A CDC scientist uses a pipette to transfer H7N9 virus into vials for sharing with partner laboratories for public health research purposes.
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Dr. Peter Sandman, and his wife and colleague Dr. Jody Lanard, together run The Peter M. Sandman Risk Communication Website. They provide consulting services to individuals, organizations, companies, and even governments – often during their worst public relations nightmares.
Their website contains a wealth of invaluable risk management advice, which quite frankly should be second home for anyone involved in public relations or risk communications.
I’ve highlighted their work often in the past, most recently in Sandman: A Tale Of Two CDCs, Lanard: China’s Risk Communication On H7N9, and Referral: Sandman On The H5N1 Moratorium.
Today Peter takes a long, and detailed look at the messaging coming out of the CDC and the World Health Organization on the emerging H7N9 virus (and MERS-CoV).
While he finds their candor over the threat posed by these emerging pathogens praiseworthy, he finds their preparedness messaging to the public to be seriously lacking.
There is simply too much good stuff here to even begin to excerpt it here. Instead, I will strongly urge you to read this exceptional opinion piece in its entirety.
When you return, I’ll have a bit more.
H7N9 Risk Communication: Candor but No Push to Prepare
by Peter M. Sandman
The lack of individual (or even corporate) preparedness messaging coming from the CDC and FEMA on these potential pandemic threats is a mystery to me, although I suspect it has much to do with the hammering they took after the worst case scenarios failed to materialize with the 2009 pandemic.
Many pundits and critics, most with the benefit of perfect hindsight, accused them of `crying wolf’.
But as any epidemiologist will tell you. If you’ve seen one flu pandemic . . . you’ve seen one flu pandemic.
There’s simply no way to know, in advance, how severe any influenza (or MERS) pandemic might be. In many respects, the world got off very easy the last time.
Later today I’ll be posting a follow up blog on pandemic preparedness resources.
