IOP Fellow Frank About Bio-Threats

The Harvard Crimson

Published On Tuesday, April 21, 2009 1:55 AM

By ERIC L. MICHEL
Contributing Writer

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Nations should take further steps to guard against the spread of disease in the event of a future biological weapons attack or contagious outbreak, Institute of Politics Fellow Howard A. Zucker said yesterday.

The remarks by the former assistant director-general of the World Health Organization came in the midst of a talk about the often neglected relationship between the health of a nation and its security at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs yesterday.

Zucker struck a frank note about the impending possibility of international health threats.

“The data shows that about three times a century, you’ll have a pandemic,” Zucker said during the event. “It is true, we are due for one.”

Zucker noted that while the United States has been fortunate in avoiding health scares like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the avian flu in recent years, it is certainly not exempt from possible future outbreaks.

“If we think we can outwit Mother Nature, we have another thing coming to us,” Zucker said.

“We’re not done with the issue of pandemics. Something else will come forth.”

To improve the world’s ability to combat future outbreaks, Zucker supported the adoption of a set of 2007 World Health Organization recommendations advocating things like increased transparency and cooperation among nations in matters of public health.

“A healthy society is truly a more secure society,” Zucker said.

Zucker’s direct style struck a chord with some in the audience.

“I think it was important for him to remind us that despite all the technology and the medical feats we’ve accomplished in the past 50 to 100 years, there are still always going to be mutations and something we have to look out for,” said Belfer Center fellowship coordinator Mary A. Crowley after the event. “We can’t be as blind to these things as we’d like to be.”