| Home > Events > The Public as an Asset, Not a Problem > Monica Schoch-Spana Welcome and Opening Remarks Transcript [Listen to this talk] DR. SCHOCH-SPANA: Good morning. I'm Monica Schoch-Spana. I'm a Senior Fellow with the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. I want to extend a warm welcome to you to this Summit On Leadership During Bioterrorism, our theme being "The Public As An Asset, Not A Problem." And I wish we had time to go around the room to allow for personal introductions, because there is incredible talent captive in this room to address this very critical issue. And in lieu of taking that much time, I wanted to go through and describe the type of audience that we've pulled together today with your cooperation, because I think it speaks to your influence in the field, and a sense that when you walk out of the room today, you can go out and effect change around this issue. And we are quite grateful that you made time in your very hectic schedules to join us today. We have about 170 people who include thought leaders in the fields of medicine, public health, nursing, hospital administration, disaster relief, and national security. We have people who have senior operational decision-making authority in the realms of public health and public safety. For instance, we have over 35 local and state health agencies represented here from the southeast of Florida and Georgia, through the mid-Atlantic, up the coast to Maine, over to Wyoming and Idaho, and even thank you for the individual coming all the way from Hawaii in the middle of February to Washington, D.C. to help with our regional diversity here in the audience. We have wonderful representation from the family of federal health agencies, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FDA, SAMHSA and the Center for Mental Health Services, thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule today. We have other federal agencies represented in the audience, Defense, Education, Veteran's Affairs, and also the Corporation for National and Community Services. We have international colleagues here, as well, someone from Health Canada, so welcome to Washington, D.C. today. We have eight professional public health groups represented, six nursing professional groups represented, five hospital and medical groups represented. We have nine think tanks in the realms of national and international security, and also health represented in the audience today. Over ten universities, we have inter-governmental groups represented, including folks from mayors, to police chiefs, to county executives. We have disaster relief service organizations represented, as well as community service organizations, experts in public affairs and risk and crisis communications, and also journalists from prime news media outlets, including the Washington Post, and The New York Times. We've gathered you in particular today to address this issue which we feel still needs more work, more focus and more inclusion in bioterrorism policy planning, and we're hoping that you can be the agents of change in this particular realm. So why are we here today? Our goal is to try and synthesize for government and public health authorities, those essential principles of leadership that encourage the public's constructive collaboration in confronting a bioterrorist attack. And we have the unfortunate opportunity to learn from recent front line experiences with terrorizing events. The program is organized around the concept of the public's capacity to respond effectively to an infectious disease emergency, maintaining steadfastness in the context of uncertainty, helping practically to contain an outbreak, and rendering assistance to others when possible. And we believe that it's decisions, actions and messages of the people in charge of bioterrorism response that will have a dramatic impact on the likelihood of the public's positive reactions to crisis. Now it was four years ago in the month of February that the Biodefense Center convened the first National Symposium on Medical and Public Health Response to Bioterrorism, and that program was organized around this core lesson; that the potential consequence of a biological weapons attack is an epidemic. The corollary principle or lesson of that program was we needed to open up the circle of first responders to include health professionals, such as emergency room docs, nurses, infectious and control practitioners, epidemiologists, public health administrators and so on. And we, at that point, were charging that particular audience with going out into the world to make sure that bioterrorism preparedness and response policy making and planning circles were opened up to include health professionals. So today we're asking in a comparable public venue for a further widening of that circle of stakeholders. And the stakeholders who need further influence and responsibility in the realm of biodefense are members of the general public. So we invite you today to share in three collective tasks, to revisit our assumptions about mass responses to crisis. Should we continue to accept in an unquestioning fashion the dominant image of an emotionally vulnerable public prone to panic and social disorder as the primary organizing principle for bioterrorism response systems? Secondly, we invite you to explore ways to meet the public health and public safety requirements of diverse publics during a bioterrorist crisis. For instance, how do we meet the needs of both the old and the young during a moment of emergency, the able-bodied and the disabled, the insured and the uninsured, and also to meet the needs of our multi-lingual/multi-ethnic community in the United States? And thirdly, we ask you to explore ways to equip every day institutions, such as work places, schools and civic groups to help people cope with a crisis. And so these three topics are going to comprise the focus of our first three panels today. We will have a working lunch between the second and the third panel, and we will close with a wonderfully distinguished panel of seasoned political and public health leaders and their constituents who have had to confront a recent terrorizing event. We're going to draw from their collective wisdom, and then also your collective wisdom, as well, to try and pull out those essential principles of leadership that foster a capable, confident public during a crisis. There is incredible experience and expertise in this room, and as a member of the Program Planning Committee, it was a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul, so we've asked our speakers to limit their remarks to 10 to 15 minutes. It was a strategy to try and rest enough time so that we could get input from you, so we heartily encourage you to share your criticisms, your comments, and most importantly your cheers. And the substance of the program is meant to spark conversation and interest, continued interest in this issue, but this meeting is also intended for you to foster new relationships, so please take advantage of conversations with everyone that you meet for the rest of the day. [return to top] |
