What the Dengue Vaccine Riddle Says About the Future and Which Countries Will Rise and Fall
By: E. Rosalie
Tags: Politics, News, Health, Science, Leadership

Not A Moment Too Soon

This discovery comes as the Florida Health Department of Monroe County reports five recent cases. Lest a large-scale Dengue epidemic seems improbable, consider that Dengue exists in the Flavivirus family, with close relatives that cause Yellow Fever, Zika, Tick-Borne Encephalitis, and West Nile Fever. Dengue also spreads through two of the same mosquito species as the Zika virus.

West Nile seemed so unlikely to us in 2002 that many suspected it could be an intentional release. Now, it is just the norm. The same can happen again and not preparing for it will bring the same consequences that not preparing for a pandemic has. The cost of COVID-19 exceeds that of what it would have cost to prevent it by 500 times.

“The pandemic gives an incentive to do something addressing concerns that are immediate and threatening to individuals, and that’s what moves people. There are many people who might object to the United States fronting money, but it’s in our own best interest. Nothing seems more prudent than to give ourselves time to deal with this pandemic before the next one comes.”

— Les Kaufman, Professor of Biology, Boston University

The 2015 Ebola outbreak showed us that any new infectious disease may show up on our doorstep. Again, the coronavirus causing COVID-19 stressed this message. Seeming another world ago, HIV burst into public consciousness in the 1980s when a young Dr. Anthony Fauci saw deaths forming a pattern that looked like a new infectious disease.

Illustration of five stages for pathogens from animals moving to humans | Wolfe et al. 2011

Out of Luck and Flush with Denial

We enjoyed our moment in the sun, spared the blight of widespread infectious disease. Our luck has run out now, and we must accept our reality as it is and not as we wish it to be.

A society unfamiliar with and unable to navigate a contagious disease would likely trouble the founding fathers of the United States. They weathered a Yellow Fever outbreak and well-knew the difficulty presented by infectious disease. It is precisely the reason they bestowed broad power upon the states to police the public’s health.

Society exists so that all may live a more comfortable life, have safety, and somewhere to make a living. We have become so consumerist that we have forgotten that society is not something we buy or own. It is a living network that gives when times are good and takes when times are bad. That is the deal we make with society.

We can see the truth of this in a supreme court ruling from 1905 when it ruled against a man who objected to smallpox vaccination. Had they not ruled in favor of society, it the privilege of living without smallpox would not be ours today.

“The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly free from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members.”

— Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 US 11 (1905).

The rulings, consistent throughout, appear in the present: “Personal liberties are ‘and always have been subject to society’s interests.’”

— Judge C. M. Murray (April 30th, 2020)

For all our misgivings, few people go “off the grid” and eschew society. If you have lived in a community — taking as you make a living, enjoy the safety, and enjoy others’ specialties — then you have no exemption from giving in return. Those who have prospered the most have a duty to shoulder the most hardship.

Politics informed medical care of the day as much as medicine and the warring parties used the crisis to advance their respective agendas | Philadelphia 1798 | NIH Yellow Fever Exhibit

Regardless, give and take is the bargain we made. You cannot back out when the community, which has given for your entire existence, requires sacrifice. In times of plague and pestilence, society often asks much of its citizens.

Only care for society and one’s neighbor leads someone to act in ways that control the spread of infectious disease. Those who came before us did not assume it would be the case that people would choose this on their own. Knowing that outbreaks threaten society, they endowed states with broad and far-reaching powers to police the public’s health.