Dame Sally Davies thinks so. And she has been on the case since at least 2012. In fact, older readers will recall our long standing admiration for this remarkable woman, and her erstwhile colleague Professor Colin Garner, who jointly did so much in the early stages of this crisis. (for the record, we have had the honour of hearing both these great scientists speak at meetings)
Sadly, the problem is very, very far from resolved, as Dame Sally makes clear in this Guardian story from the admirable Kat Lay. They point to the same weary old tropes that we’ve flogged here for years: lack of research; over prescription; reckless, feckless wasting in misguided agricultural practice. You can read it for yourself here[1]. We fervently hope that you do so.
We shall end on a personal note. Afflicted by a cold, we have suspended all work, and for leisure reading have ploughed again through Professor Harper’s The Fate of Rome. It is a remarkable synthesis economics, history, biology and climatology which we have praised before on these pages. One thing struck us at once. The terrible impact of the Plague of Justininian (541, bubonic) on the Byzantine Empire was like that of a gunshot wound on a human body. It wrecked the economy, the army, caused a catastrophic fall in population and output from which there was never any meaningful recovery. And it meant that all the efforts of Justinian and his brilliant advisers like Theodora, Belisarius, Tribonian and the rest meant nothing at all when that plague struck. However hard they had tried at their jobs, the changes they effected before the plague counted for nothing. They might as well have stayed in Constantinople and gone to the horse races.
And today, in 2024? What will all the efforts of politicians, bankers, generals, footballers, marketing gurus, Estate agents, brand designers and games enthusiasts count for when a real pandemic strikes? Whose work will really be enough to still matter afterwards?
#dame sally davies #antibiotic resistance #global warming #microbiology #health #medicine
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