Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science

by Peter J. Hotez

Overview

The last five years saw a significant return of epidemic infectious disease, culminating in COVID-19. In our new post–COVID-19 world, how do we prevent future illnesses by expanding scientific and vaccine diplomacy and cooperation, especially to combat the problems that humans have brought on ourselves?

Modern diseases and viruses have been spurred anew by war and conflict as well as shifting poverty, urbanization, climate change, and a new troubling anti-science/anti-vaccination outlook. From such twenty-first-century forces, we have seen declines in previous global health gains, with sharp increases in vaccine-preventable and neglected diseases on the Arabian Peninsula, in Venezuela, in parts of Africa, and even on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In Preventing the Next Pandemic, international vaccine scientist and tropical disease and coronavirus expert Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, argues that we can—and must—rely on vaccine diplomacy to address this new world order in disease and global health. Detailing his years in the lab developing new vaccines, Hotez also recounts his travels around the world to shape vaccine partnerships with people in countries both rich and poor in an attempt to head off major health problems. Building on the legacy of Dr. Albert Sabin, who developed the oral polio vaccine with Soviet scientists at the height of the Cold War, he explains how he is still working to refresh and redirect vaccine diplomacy toward neglected and newly emerging diseases.

Hotez reveals how—during his Obama-era tenure as the US Science Envoy for the Middle East and North Africa, which coincided with both the rise in these geopolitical forces and climate change—he witnessed tropical infectious diseases and established vaccine partnerships that may still combat them up close. He explores why, since 2015, we've seen the decline of global cooperation and cohesion, to the detriment of those programs that are meant to benefit the most vulnerable people in the world. Unfortunately, Hotez asserts, these negative global events kick off a never-ending loop. Problems in a country may lead to disease outbreaks, but those outbreaks can lead to further problems—such as the impact of coronavirus on China's society and economy, which has been felt around the globe. Zeroing in on the sociopolitical and environmental factors that drive our most controversial and pressing global health concerns, Hotez proposes historically proven methods to soothe fraught international relations while preparing us for a safer, healthier future. He hammers home the importance of public engagement to communicate the urgency of embracing science during troubled times.

Touching on a range of disease, from leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) to COVID-19, Preventing the Next Pandemic has always been a timely goal, but it will be even more important in a COVID and post-COVID world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421440392
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	991,970
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, is a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology and the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also the codirector of the Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development. He is the author of Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth and Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad.

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD (HOUSTON, TX), is a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology and the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also the codirector of the Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development. He is the author of Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science and Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1. A New Post-2015 Urgency
Chapter 2. A Cold War Legacy
Chapter 3. Vaccine Science Envoy
Chapter 4. Battling Diseases of the Anthropocene
Chapter 5. The Middle East Killing Fields
Chapter 6. Africa's "Un-Wars"
Chapter 7. The Northern Triangle and Collapse of Venezuela
Chapter 8. Sorting It Out: Attributable Risks
Chapter 9. Global Health Security and the Rise in Anti-science
Chapter 10. Implementing Vaccine Diplomacy and the Rise of COVID-19
Chapter 11. The Broken Obelisk
Literature Cited
About the Author
Index

What People are Saying About This

Sanjay Gupta

Vaccines are one of humankind's greatest creations in both saving lives and creating diplomacy between nations, and there is likely no one in the world who can better teach us about both than Dr. Peter Hotez. The good doctor has spent his life in the lab developing lifesaving vaccines and traveling all over the world ensuring they are put to proper use. In this deeply researched and insightful work, Peter shows us how to see the world differently and offers a guide for shaping a healthier, safer future. This book could not be more timely in a COVID—and post-COVID—world. Hotez gives us equal doses of science-driven help and human-centered hope.

Saad B. Omer

This book is a love letter to science, diplomacy, and the human will to overcome seemingly unsurmountable challenges. This is a book only Peter Hotez—a renaissance man of modern vaccinology—could write.

Rodney Hoff

Peter J. Hotez describes the complex biological, environmental, and social issues that determine susceptibility to and the impact of current and emerging infectious diseases in developing countries, along with the challenges of developing and administering vaccines to prevent disease in these nations. There are few, if any, published books that describe the same type of comprehensive systematic analysis of vaccine design and populational coverage of vaccination required to achieve public health goals. Highly recommended.

Mehmet Oz

Our nation's former science envoy and respected global health policy leader Peter Hotez highlights the ambitious yet achievable opportunity of eliminating catastrophic infectious and tropical diseases. His gripping story reminds us that preventing disease is good policy and great politics, in case you need an extra reason to save hundreds of millions of lives.

