| Home > Events > 2000 National Symposium > DA Henderson Welcome and Symposium Information
D.A. Henderson, MD, MPH Good morning. I am D.A. Henderson. I'm Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, and on behalf of the center and the other principal sponsors of this symposium, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, it is a special pleasure to welcome you to this second symposium on the medical and public health response to bioterrorism. I would call to your attention that the meeting is also co-sponsored by 18 other organizations, professional organizations which are identified in your program, and we express thanks as well to the 34 members of a program committee who likewise are identified in your program. As many of you will recall, the first symposium 18 months ago was fully subscribed, and based on the continuing flood of visits to our Web site since that time, it is apparent that it was reasonably successful in meeting the need for communication, especially to the medical and public health communities of the realities of biological weapons and used as instruments of terror in the civilian setting. A number of special symposia and meetings have occurred over the past 18 months. CDC and USAMRIID have presented a three-day telecast that reached at least 15,000 persons, and the subject of bioterrorism has now begun to appear as a regular subject in the program of many national and regional medical meetings.
As time passed, the salient question was posed as to whether there was a need for a follow-on to the first symposium, and if so, what its content might be. With Drs. Tara O'Toole and Tom Inglesby from the center serve as point persons for a program committee, the conclusion was reached that a national symposium on civilian bioterrorism oriented primarily to the public health and medical audience was useful and should be continued.
However, a somewhat different emphasis from the first symposium was considered desirable in order to focus on major issues that so far were proving to be especially troublesome or were being inadequately addressed, and I shall return to those in just a moment. What attendance could be expected was speculative, but there was unanimity that because of the number of other symposia, there would certainly be no more and perhaps less demand for the second symposia than for the first.
On behalf of the committee, I extend apologies for misreading the level of interest and for having had the closed registration for this symposium two weeks early and to turn so many away. I would note, however, that the symposium will be Netcast on our Web site with talks becoming available by mid-December, and the proceedings will be published in Public Health Reports. Now, last night at a special reception hosted by Dr. Steven Knapp, who's Provost and Vice President of the Johns Hopkins University, we were pleased to announce a very generous three-year grant to the center of three and a half million dollars provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. We are, indeed, grateful. It will cover nearly half of our projected budget over the next three years, and we expect to see further development in the next three years of our activities. Now, the meeting has several themes or, perhaps better, areas of special emphasis, and for each of these topical areas, the committee identified those individuals whom they considered might best address the issues, and virtually every invitation that was extended was accepted. An exception were key congressional leaders who at this time seem unexpectedly preoccupied with -- (Laughter.) -- other issues, such as the possible effect of dimpled chads and hanging chads and so forth. So the first subject, at any rate, will occupy us through the noon lunch today, is an examination of the current status and nature of the challenge of bioweapons to national and international security, and the nature of the national strategy to deal with the problem. This afternoon the focus is on surveillance, both at the national and international level, and this will be followed by a discussion of the capacity of our health care system to respond to an epidemic. For the dinner this evening, we are privileged to have with us Ambassador Richard Butler of Australia, now diplomat in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations, formerly Australian ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations and later Executive Chairman of the UNSCOM Mission in Iraq. He is, as you know, author of the recently published book The Greatest Threat. Tomorrow takes up the difficult challenges in dealing with a major epidemic, particularly in the public health, legal, and media areas. The afternoon session will deal with strategic priorities for the longer term future as we as a nation struggle to come to grips with practical approaches in prevention. Now, I am pleased to inform you that concluding speakers on the program not presently listed are two. One is Dr. John Hamry, President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, until very recently Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense. The second speaker will be Senator Ted Kennedy. These will be the concluding papers on Wednesday afternoon. | 
