Point-Counterpoint Article Highlights Enduring Tension About The Proper Role Of Epidemiologists In Public Health Fact Finders Only Or Fact Purveyors Also? Should epidemiologists be devoted primarily to producing findings and publishing them objectively or should they also encourage the use of their findings in formulating evidenceinformed control measures? This question was posed almost 40 years ago in the early days of The Epidemiology Monitor (October 1982) by a Florida-based epidemiologist who encountered resistance to implementing sanitary control 2 measures. (See reprint this issue).
He had recommended these measures based on his investigation of a foodborne outbreak at a health care facility. As reported in letters to the editor at the time, the epidemiologist wondered to what extent he had a responsibility to be simply “an attack rate calculator” or also “a hell raiser” so that his data-based recommendations to protect the at-risk population would be adopted. - Point con't on page 5
In This Issue -3Reflections on Decades of Public Health Service at CDC -4Neurological Symdrome in Canada Under Investigation
Expert Group Forecasts That SARS-CoV-2 Is Here To Stay Enhanced Outbreak Control Strategy Is Proposed To Lessen Impact And Return To Relative Normalcy Writing in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Larry Brilliant an epidemiologist and Chief Executive Officer of Pandefense Advisory and five other health professionals with varying backgrounds and expertise in epidemiology, infectious disease and other subject matters have assessed the status of the pandemic in the world, the international response to it, and
given their opinions of what the most likely future of the disease will be. The article is entitled “The Forever Virus--A Strategy for the Long Fight Against COVID-19”. Here To Stay They begin their assessment exclaiming - Strategy cont'd on page 2
June 2021
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Volume Forty Two •
Number Six
-12Near Term Epi Event Calendar
-14Marketplace