An Epidemic of DENIAL.

AuthorOrient, Jane M.
PositionMEDICINE & HEALTH

IT NOW has been 100 years--plus one--since, as described by author John M. Barry in The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, the most-horrific plague ever known to humankind. It killed as many people (50,000,000) in one year as the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century.

The lack of a vaccine did not cause the flu. All epidemics start with an index case--which may or may not be identified. The great influenza may have begun with a patient in Kansas (even though the scourge was dubbed The Spanish Flu). The significance of the case reportedly was recognized by a country doctor, who was ignored. As the nation mobilized for World War I, and draftees from across the country were thrown together, illness spread and became much more virulent. Transport ships became "floating caskets." Troop trains were "rolling coffins." However, Pres. Woodrow Wilson denied the existence or severity of the epidemic, and effective public health efforts were thwarted.

Despite this history, and the expenditure of billions of dollars, the U.S. is not much better prepared now than in 1918. There have been warnings, such as Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), novel H1N1 flu, and the 2014 outbreak of enterovirus D68 in schoolchildren--but, when the threats recede, the nation goes back to sleep.

When different populations are thrown together, as in boot camp or college dorms when new freshmen arrive, there is a lot of sickness. Each group has a different pattern of colonizing microorganisms to which its members have immunity and others do not. There are terrible historical examples of native populations in the New World being devastated by diseases of European settlers.

Epidemics can happen naturally or through neglect--or they could be caused deliberately. Biological warfare probably is the very worst weapon of mass destruction. One scenario is to embed a suicide agent incubating a deadly disease in a mass of migrants--or there doubtless are innocent individuals among thousands of migrants overwhelming our border infected with deadly diseases to which Americans have no immunity.

The mainstream press and even part of mainstream medicine promotes denial. NBC News, for instance, quoted Dr. Paul Spiegel, who directs the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health: "There is no evidence to show that migrants are spreading disease." The danger of introducing disease is "a false argument used to...

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