Dr. Donald Henderson 1928-2009 The greatest American you never heard of

[grantcart]

Dr. Donald Henderson was the person most responsible for the world eradication of Small Pox. Over the last 3,000 years smallpox is estimated to have killed 500,000,000 people, three times as many that have died in all the wars combined.

It is an example of how government is not the problem, how compulsory government intervention in health care can be more efficient than voluntary private efforts and how mandated government efforts in healthcare can cost pennies in prevention and save billions in treatment. Also when the government puts "a bureacrat between you and your doctor" (sic) that bureacrat is often a doctor.

Today the US spends a few million providing security for stock piles of small pox in Atlanta (which Dr. Henderson advocated be destroyed) and nothing on the treatment of this disease.

One of the last known victims of smallpox

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-29-henderson-smallpox_N.htm

Henderson led WHO's effort to rid the world of smallpox

One day in 1947, two cases of smallpox turned up in New York City. An investigation identified more cases. The outbreak's source turned out to be a visitor from Mexico who stayed in a hotel with 3,000 guests from 28 states.
Health workers raced to vaccinate each one. And they didn't stop there. Over the next four weeks, to make sure smallpox didn't take hold in the USA, health workers vaccinated 6 million New Yorkers, all to contain a 12-person outbreak with just two deaths.

News of the outbreak made a big impression on a Cleveland 19-year-old named Donald Ainslie "D.A." Henderson. Thirty-three years later, he would lead the team that would craft a different kind of obituary — one for smallpox itself.

"We knew the disease could be eradicated," says Ciro de Quadros of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, who worked on eradication in Brazil and Africa. "There was no poliical will, no resources, no ledership.

Most people at the time were intensely skeptical that smallpox could be eradicated. "Anyone can understand that, if you've been to Africa and Asia and you know how vast the areas are and how limited the public health services were," says Henderson, author of Smallpox --The Death of a Disease: The Inside Story of Eradicating a Worldwide Killer, published this month by Prometheus.

. . .


In 1965, at the urging of the USA and Soviet Union, the World Health Assembly decided to build on the West African program and attempt eradication worldwide. World Health Organization Director General Marcelino Candau handpicked Henderson to lead the effort, partly so the United States would take the blame if the effort failed, Henderson writes. Henderson, his wife and three children moved to Geneva and went to work.

edited to add link back in

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. We could do the same with malaria, too, if we made about six fewer Tomahawk missiles

Surely we can spare six Tomahawks for the sake of eradicating malaria around the world.

[grantcart]

2. I agree and posted this on World Malaria Day April 25th

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/grantcart/184

[myrna minx]

3. K&R

[Fridays Child]

4. Do you have a link to this article?

[grantcart]

5. edited back in

[checks-n-balances]

6. The world should be thanking you, Dr. Henderson

Thank you, grantcart, for this thread.

[grantcart]

14. tks

[Veruca Salt]

7. k&r!

[Blue_Tires]

8. major kick

[moc]

9. D.A. Henderson was dean when I was a student at Hopkins' School of Public Health.

RIP

:patriot:

[grantcart]

10. interesting - did you have any personal contact?

[Danascot]

11. I had the honor of meeting D. A. Henderson

in 1967 in nis office in Geneva. He and my father were interns together at Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, NY. I was traveling in Europe after graduating high school and my father suggested I look him up. He was working on the smallpox effort at the time and was optimistic that they would be sucessful in eradicating it. I heard a few years later that he had achieved this magnificent accomplishment.

[grantcart]

13. thank you for that personal rememberance

[kickysnana]

12. K & R