Article in the Journal of Environmental Health

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   Thanks Sniffles and Bumpman,

In my e-mail that I sent to Nelson Fabian I tried to appeal to his professional and personal concern for the public health.  He is obviously quite concerned about the public overwhelming not just the public health infrastructure but the entire healthcare system.  I wanted to help him make the leap in logic that he could have a more positive impact on the situation by releasing his article on the web.  We at the H5N1 Avian Flu Forum and others like fluwiike (if they ever get back up) could use his article to hopefully inspire others to get off the dime and prepare.  He is one but we are many.

So far the average Joe has seen porfessionals like Nabarro and Mike Osterholm denegrated in the media and labeled as "shock Epidemiologists" just as Nelson mentions in his article.  We really need people of Nelson's weight to break through this negative labeling.  We should also send the same message to the head of the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO)  to get them on the march too.  (I can get a name and e-mail address next week at work.)These organizations are going to have to take a more active leading roll if we are to truly mobilize the public on this.

Nelson's e-mail address is nfabian@neha.org

Please help by sending him a courteous, personal e-mail if you work in the public health arena.  And include your return address.  Let him know we want to help.

Much of what I have seen and read both in this forum and in fluwiike involves people saying things like their friends and relatives label them as nut cases for bringing up the subject.  We just can't let that happen.  We cannot allow ourselves to be shouted down or laughed at.  We are talking about our lives and the lives of our families and neighbors.

Aand we have to get past this siege mentality too.  Sure we will take up arms to protect ourselves and our loved ones.  Who wouldn't?  But getting others to prep means we will all be safer.

If people think we needed a war on terrorism when there are only a few hundred or a few thousand islamic nuts out there trying to kill us how can we allow ourselves to be cowed into silence when there a viral organism out there perhaps evolving into something that could kill half of the people that it infects?  This is a war of truly biblical proportions my friends.  

I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!

"He said as he stepped down off his soapbox. "

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Buzz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List advanced Member Joined: March 23 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 26	Post Options Post Reply Quote Buzz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Article in the Journal of Environmental Health Posted: March 31 2006 at 8:43pm
	Thanks Sniffles and Bumpman, In my e-mail that I sent to Nelson Fabian I tried to appeal to his professional and personal concern for the public health. He is obviously quite concerned about the public overwhelming not just the public health infrastructure but the entire healthcare system. I wanted to help him make the leap in logic that he could have a more positive impact on the situation by releasing his article on the web. We at the H5N1 Avian Flu Forum and others like fluwiike (if they ever get back up) could use his article to hopefully inspire others to get off the dime and prepare. He is one but we are many. So far the average Joe has seen porfessionals like Nabarro and Mike Osterholm denegrated in the media and labeled as "shock Epidemiologists" just as Nelson mentions in his article. We really need people of Nelson's weight to break through this negative labeling. We should also send the same message to the head of the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO) to get them on the march too. (I can get a name and e-mail address next week at work.)These organizations are going to have to take a more active leading roll if we are to truly mobilize the public on this. Nelson's e-mail address is nfabian@neha.org Please help by sending him a courteous, personal e-mail if you work in the public health arena. And include your return address. Let him know we want to help. Much of what I have seen and read both in this forum and in fluwiike involves people saying things like their friends and relatives label them as nut cases for bringing up the subject. We just can't let that happen. We cannot allow ourselves to be shouted down or laughed at. We are talking about our lives and the lives of our families and neighbors. Aand we have to get past this siege mentality too. Sure we will take up arms to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Who wouldn't? But getting others to prep means we will all be safer. If people think we needed a war on terrorism when there are only a few hundred or a few thousand islamic nuts out there trying to kill us how can we allow ourselves to be cowed into silence when there a viral organism out there perhaps evolving into something that could kill half of the people that it infects? This is a war of truly biblical proportions my friends. I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! "He said as he stepped down off his soapbox. "
	Be Prepared

