Yesterday I attended the Emory University infectious diseases conference (it is open to the general public), and enjoyed learning the latest about influenza from Dr. Anice Lowen, associate professor of medicine. And frankly, it was sobering. The current burden of seasonal influenza is substantial – the number of deaths from flu is comparable to the number from motor vehicle collisions. You can check out the CDC Fluview website to see the data.
But the conference focused on genetic reassortment, pigs, birds, and ferrets. Remember 1918? We are facing the real danger of a new spillover event. There is no pan-influenza vaccine available. Even if the government invested lots of money, say a “moonshot” research program for a new flu vaccine, uptake would likely be poor, based on our experience with the COVID vaccines.
So the bottom line is – COVID was bad, but a pandemic flu could be far worse. We need President Biden and our health leaders to prioritize dramatic systems change before it is too late. That includes a single payer / Medicare-for-All, a major refunding of our public health system; alliance with WHO, flu vaccine research, etc. What are your thoughts?
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Philip A. Lederer 
worse than cOVID?!?!
Where is a new pandemic flu likely to emerge? China?
John Barry’s book on the Great Influenza / 1918 pandemic has a lot of stories about decisions that backfired. One feels empathy for the folks in 1918 — as they did not have the modern connectivity to science and information networks that we have today. One feels empathy for the healthcare workers and patients and family members suffering in this COVID pandemic. It is also strange to consider that with all of our technological innovation and advancements since 1918 — it seems like similar issues – in terms of less than ideal response – were problematic in both pandemics. History may repeat itself — but Einstein suggested that insanity might be defined as performing the same behaviors and expecting a different result. Somehow there has to be some type of historical / feedback / learning loops — that connect the past to the present and takes an honest look at failures. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29036.The_Great_Influenza
thanks!
Thanks
On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 6:36 AM Health and Healing wrote:
> Philip Lederer MD posted: ” Yesterday I attended the Emory University > infectious diseases conference (it is open to the general public), and > enjoyed learning the latest about influenza from Dr. Anice Lowen, associate > professor of medicine. And frankly, it was sobering. The current” >
We also need to invest in upstream prevention through reducing the risk of spillover events in the first place! That means fixing our broken relationship with nature.