From the President: Irrational Fear or Irrational Complacency: The Need for Science and Health

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It is my last letter to write this year as President of NABT. This issue of The American Biology Teacher is on Health and Medicine. What a teachable moment we are living in right now. Let me ask a question. What do the years 1918, 1957, 1968, and 2009 have in common? Many of you know that those dates are the years for the most pandemics in the U.S. and the world. In 2006, Dr. Gregory Poland, Director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group, spoke to my non-majors biology class (in which his daughter was a student) on the avian flu. Dr. Poland is a leading expert in vaccinology and clinical research, and in the field of biodefense. He and his talk were mesmerizing. Why shouldn't they be? As Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; Associate Chair for Research, Department of Medicine; Director of the Immunization Clinic and the Program in Translational Immunovirology and Biodefense at the Mayo Clinic (whew, what a long title), he carries a lot of authority whenever he talks on anything relating to viruses. It was interesting that the local news media rushed to take video and questions after he spoke to the class. Dr. Poland lectured on the avian flu and kept the students on the edge of their seats as he weaved the current information about the "bird flu" (an H5N1 virus) and counseled the class that another pandemic would come. No! He did not say the avian flu was a pandemic. That would be in error. No! He wasn't saying the bird flu was going to be the next pandemic. That would be creating fear. What Dr. Poland was able to accomplish very well was to make the non-major biology students aware of what efforts would have to be in place to combat the next pandemic. As he laid the groundwork for what could and would happen m the future, and the efforts that were needed to prepare the world for the next pandemic (whenever it came), he challenged the class with this question: "Is it irrational fear or irrational complacency that our country is in?" He described some of the steps necessary for the government, industry, medical community and the population to work together to be prepared. Dr. Poland was working with the U.S. government and World Health Organization to help influence a worldwide mechanism for dealing with pandemics; to move us out of what he called "irrational complacency." His passion was evident in his talk that the world needed to coordinate its efforts to combat the next viral pandemic, whenever it came. The class was honored to be exposed to that level of information and to such a brilliant scientist and educator who provided the answers to their questions. We are now in the midst of the latest pandemic and we do not know how it will fully play out in our country and the world. His words could not have been more prophetic as it was only two years later that the H1N1 virus emerged out of a town in Mexico and, within a five-month period, reached pandemic levels. …