Reader,

Many politicians have opinions about health care and the role of science-based vaccines. You may agree or you may disagree. So, let’s try to learn from the past, deal with today and prepare for the future.

New York City experienced more than 2000 deaths in 1916 due to a virus that has been around at least since the Roman Emperor Claudius was stricken – poliomyelitis (aka, polio). However, it was not until the late 1800s that it took on epidemic proportions, and the summer of 1916 saw it hit New York City hard, mainly the crowded borough of Brooklyn.

And time went on …

In the United States, polio outbreaks reached terrifying levels by the late 1940s and early 1950s. 1952 was the peak year with over 57,000 cases reported in the U.S., with more than 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3,000 deaths.

And politics took a back seat to science …

….. resulting in the largest medical trial in history (1954)

• It involved 1.8 million children (“Polio Pioneers”) across 44 U.S. states in a double-blind clinical trial—the largest public health experiment ever attempted up to that point.
• It required 20,000 physicians and public health officials, 64,000 school personnel, and 220,000 volunteers.
• When the vaccine was declared “safe, effective, and potent” (by scientists) on April 12, 1955, the rollout became a near military-scale effort.
• Within weeks, millions of children were vaccinated across the U.S., followed by campaigns worldwide.

And now …

Science is certainly more advanced in the 21^st century than it was in the first half of the 20^th century, but scientific solutions take time. It’s not perfect, but it can and does get results.

In addition to polio, science tackled cholera, measles, Ebola, SARS, and HIV/AIDS. Polio and measles were supposedly eradicated but will come back unless enough people are vaccinated against them and the “herd effect” stays intact. (Measles is already back because people seem to trust politicians more than doctors and scientists.)

What about the future? Well, a lesson from the past was that spending resources on public health paid off. Let’s hope our federal and community leaders have enough wisdom to learn from the past to prepare for the future.

The Prepared Mind Project

We are getting our minds around three fundamental realities of organizational life in 2025.

• Business is a wicked system that operates inside a wicked system. (More on this next week.)
• Deep functional skills are necessary, but insufficient to handle the challenges of operating in a wicked system.
• Common sense is not so common and often insufficient.

Happy fall,

Bill

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