Comments on: How to Cover a Health Crisis – or Make One http://www.philipalcabes.com/2009/07/how-to-cover-a-health-crisis-%e2%80%93-or-make-one/ Challenging Myths of Health, Behavior, and Risk Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:18:21 +0000 hourly 1 By: Philip Alcabes http://www.philipalcabes.com/2009/07/how-to-cover-a-health-crisis-%e2%80%93-or-make-one/comment-page-1/#comment-53 Philip Alcabes Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:12:53 +0000 http://www.philipalcabes.com/?p=483#comment-53 Really glad to see you here, revere; your perspective has been invaluable. We agree on nearly everything, especially that disease outbreaks can be a lot worse than what people fear. Flu is a serious threat to the public’s health, and needs more insightful – and more global – thinking than it has received thus far. Really glad to see you here, revere; your perspective has been invaluable. We agree on nearly everything, especially that disease outbreaks can be a lot worse than what people fear. Flu is a serious threat to the public’s health, and needs more insightful – and more global – thinking than it has received thus far.

]]> By: revere http://www.philipalcabes.com/2009/07/how-to-cover-a-health-crisis-%e2%80%93-or-make-one/comment-page-1/#comment-52 revere Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:29:33 +0000 http://www.philipalcabes.com/?p=483#comment-52 A couple of things. The reason flu popped up in 2003 was that was when avian flu popped its head above water after being absent since 1997. We don't know what makes flu transmissible or virulent, but H5N1 is extremely virulent and if it becomes transmissible and keeps even a fraction of its virulence, it is a catastrophe. Preparing for that made, and makes, sense. I won't argue it with you, further. I understand it is not your field of expertise. As for the scientific establishment generating interest, it did this because it was of genuine scientific interest. It involves a virus that is a major public health problem. Not the only public health problem. But a major one, nonetheless, with significant morbidity, mortality and cost. But very few scientists are engaged in it and they don't drive the agenda. It was then, and remains, a very small field. As for Big Pharma driving interest, they had no interest in flu vaccines at the outset. They followed the interest, they didn't generate it. If you had been following events as they evolved isntead of construcdting your own narrative, you'd realize that. As for whether we missed "the larger point" in our post today, we don't want to trade point-missing accusations. There's too much for all of us to do. But we had a point to make. It just wasn't the point you wanted to make, although I have no idea what point you were making, other than everyone has missed the boat but you. We've written thousands of posts (literally) in the last four and half years. We write about many things, but we have been very consistent. As we have stated repeatedly, we chose to write about flu as a lens through which to look at public health. We won't go over the reasoning why we thought it appropriate except to say we could have chosen other lens, too. We chose this one. We are cancer epidemiologists. We are not flu practitioners, we have no grants about flu, nor do we make any money from discussing it, except whatever the blog brings in (which is very little). Just so you understand the point we have pushed from the outset -- years and thousands of posts -- it is that the way to prepare for a pandemic is to strengthen and public health and social service infrastructure. We have consistently refused to engage in discussions of personal prepping (how much water should you stockpile, for example) in favor of talking about how neighbors can help neighbors and how together we get through difficulties as a community, not hiding under our beds. That is part of using flu as a lens to discuss public health from a progressive perspective. Although we are licensed physicians we do not have our own stash of Tamiflu and we do not intend to jump the queue for vaccines. Nor do we have a stockpile. We have a message: getting ready for a pandemic means having a robust community that is resilient and where its members care about and help each other. I do not know what your bigger political point is, assuming you have one. You sometimes come across sounding like a denier or crank. The idea that fear of pandemics is a bigger problem than a pandemic is not only bizarre but smacks of conspiracy theory thinking. Each of our point of view has others we'd just as soon not be associated with (I give you Michael Fumento on your side). But that's not relevant. Emergency rooms will fill up in even a moderately bad flu season, not because people are afraid of flu but because they are sick and have nowhere to turn, a dramatic example of the brittleness of our health care system. We could be talking about this, instead of hyping fear of fear. A couple of things. The reason flu popped up in 2003 was that was when avian flu popped its head above water after being absent since 1997. We don’t know what makes flu transmissible or virulent, but H5N1 is extremely virulent and if it becomes transmissible and keeps even a fraction of its virulence, it is a catastrophe. Preparing for that made, and makes, sense. I won’t argue it with you, further. I understand it is not your field of expertise.

As for the scientific establishment generating interest, it did this because it was of genuine scientific interest. It involves a virus that is a major public health problem. Not the only public health problem. But a major one, nonetheless, with significant morbidity, mortality and cost. But very few scientists are engaged in it and they don’t drive the agenda. It was then, and remains, a very small field. As for Big Pharma driving interest, they had no interest in flu vaccines at the outset. They followed the interest, they didn’t generate it. If you had been following events as they evolved isntead of construcdting your own narrative, you’d realize that.

As for whether we missed “the larger point” in our post today, we don’t want to trade point-missing accusations. There’s too much for all of us to do. But we had a point to make. It just wasn’t the point you wanted to make, although I have no idea what point you were making, other than everyone has missed the boat but you.

We’ve written thousands of posts (literally) in the last four and half years. We write about many things, but we have been very consistent. As we have stated repeatedly, we chose to write about flu as a lens through which to look at public health. We won’t go over the reasoning why we thought it appropriate except to say we could have chosen other lens, too. We chose this one. We are cancer epidemiologists. We are not flu practitioners, we have no grants about flu, nor do we make any money from discussing it, except whatever the blog brings in (which is very little).

Just so you understand the point we have pushed from the outset — years and thousands of posts — it is that the way to prepare for a pandemic is to strengthen and public health and social service infrastructure. We have consistently refused to engage in discussions of personal prepping (how much water should you stockpile, for example) in favor of talking about how neighbors can help neighbors and how together we get through difficulties as a community, not hiding under our beds. That is part of using flu as a lens to discuss public health from a progressive perspective. Although we are licensed physicians we do not have our own stash of Tamiflu and we do not intend to jump the queue for vaccines. Nor do we have a stockpile. We have a message: getting ready for a pandemic means having a robust community that is resilient and where its members care about and help each other.

I do not know what your bigger political point is, assuming you have one. You sometimes come across sounding like a denier or crank. The idea that fear of pandemics is a bigger problem than a pandemic is not only bizarre but smacks of conspiracy theory thinking. Each of our point of view has others we’d just as soon not be associated with (I give you Michael Fumento on your side). But that’s not relevant. Emergency rooms will fill up in even a moderately bad flu season, not because people are afraid of flu but because they are sick and have nowhere to turn, a dramatic example of the brittleness of our health care system. We could be talking about this, instead of hyping fear of fear.

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