Prevention? That's un-American!!!

There are basically two phases of every pandemic:  First phase:  We don’t believe you.  Second phase: Why didn’t you warn us?    It appears our nation’s collective concept of history is watching sport instant replays. 

Jesus said, ‘pestilence will always be with you’.   Actually, he said “the poor will always be with you”.   And that was in the context of ‘if you keep ignoring my preaching’.  

But it doesn’t take a genius President or religious zealot to grasp the fact that being poor is directly linked to preventable malnutrition and infectious diseases.  Covid 19 should be teaching us that sufficient access to nutritious food and basic health services isn’t just a human right because it’s a nice thing to do.  It should be teaching us we are fools if we don’t.   It is vital globally to protecting our own freedom, security, and prosperity.  We were warned before. 

In 1980 Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Commission on World Hunger concluded “In the final analysis, unless Americans -- as citizens of an increasingly interdependent world -- place far higher priority on overcoming world hunger, its effects will no longer remain remote or unfamiliar.  Nor can we wait until we reach the brink of the precipice; the major actions required do not lend themselves to crisis planning, patchwork management, or emergency financing... The hour is late.  Age-old forces of poverty, disease, inequity, and hunger continue to challenge the world.  Our humanity demands that we act upon these challenges now...”.   Today the consequences the Commission warned about “international terrorism”, “war”, “environmental problems”, “diseases” and “other human rights problems” (refugees, genocide, human trafficking…) are self-evident and worsening because we fail to heed the wisdom of prevention.  The Commission also stated that “The most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living. The anger, despair and often hatred that result represent real and persistent threats to international order…  Neither the cost to national security of allowing malnutrition to spread nor the gain to be derived by a genuine effort to resolve the problem can be predicted or measured in any precise, mathematical way. Nor can monetary value be placed on avoiding the chaos that will ensue unless the United States and the rest of the world begin to develop a common institutional framework for meeting such other critical global threats [like] environmental hazards, pollution of the seas, and international terrorism. Calculable or not, however, this combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.”   The commission suggested “that promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to the U.S. national security than most policymakers acknowledge or even believe. Since the advent of nuclear weapons most Americans have been conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military forces. The Commission considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic illusion. Armed might represents merely the physical aspect of national security. Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can bring.”

There have been multiple prestigious reports since then (some by US defense and intelligence agencies) stating that ‘new and re-emerging infectious diseases” are a significant and uncontested threat to US national security.  All ignored.  The military has the best ‘self-evident’ 4 step approach to dealing with every threat.  And protecting our soldiers health, especially from infectious disease, is it’s highest priority.  

1. Early warning.  2. Rapid response.  3. Research and development (of effective responses).  4. Prevention.

(FYI:  the first US federal feeding program was related to malnutrition in the US during WWII.  In 1945 School Lunch Politics quotes Gen. Hershey at a hearing as puting the portion of draftees rejected for "disabilities directly or indirectly connected with nutrition” at "about one-third" [i.e., 1/3 of rejected draftees were rejected for nutrition-related health issues].  It also cited a 1945 NY Times article in which Gen. Hershey states, "low nutrition was a large factor in the rejection by Selective Service of 4,500,000 draftees."



Our military is great at breaking things.  And prevention of solder illness is a must.  Unfortunately, in our private, public, and political culture, the concept of prevention appears to be an un-American value.  And given the reactionary nature of our political system we have a national debt that is also an inevitable national security threat.  Combined with Covid 19, it’s not likely, but it is possible, this pandemic could spark a global economic contagion.  One that could be worse than the 2008 near economic collapse.  Even escaping that, tight budgets will hinder efforts to make adequate investments in urgent and vital reactionary efforts.  Forget about investments in prevention of future pandemics.  Can you recall any talk by policy makers or media pundits about this fundamental priority?



Twenty years ago, the World Health Organization calculated that universal access to clean water and sanitation alone would eliminate half of all the world’s infectious diseases. That cost then would have been in the billions.  The cost of the pandemic over the next year could be in the trillions. Not to mention the billions of people hurt economically and even more susceptible to catching or spreading ‘new and re-emerging infectious diseases’ of any kind.