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest Group	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: March 31 2006 at 9:14pm
	Buzz: I am going to test out the effectiveness of the article on family and friends this weekend. Having read the article, I think one of two things can happen: 1) the comprehensive message provided in the article will shock the readers into realizing that they have to act now if they hope to be anywhere close to prepared; or 2) the readers will be so terrified by the ramifications and magnitude of the problem that they cannot effectively process the threat and therefore act to mitigate the consequences of it. I think it takes a certain mentality to be able to act in the face of the threat of BF. You need to be willing to accept that America and our civilization is quite fragile and dependent on the rest of the world. The vast majority of this country is unwilling to face up to that fact. I think this mentality cuts across race, class and geographic boundaries. In fact, sometimes I feel like my colleagues and peers (I am an attorney in a law firm) are the ones that are the least likely to be prepared for BF, despite the fact that they have tremendous resources at their disposal. If my family and friends are spurred into action after reading this article, I will use those facts to try to persuade NEHA to make the article more generally available. Bumpman

Buzz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List advanced Member Joined: March 23 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 26	Post Options Post Reply Quote Buzz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: March 31 2006 at 9:25pm
	Anybody out there? Hellooooooo FYI, I decided to spin this off as a seperate topic from the topic "a matter of respect". It seemed that I was crowding in on their discussion. You might go there for additional information on the origin of this topic. A portion of the article that inspired me can be seen at neha.org . You will see a link to the article on their home page. While I am at it. Who out there is a nurse? What about a similar article in one of the nurses professional journals? You are certainly going to be on the front lines in this war. What about the Docs? You have a stake in this. Shouldn't there be a similar inspiring article written for the physicians out there in one of your professional journals? We in the flu forums could use your help in getting the word out. You need to help us add legitimacy to the concept the people need to prepare. You need to help us and this is one way you can. What about the EMTs? What about the union of state and county workers? Any members out there? Municipal workers will be on the front lines if there is civil disorder. How bout it folks? Can't we get this ball rolling some. Police officers, you are certainly first responders. Shouldn't there be an article in a professional journal that addresses this? If we forum members could have access to articles in all these and in other professions too it would go a LONG way to giving preparation legitimacy. We need to be part of a majority and we should not allow ourselves to be labeled as the loony fringe.
	Be Prepared

Buzz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List advanced Member Joined: March 23 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 26	Post Options Post Reply Quote Buzz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: March 31 2006 at 9:36pm
	Hey Bumpman, Thanks for the reply. As you can see I was busy adding a post while you were posting. You can see from my post above that my intent is not just to escilate the retoric. I don't think we can get much further by doing more of just that. What I am out for is to add more ligitimacy to our effort by enlisting as many professional organizations as possible. So far individuals have been labeled as "shock epidemiologists" and so forth. By enlisting the professional journals to write to their members about the subject I hope to get past the retoric to add more weight to our call for action. What do you think?
	Be Prepared

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest Group	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: March 31 2006 at 11:05pm
	Buzz: I appreciate your line of thought, but your efforts are probably better served by getting Oprah to continue to press the message. Professional organizations inevitably focus on issues peculiar to their profession, which rarely resonate with the majority population. If we really want our neighbors to get their acts together, we need the people who are pipelines to the mainstream, to instill the sense of urgency. Oprah did a piece and that was useful. I think she should do another that focuses on the food, power and water shortages and civil unrest that could result from a pandemic. That would really get people prepping beyond buying a few N-95 masks.

Buzz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List advanced Member Joined: March 23 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 26	Post Options Post Reply Quote Buzz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: April 01 2006 at 5:16am
	Bumpman, Anything else that Oprah can do to help further our cause will surely help. To clarify, "our cause" here referrs to getting people to prepare. That is what this is all about. Your comment that professional organizations inevitably focus on isues pecular to their profession" is not lost on me. That point is exactly what I want us to capitalize on. Individual professional organizations all need to bring the message into focus for their constituency. They are the people that are best able to do that. Think of all of the myriad of professional organizations out there. There are hundreds of them, thousands maybe. They are really the only people that can translate the need for action into a message that will resonate with their particular profession. Take your profession. How can lawyers, who make their living talking and meeting in courtrooms with people every day do any work in a pandemic? And there are going to be issues that will arise pecular to the pandemic that will need the services and expertice of the legal community in an immediate way when the need arises. Just the issue of the potential civil unrest boggles my non-legal mind. I can't grasp how in the world your profession could cope with the work load. How you might organize yourselves to deal with the issues that might arise needs to be addressed within your profession. Let's face it there are real risks and great changes and large issues that need to ba addressed in all professions. Somebody needs to address them and get people thinking about what the impact might be for their profession before TSHTF. What about professional truckers? They need to deliver goods to us. How can they do that safely without infecting themselves? Only they can address that issue. Shouldn't a long haulers magazine get the word out to their readers? To get them to think about the issues that might affect them and how they might deal with them? I could go on and on into a thousand professions that we need to get energized. And here we all are on the flu forum. We just need to get ourselves organized. WE ARE A GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION. We need to get our act together and and translate our message into something that will resonate in our professional lives and not just our personal lives. And when people begin to see that professional organizations and publications are taking BF seriously then we can get more people to prepare and hopefully we can begin to mitigate the impact of a a pandemic.
	Be Prepared

