A very bright and visionary Houston-based vaccine specialist presents a somewhat frightening overview of what he calls Neglected Tropical Diseases and their potential to spread around the world. The factors contributing to this potential disaster include political instability, internal displacement and human migrations, increasing urbanization, anti- science and anti-vaccine movements coupled with rising nationalism, and climate change which is in turn changing the range of various vectors.
The author is a globe-trotting advocate for science in general and specifically vaccine development and what he calls vaccine diplomacy- international cooperation, even among enemies, for vaccine development and distribution. He is the co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and the former U.S. science envoy for the Obama administration. His knowledge of the epidemiology and potential for disastrous spread of those Neglected Tropical Diseases is impressive.
There is little acknowledgment of the vast potential for the rapid deployment of the new mRNA technology to deal with new pandemic disease as they arise, preferring to tout the benefits of the traditionally-developed Covid-19 vaccine that his lab has developed. I doubt that he frequently even visits that lab, given his international visits, writing, speaking, and collaborations around the world.
The writing is interesting and informative from a medical science perspective but humourless and too centred on his own considerable accomplishments, which he does not hesitate to laud. And he seems to believe that his recommendations have the potential to solve most of the world”s current problems. He is certainly not lacking in self-confidence.
This went to press earlier this year, before any of the now deployed Covid- 19 vaccines were being widely distributed, so is already somewhat outdated with respect to the current pandemic.
An informative quick read.
Thanks,
The NewYorker
The Passionate Reader 