IMPORTANT!  Everything in the known universe consists of systems and structures.  And both natural and human engineered systems and structures are all interdependent!  Repeat.  ALL interdependent!   Natural systems are usually resilient.  Human engineered systems usually aren’t.  Making matters worse, most human designed systems are increasingly dependent on energy, technology, and competent users.  These systems (communication, transportation, sanitation, health care, banking, manufacturing, agriculture, defense…)  usually perform extremely well under normal conditions.  Pandemic conditions are not normal.   People missing work, restricted travel, or prematurely dying or abandoning key positions may stress some systems to the breaking point.  Like our so called “health care” system which is actually a medical response system.  

On an average day, most of our nation’s health centers and hospitals operate at or near capacity.  With Covid 19 infections rising as the flu season peaks, we can expect chaos. Overworked or infected health care workers will be a significant complication. It doesn’t take a virology expert to predict things will get much worse before they get better.  



FYI:  Three weeks ago Italy, a well-developed nation, had three cases of Covid 19.  Yesterday the entire nation closed its borders.  



Another factor rarely mentioned in news reports is the innate nature of viruses to mutate.  One study of infected individuals from 30 different nations has already identified over 60 strains of Covid 19. And while viruses (like bacteria) don’t have sex, they can, and often do, exchange genetic material, incorporating new gene segments that can make them less a threat, or a greater threat.  E. Coli, a bacterium we all need in our digestive system to survive, at some point crossed genes with a harmful and sometimes deadly Shigella bacteria.  Now we have E. coli O157.  O157 being the harmful gene segment a normal E. coli got from a Shigella bacteria.  It’s believed that the Spanish Flu that killed more American soldiers during World War I than the war was a combination of a bird virus and a pig virus. 



Yet another national security threat rarely mentioned in relation to Covid 19 is that it is largely a respiratory disease creating conditions for bacterial lung infection to take hold and even kill a patient.  This will require a significant increase in the use of antibiotics over the next year or more which will add to the already accelerating loss of humanitie's Antibiotic arsenal. Leading to a future where more people will die from simple infections than from any other non-pandemic threat. 



Some insensitive and short-sighted commentary you might read in the liberal media will be from environmental zealots.  I know their kind. I used to be one of them (still am to some degree) and half a century ago I hoped some plague would come along and thin the human herd by a billion or more.  But then I learned that most human suffering was not the result of overpopulation.  My heart and mind changed.  Over the last few years I’ve warned some in the Climate change movement that their singular focus will not save us.  For twenty years I’ve been harping on the need for a comprehensive approach to our interdependent global problems.  At the 2014 Climate March in NYC Naomi Klein called for a “Movement of Movements”.  She said the problems wasn’t just about the environment.  It was about the gross economic inequality, injustice and lack of human rights that spawns so much violence and war. 

It's great that the Climate movement has gained so much traction!  And it’s problematic that they didn’t listen to Naomi.  I kept telling those who would listen that some event could come along and take everyone’s attention off the environment.  A war, terrorist event, economic collapse, or pandemic.  But still, the only partially valid point they make is that a warming planet will exacerbate infectious diseases.  Yes it will!  But not nearly as much as poverty, war, hunger, or attempted genocides using biological or conventional weapons. 



Which brings the topic back to prevention.  Especially if one considers the evolution of weaponry.  Without some improving trends on global justice (today I learned that it has been on the decline over the last 3 years in more nation’s (and to a greater degree) than justice has improved… ) favorable human conditions will continue to decline on all fronts, in every country.  And with it, populism will continue to grow, and democracy will continue to feed us flawed leaders…. And then more chaos.  A positive feedback loop with profoundly negative consequences.



And the only comprehensive program the world agrees upon is the UN approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals that virtually no Americans have heard about and no media has reported on.  Why?  Because prevention is not a patriotic concept.  Reacting to threats is.   And if you believe our military and walls will protect us against these threats, you need to think again.   Those are reactionary efforts that will break us economically…and divide us politically.  The two goals Osama Bin Laden dreamed about.   We didn’t’ need help with either.   We need help of an entirely different kind. 



Something to bring us together.  Not physically.  Covid 19 will prevent that.  We need something to bring us together mentally and spiritually.   That’s what the Golden Rule is for.  And our need to develop a Covid 19 vaccine and fund the 17 SDGs. 



Connect the dots (and the systems).  See the web of life.  Work for ‘liberty and justice for all’.  Or prepare for an increasingly chaotic and broken union.