direct result of his efforts, improved quarantine and health screening have been implemented nationally and internationally. He influenced the decision of the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) to list chytridiomycosis as a “notifiable disease”—the first disease of concern to affect only biodiversity. His work has led to a global paradigm shift in biology about the importance of introduced communicable diseases of wildlife. Although feral animals and weeds are well recognised for their devastating effects on ecosystems, the spread of wildlife diseases had been neglected as a conservation issue. Rick had an unusual willingness to share unpublished findings via workshops and web sites. His inclusive approach overcame barriers to solving multidisciplinary and controversial issues; and he organised a number of successful workshops to bring diverse scientists, managers and the public together to take the lead in management of amphibian disease. His motivation, humility, and single-minded, pragmatic approach ensured the interests of conservation were best served.

One of his major public health research projects was on head lice and treatments for infestations, in which he enjoyed busting myths on head lice transmission. This research involved maintaining colonies of lice for experimental purposes. The maintenance of colonies was facilitated in part by bribing the family members to act as hosts, but was not successful in the longer term as louse resistance developed. Another major interest was the health of aboriginal communities. With his combined veterinary and medical background, he actively pursued the control of Sarcoptes infections in camp dogs as an ancillary means of control in humans. Both Rick and Kerry had a long medical association with the aboriginal community in Townsville and his involvement in the health of other aboriginal communities followed a logical consequence of this earlier association. His study of hookworm infections in humans causing eosinophilic enteritis will be remembered by participants at a parasitology conference in Adelaide, where he recounted how he had infected himself with the hookworm Necator americanus, and had then swallowed a minute camera (later recovering it from his faeces), and accessed the photo sequences of hookworms actively feeding on blood in his own duodenum. This was all in the cause of using hookworms in the treatment of allergic and autoimmune diseases.

From 1993 to 2001 he was the Associate Professor at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, James Cook University, became Deputy Head of the School in 2002 and in 2005 became Professor as well as Director again of the Anton Breinl Centre and Deputy Head of the School of Public Health, Tropical Medicine and Rehabilitation Sciences. Rick was often promoted into bureaucratic positions until he could find someone to replace him so that he could concentrate on teaching and research. As a reluctant anointed leader by his colleagues, he set a high standard to emulate and was wonderful at creating a sense of shared purpose and belonging. Although he had his own ambitions, he always supported students and staff to fulfil their own aims, and created synergies so that they could follow their own passions and strengths. His kindness and wonderful mentoring of all staff resulted in overwhelming loyalty and love, and hence he was very powerful in motivating people, despite never giving orders. The school thrived and rapidly grew, and so he proved that valuing and supporting everyone is actually a very practical approach for leadership.

Rick taught and supervised thousands of masters and doctoral students, building a workforce in public health and tropical medicine. His support of indigenous scholars at JCU has left a large legacy. This increasing focus on teaching (as well as his obviously outstanding abilities as a teacher) led to him having numerous invited teaching roles around the country and internationally, particularly in the developing countries.

As an Emeritus Professor in the last 5 years, he established Tropical Health Solutions, a company aimed at improving health in the tropics through research and capacity building, uninhibited by the strictures of university bureaucracy. In this role, he made an outstanding contribution to the development of tropical health and medicine in Australia, Papua New Guinea and particularly the Pacific Islands. The Atoifi Health Research Group (www.atoifiresearch.org.sb) is an exemplary model for capacity building in health research and management, with the aim of training a generation of Pacific Islander health professionals and researchers to investigate and solve local health issues. Rick’s team ran workshops and research to build confident scientists, with the aim of making himself redundant. A documentary (Parasites in Paradise) by Rick’s son Ben Speare shows their wonderful One Health project in the Solomons on hookworm (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzg4C7Mmas). His visionary leadership was so valued by the community that they designated him a “Big Man”, a position which he eventually embraced. The Rick Speare Memorial Fund has been established to support continuation of this work in the Solomon Islands (https://alumni.jcu.edu.au/RSpeareMemFund).

Rick did pioneering qualitative work on infection control of emerging diseases for vets, such as Hendra virus, with the aim of understanding the difficulties faced by veterinarians in adopting stricter personal protection protocols. His recent work showed surprisingly that the Australian public would be happy to pay to see a veterinarian facilitate the correct diagnosis and management of a zoonotic infection!

As a scientist, Rick was an original and brilliant thinker with an amazing ability to focus on a problem. He was not motivated by the competitiveness of being a researcher but by curiosity, and he applied the same enthusiasm and rigour whether it was about human malaria, an obscure tadpole disease or taxonomic nit-picking.

Rick’s family is very close, with 5 children (Luke, Sally, Toby, Ben and Eleanor) who similarly laugh a lot and do things their own way. We recall how Rick enjoyed the original action blockbuster “Independence Day” because he empathised with the hero’s dilemma between saving the world and being with his beautiful family. He always tried to overcome this problem by involving his kids in his work; early on this often involved rigorous negotiation and paying them to catch toads or feed head lice. But in his last few years he was very happy to have them work with him in the Solomon Islands without coercion.

Rick’s career was the epitome of the One Health concept, and his life a great example of how to live. It was a life of learning, friendships, humour and above all, generous concern and care for other beings.