From the Publisher

Vaccines are one of humankind's greatest creations in both saving lives and creating diplomacy between nations, and there is likely no one in the world who can better teach us about both than Dr. Peter Hotez. The good doctor has spent his life in the lab developing lifesaving vaccines and traveling all over the world ensuring they are put to proper use. In this deeply researched and insightful work, Peter shows us how to see the world differently and offers a guide for shaping a healthier, safer future. This book could not be more timely in a COVID—and post-COVID—world. Hotez gives us equal doses of science-driven help and human-centered hope.
—Sanjay Gupta, MD, neurosurgeon and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

Peter J. Hotez describes the complex biological, environmental, and social issues that determine susceptibility to and the impact of current and emerging infectious diseases in developing countries, along with the challenges of developing and administering vaccines to prevent disease in these nations. There are few, if any, published books that describe the same type of comprehensive systematic analysis of vaccine design and populational coverage of vaccination required to achieve public health goals. Highly recommended.
—Rodney Hoff, DSc, MPH, University of Washington

Our nation's former science envoy and respected global health policy leader Peter Hotez highlights the ambitious yet achievable opportunity of eliminating catastrophic infectious and tropical diseases. His gripping story reminds us that preventing disease is good policy and great politics, in case you need an extra reason to save hundreds of millions of lives.
—Mehmet Oz, MD, Attending Physician, NY Presbyterian/Columbia

This book is a love letter to science, diplomacy, and the human will to overcome seemingly unsurmountable challenges. This is a book only Peter Hotez—a renaissance man of modern vaccinology—could write.
—Saad B. Omer, Director, Yale Institute for Global Health

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Patricia Escobar, MPH (Kaiser Permanente)
Description: The author makes a compelling case to strategically leverage vaccine diplomacy to mitigate the spread of both neglected and emerging diseases across the world. The book provides detailed information on what has worked in the past and how to harness those successes and apply it to the COVID-19 pandemic and future diseases.
Purpose: The book aims to center the important role that vaccine diplomacy played in developing the polio vaccine and other diseases and how vaccine diplomacy can offer innovative solutions to address current global health issues like COVID-19 and neglected tropical diseases (NTD). The book emphasizes the need to prioritize international collaborations, science, and vaccine diplomacy even when there are social and political differences between and among different nations across the world.
Audience: The book doesn't seem to have a specific audience, which makes it accessible to a wide range of audiences. There is a natural integration of storytelling throughout the book, which makes it engaging and accessible to multiple professions like politicians, historians, public health experts, social scientists, and lay people. The author has published a myriad of publications and is recognized for his work in vaccine development and vaccine confidence. He leans on his many professional experiences, including acting as US Science Envoy during the Obama administration, to explain the value of global health diplomacy and vaccine diplomacy.
Features: The book has 11 chapters that focus on how a country or regional areas' political instability, human migration, climate change, and anti-science/vaccine hesitancy impacts neglected diseases and viruses where not only does it harm the individual, family, and community, but it impacts the overall economy of that area and surrounding region. A key strength of the book is the integration of storytelling of the author's experience in his journey to eradicate NTDs in multiple areas across the world; for example, in the Middle East, North Africa, Mesoamerica, and tropical nations. Another strength of the book is how consistently vaccine diplomacy is explained and examples of successful examples (development of polio vaccine) and areas of opportunities for NTDs in areas where they continue to persist.
Assessment: This book is unique and adds to the conversation about how to best manage or even prevent the next pandemic. Increasing awareness on how global health diplomacy and, specifically, vaccine diplomacy can play a central role in mitigation and eradication of diseases is a worthy topic and one that does not receive enough coverage in mainstream media. While I appreciated the emphasis of the role and value of vaccine diplomacy, the average reader could benefit from expansion on other social and political determinants referenced throughout the book since vaccine diplomacy alone may not prevent the next pandemic. For example, it would be helpful if the book expanded on anti-vax movements, climate change, human displacement/migrations, and equitable distribution of affordable vaccines, as well as how systems, governments, and organizations can support individuals in understanding their role and teach them to prevent and mitigate the spread of diseases.

Doody's Review Service

[Preventing the Next Pandemic] takes the reader through the worlds of global health, diseases of the impoverished, and their diverse country contexts, into science diplomacy and a towards a vision for a healthier future.
—The Lancet

From the Publisher

With so many factors causing infectious and tropical diseases to emerge or return, Preventing The Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-Science by Dr Peter J. Hotez is a fascinating and timely read about the importance of vaccine diplomacy to address these urgent challenges.

Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance - Elinore Court

Hotez is perhaps uniquely positioned to expound a broad vision that marries science with geopolitics . . . he passionately insists that we cannot prevent pandemics in isolation from wider global currents. 

The New Yorker

Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science is a bold call to promote vaccine diplomacy to prevent diseases and to promote peace and cooperation among countries.

The Wire Science

[Preventing the Next Pandemic is] an authoritative and convincing overview of how current global conditions are driving the emergence and reappearance of infectious diseases.

British Society for the History of Medicine

[Preventing the Next Pandemic] takes the reader through the worlds of global health, diseases of the impoverished, and their diverse country contexts, into science diplomacy and a towards a vision for a healthier future.

The Lancet

An important read!

Joe Scarborough