Dana Milbank (Washington Post columnist) was nearly
a decade off in implying that it was only “after the 2001 terrorist attacks”
that “the nation’s top scientists and public health experts were shouting these
warnings from the rooftops deafeningly, unanimously and constantly.” (‘When you
drown the government people die’, Wpost 4-12-20)
October 15, 1992 the National Academy of Sciences
Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report “Emerging Infections: Microbial
Threats to Health in the United States”. It’s 19-member multidisciplinary committee
represented 16 fields of study from virology to economics. “A significant
number… had ties to the biotechnology industry, which involved specific
products such as diagnostic test kits and vaccines.”
Unanimously the members acknowledged from the start that health
threats to the U.S. “could not be adequately addressed without considering
emerging threats globally”. And that the “IOM
published two earlier reports that bear on microbial threats outside” the U.S.
in 1987 and 1991.
They mentioned an
earlier 1988 IOM “report, The Future of Public Health” which “described the
U.S. public health system as being in a state of disarray that has produced ‘a
hodgepodge of fractionated interests and programs, organizational turmoil among
new agencies, and well-intended but unbalanced appropriations – without coherent
direction by well-qualified professionals.”
The 1992 committee view was “that there has been little positive change
in the U.S. public health system since the release of that report… steps have been
taken… but these responses have been reactive, not proactive.
In 1997 another IOM
report “America’s Vital Interest in Global Health” argued “that America has a vital
and direct stake in the health of people
around the globe…from both America’s long and enduring tradition of humanitarian
concerns and compelling reasons for self-interest…to protect our citizens,
enhance our economy, and advance U.S. interests abroad.*” The asterisk referenced a “historic precedence
for such U.S. engagement in 1881 when Washington, DC hosted the Fifth
International Sanitary Conference after a major outbreak of yellow fever spread
through maritime contacts in the Mississippi Rive Valley in 1878 causing an
estimated 100,000 cases and 20,000 death in the US.” And, PAHO (the Pan American Health Association)
was created out of a “regional sanitary conference in the Western Hemisphere…which
began in 1902”. The “Summary” of the Index
content was “Protecting Our People”, “Enhancing Our Economy”, “Advancing Our International
Interests”, and “Leading from Strength”.
Mr. Milbank was 21
years off without knowing or remembering President Carter’ 1980 bi-partisan Presidential
Commission on World Hunger. That unanimous
commission of federally elected officials warned “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...”
For those with deep religious
convictions Mr. Milbank needs to look back to the founding idealism of every major
religion…the Golden Rule”.
Anyone interested in
looking forward for our best approach to a post Covid19 world should seriously
consider meeting the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals created
in 2015, well before the 2030 deadline.
This comprehensive approach
to sustainable human security is the best means our species has of preventing
the inevitable ‘new and reemerging infectious diseases’ that are inevitable with
time. Time that is NOT our side. Just as important as our collective security
is our desire for maximizing our freedoms and our prosperity. All three are inevitably endangered by ignoring
any one of the 17 SDGs.
For anyone assuming we
cannot afford them, insist that they understand the inevitable costs in blood, treasure
and freedom that will be significantly higher.
Then enlighten them on the $32 trillion dollars that has been stashed in
off-shore anonymous ‘business accounts’ and on-shore bank accounts (2012 statistics)
by kleptocrats, oligarchs, drug cartels, violent extremists’ cells, and wealthy
capitalists avoiding taxes. All a
function of the global corruption and lack of global controls that those in
power have created and maintained until now.
One major biological
factor fueling the spread of pathogens is their natural mutation rate, often accelerated
by our unnatural environmental interventions (antibiotics, chemicals, mass food
production, invasive medical procedures, population expansion into natural environments…). Pathogens change. Can we?
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