Today, the United States Senate is holding hearings to respond to the potential threat of the Zika virus. This is part of a pattern that repeats every few years when an outbreak of disease occurs someplace in the world. As the media coverage increases, public panic grows and in response Congress scrambles to deal with the possible threat, appropriating billions of dollars in emergency funding. Then, as media coverage fades, public panic recedes and Avian flu, Swine flu, Ebola and the others fade from public consciousness.
This is an inefficient and dangerous way to deal with public health threats. At some point, we will have called “the sky is falling” one too many times and we will be unable to deal with a real crisis. For example, tens of thousands of people did not evacuate before Hurricane Katrina because previous evacuations were seen as false alarms. We must not let the same occur in public health.
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