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest Group	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: April 01 2006 at 6:31am
	Bumpman, when the NEHA article first came out, I had my family read it. They started prepping. I like the article because it was not overly technical and laid it right out regarding what the situation we are looking at really is. Maybe if the article were made public, it might spur other groups and organizations to write their own articles pertaining to their specific professions. That might push more businesses to start thinking about preparedness. If businesses are getting prepared, they will be talking with their employees about the situation as well. I know it is asking a lot of one article, but you have to begin somewhere. It is quite true that the people standing up and discussing the issue now are being mocked and ridiculed as fear mongers. Professional organizations as well as all of us personally must start making a stand and say that this is not a joke or a game. Too many lives will are at stake to just sit by and do nothing.

Angel Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Valued Member Joined: December 08 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 346	Post Options Post Reply Quote Angel Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: April 01 2006 at 6:43am
	Thank you Buzz for the great post....I am trying to get the word out in my area. Next Sunday I am having a symposium to discuss what is going on, give handouts on what to prep, etc. I am trying to get the churches involved...how will the priest and pastors minister to the sick and dying during a pandemic. I hope this will be sucessful. I have been beating my head against the wall with our local Emergency Mgt. and Health Dept. who have no idea what their roles would be during a pandemic. I wrote an article about my symposium and the one local newspaper buried it in the religious section, I guess because I am having it in a church. I had asked them to please not put it there but they did. I am very frustrated.
	Angel

Buzz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List advanced Member Joined: March 23 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 26	Post Options Post Reply Quote Buzz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: April 01 2006 at 7:14pm
	Sniffles and Angel, Thanks for your comments. I was talking to someone at work yesterday about why he and the other MD in our office had not begun prepping. His reply was that prepping for me was OK because I live so far out of Atlanta.(70+ miles) He and the other MD live quite close. He basically said that I have a chance to survive and they don't. He didn't think there was much use for them to prep. I than started to talk to him in terms of reducing his exposure. That every trip to the store that they could avoid during an outbreak would reduce their and their families exposure by that much. He is an epidemiologist so talking in those terms to him seemed to get his attention. We then talked about what was on the web in the flu forums as far as resources. I think I made a convert. It just goes to show the power of an arguement when you speak to others in terms that they are familiar with. That concept is what I am really counting on by appealing to those in our forum to work within their profession. They can best cary the message because they can translate it into terms that their profession can relate to. And I didn't really tell my MD friend anything he didn't already know. I just got him thinking about the problem in terms that were familiar to him. I presented him with a professional problem on a personal level. Would't it help reduce his risk and his family's risk of acquiring illness if they reduced their exposure? What might they store in their house that would enable them to not go to the store one time, two times etc? How could an epidemiologist not begin to ponder those questions? Once you can translate the problem into terms that they can deal with the problem becomes less overwhelming. I think that many people shy away from dealing with preparing for a pandemic because they are just so overwhelmed that they just refuse to deal with it. They just shut it out. Then they make themselves feel better about their position by rediculing people who are not in agreement with their "Non-preparation". Does that make sense? My friend then gave me some valuable insight in the strength of these forums. Ideas here should idealy thrive or fall by the wayside based on their intrinsic value. We are all annomyous. I can't use the weight of my education or position to convince anyone that my idea has value. They should accept it or reject it based on the strength of the idea I am presenting and the weight of my arguement. I think my idea is quite good. My argument may be weak because I don't express my self as well as I might but I think if one takes the basic idea and ponders it a little one can see that we need to try this out. If you continue to do what you have been doing you will continue to get the same result. That's why I think we need to try something new. And because these forums are really grassroots organizations we need to lever our actions by acting in unison. Therein lies our true strength. If we can agree to a plan of action and organize ourselves to all do a little work together we can have a larger impact. I keep thinking to myself that for every family, every person that is pursuaded to prepare for the pandemic, that makes me and mine just that much safer. It makes all of us safer. That's the goal and we need to focus our efforts on that.
	Be Prepared