Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Pandemic Flu Blog Summit Comes to a Close

APHA's Get Ready campaign thanks the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for hosting the blog summit on pandemic influenza. Thanks also go to our partners who have participated with posts and comments. It’s been a lively five weeks!

APHA's Dr. Benjamin was pleased to participate. Read his last blog post.

While many positions were expressed, one thing is clear: There is a lot of passion around preparing for pandemic flu. Now the will, leadership and resources must follow!

Participate today or check out the summit entries and comments, including the final post from Secretary Leavitt (coming today [June 27th]!) at http://blog.pandemicflu.gov/.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was a good start. So what happens next?

I saw many complaints in the HHS blog that the government wasn't sufficiently communicating with Americans or taking this seriously. Many appeared to blame government agencies for these shortcomings, but these agencies rely heavily upon our legislators.

This issue demands serious political consideration. Why is it that other important issues deserve time in the political spotlight, while pandemic flu is still dismissed as science fiction?

I haven't heard a single 2008 presidential candidate address the flu, although this election has had some of the most transparency I have yet seen. The concern I saw expressed over Andrew Speaker's XDR TB had to do with his easy crossing of the Canadian border, not the inability of our health system to handle even one difficult case.

My advice is, make it an issue. I fully plan to email in a few questions related to pandemics to the next televised debate. I will try to attend town meetings in my home state to ask my legislators what they plan to do about the flu, if anything. I urge all of you who support a call to action to act accordingly. Write a letter to your Congressman and Senators and ask nine of your friends do it too: just 10 letters to the same office give the issue priority status and a specific briefing to the Congressman. The beauty of our political system is that as its constituents, we have that right and that ability to bring issues that we care about into the spotlight, and by doing so, to (help) enact the changes we wish to see.

Anonymous said...

I think all of these blogs are a great idea! They are an essential way to engage the community in conversation about the flu and they give the public hands on access to information provided by real experts in the field. Nowadays with so much information so readily available it is hard to tell what you can and can't trust on the Internet. By having blogs like this sponsored by true experts, people can rest assured that they are getting up-to-date, quality information.