Speakers

Dr. Robin M. Bush

Influenza: Our Best Model for the Evolutionary Origin of Newly Emerging Disease
The influenza virus is perhaps the most intensely studied of human pathogens. Effective vaccines have been available for more than 50 years. Yet influenza continues to present a major threat to public health. Does this bode ill for the control of other emerging infectious diseases? Several recent evolutionary studies provide insight into the ability of influenza to infect us repeatedly throughout our lives. In addition, some common misconceptions about influenza, based at the time on limited data, may be pertinent if we hope to come to grips with diseases such as the recent SARS outbreak and the ongoing avian influenza epidemic in southeast Asia, as well as unknown threats from biowarfare.

Dr. Robin M. Bush is an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. She develops computational techniques for exploring the ways in which pathogens, and particularly the influenza virus, evolve in response to host immune defenses. Her research currently focuses on two pathogens: the influenza virus, which with subsequent pneumonia is the sixth leading cause of death in the US, and the bacteria Chlamydia, which is the major cause of human blindness and venereal disease. She applies her results to public health efforts in disease surveillance, prediction and vaccine development in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Bush has served as a consultant on microbial evolution with respect to bioterrorism for several federal agencies, including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the CIA. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and did postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. James F. Childress

Just Care: Rationing in a Public Health Crisis
This lecture will address major ethical issues that would arise from the necessity of rationing care in a public-health crisis, caused by a pandemic, such as SARS or avian flu, or by a bioterrorist attack. It will distinguish utilitarian and egalitarian principles of rationing, sketch their implications, and show how they are, in fact, more compatible than is sometimes supposed in rationing based on medical utility and narrow social utility, but not in rationing based on broad social utility. It will also consider the circumstances under which involuntary quarantine and isolation can be ethically justified. Drawing on actual and hypothetical cases, the lecture will stress the directions and constraints set by the demands of public justification and public trust in U.S. in either rationing or restriction of liberty in quarantine and isolation.

Dr. James F. Childress is the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and Professor of Medical Education at the University of Virginia, where he teaches in the Department of Religious Studies and directs the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life. He chaired the Department of Religious Studies from 1972 to 1975 and 1986 to 1994, and served as principal of UVA's Monroe Hill College from 1988 to 1991 and as co-director of the Virginia Health Policy Center from 1991 to 1999. The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education named Dr. Childress Professor of the Year in the state of Virginia in 1990, and in 2002 he received the University of Virginia's highest honor: the Thomas Jefferson Award. In 2004 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities.

Dr. Michael Osterholm

Emerging Infectious Diseases: The New Normal The world of infectious diseases in humans and animals is in rapid evolution due to changing factors of the modern world: the escalating world population, international travel and commerce, economic development and land use, microbial adaptation and change, and the breakdown of public health measures. Emerging infectious diseases are the "new normal" and require new approaches to their detection, response and control. This presentation will review the current status of emerging infectious diseases and the critical international challenges they present.

Dr. Michael Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, associate director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Center for Food Protection and Defense and a professor in the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. He was also recently elected to membership in the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He served for 15 years as state epidemiologist and chief of the Acute Disease Epidemiology Section at the Minnesota Department of Health. He has been a national leader in raising awareness about the use of biological agents as catastrophic weapons targeting civilian populations. Dr. Osterholm serves on the editorial boards of five journals, including Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, and he is a reviewer for 24 additional journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and Science.