Book review

ABSTRACT

Throughout my own career as a physician-scientist and vaccinologists, past President of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, President of the Defense Health Board, and a prior member of every US national committee that deals with vaccines, as well as a participant in multiple tabletop exercises designed to improve our pandemic preparedness I have never ceased to be amazed at the conscious and collective “group-think” that pervades what passes for pandemic preparedness and planning. The chapter titles alone are concise and revealing summaries of critical aspects of our willful delusions about the pandemic, and our anemic responses (America the Vulnerable, Confusion and Subterfuge, Pandemics as National Security Threats, The Outbreak We Didn’t Want to See, Looking for Spread in the Wrong Places, the Zika Misadventure, the CDC Fails, Not Enough Tests and Not Enough Labs, Shortage after Shortage, Preparing for the Wrong Pathogen, Stay-at-Home Orders, A Plan Gone Awry, The Information Desert, Hardened Sites, Evidence Is Hard to Collect in a Crisis, Getting Drugs to Patients, the mRNA Breakthrough, A New Doctrine for National Security). Future pandemic planning should only be conducted with adult supervision, include experts other than the same people who have repeatedly failed the nation, involve checks and outside review, and include experts from outside the usual field – such as psychologists, futurists, supply chain and logistical experts, and others – and be chaired by persons such as Gottlieb who have a clear and comprehensive grasp on the multifaceted nature of the complexities involved in preparedness and response.