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PBS: Anatomy Of A Pandemic

 

 

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Two of the finest communicators on influenza that I know of are Dr. Anne Schuchat, the Director of the CDC’s (NCIRD), and Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of CIDRAP.

 

So I’m extraordinarily pleased that they, along with stellar list of public health officials, historians, writers and advocates are part of a PBS Newshour Documentary on the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

 

 

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Next week;  Monday (December 14th)  PBS Newshour will premier a documentary on the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.  

 

And on Tuesday, December 15 at 4 p.m. ET: "PBS NewsHour" will hold an Online Forum with Dr. Anne Schuchat, the Director of the CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), and Dr. Michael Osterholm, world-renown influenza expert and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. 

 

The Moderator will be Betty Ann Bowser, health correspondent for “PBS NewsHour

 

Today, the documentary’s companion website went online, with video segments, previews, pandemic news, Q&As,  and even a place to ask public health officials questions.

 

PBS describes the documentary it this way:

 

“Anatomy of a Pandemic” will carefully examine the major issues surrounding the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus outbreak, commonly referred to as “swine flu”, using the current pandemic to explore best practices for the U.S. and other world governments when faced with any widespread health emergency.

 

Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for “PBS NewsHour”, will report from the front lines of the effort to combat this outbreak — from federal vaccination headquarters and state command and control centers to big city hospital emergency rooms where the first waves of serious cases will appear.  The program will contextualize the current outbreak with pandemics of the past, including the 1918 influenza pandemic that caused between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide.

 

“Anatomy of a Pandemic” will focus as well on the science of influenza, including the development and implementation of the current H1N1 vaccine, next generation vaccine techniques, and the quest to create a potential universal vaccine.  Premieres Monday, December 14 at 9 p.m. ET on public broadcsting stations nationwide

 

 

Some of the videos available online (along with transcripts) include:

 

Interview: Anthony Fauci

Fauchi

Fauci, a director at the National Institutes of Health, relates his greatest disease fears, and what health officials are watching for in the future.

Video & Transcript

 

Interview: Barbara Ferrer

Ferrer

Ferrer, head of the Boston Public Health Commission, says minorities and the poor are seeing the worst of H1N1.

Video & Transcript

 

Interview: Anne Schuchat

Schuchat

Schuchat, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, talks about the challenges of the H1N1 pandemic.

Video & Transcript

 

Interview: Michael Osterholm

Osterholm

Flu expert Dr. Michael Osterholm grades the U.S. response to the pandemic so far.

Video & Transcript

 

Interview: Barbara Loe Fisher

Fisher

Fisher, of the National Vaccine Information Center, urges parents to take an active role in learning about vaccines.

Video & Transcript

 

According to the press release:

Experts involved with “Anatomy of a Pandemic” include leading U.S. influenza officials from the CDC and other health organizations, writers and historians. Among those specialists are the following individuals (subject to change):

  • Dr. Michael Osterholm, world-renown influenza expert and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota;

  • John Barry, the prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Great Influenza, a study of the 1918 pandemic;

  • Dr. Jay C. Butler, the Director of the CDC H1N1 Vaccine Task Force;

  • Dr. Nancy J. Cox, the Director of the CDC Influenza Division;

  • Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation (LIR);

  • Dr. Wayne Marasco, a universal vaccine specialist and associate professor with the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and associate professor in Cancer Immunology and AIDS with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute;

  • Dr. Anne Schuchat, the Director of the CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD);

  • and Dr. David Sencer, a former director of the CDC who forced to resign after the failure of the 1976 vaccine campaign.

 

Quite a line up.

 

I’ll, of course, remind my readers next week about this broadcast and the online forum the following day, but take the time now to visit the PBS Newshour website and explore.

Related Post:

CDC
CIDRAP

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