Laura H. Kahn | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The science fiction effect

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:37:13 -0800

It's alive! Neurophysiology. Huddled around a warm fireplace one cold summer's night in 1816, a small group of friends decided to hold a competition to see who could write the scariest horror story. While vacationing in a villa by Lake Geneva, Switzerland, the friends spent their time reading ghost stories and discussing the exciting experiment being performed by the scientists of the day: reanimating dead matter.

Going viral

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:40:47 -0800

We've been lucky. The avian influenza (H5N1) virus that first emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 -- which killed six and caused 18 serious illnesses -- has not acquired the ability to spread easily from person to person. Virtually all of the reported cases have involved contact with infected birds or bird products.

Using microbes to fight microbes

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:57:53 -0800

There are more microorganisms in and on our bodies than human cells. In fact, scientists estimate that microorganisms outnumber human cells by 10 to 1. These microbes cover our skin, nose, mouth, and gastrointestinal and urogenital tracts. Called the "human microbiome," scientists are investigating the relationship between these microbes and disease.

Why isn't health care a US right?

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:56:31 -0800

The US Supreme Court will likely decide on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- which requires American citizens to either buy health insurance or incur a penalty -- sometime this session. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled against the law, while other appeals courts, including one in Cincinnati, have either rejected the case or upheld the law.

What Contagion missed

Laura H. Kahn — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:49:42 -0700

It's not often that Hollywood ventures into the realm of epidemics and public health, and when it does, the outcome is usually laughably out of touch with reality -- like Outbreak, the 1995 movie about a deadly Ebola-like virus that infected a city. To prevent the virus from spreading, the military decided to bomb the city to oblivion. Fortunately, a cure was discovered just in the nick of time.

How hurricane-proof is your state?

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:47:18 -0700

Even though it was downgraded to a Category 1 storm, Hurricane Irene still packed a serious punch. My family and I spent several nights in darkness, and our front yard turned into an ankle-deep bog.

How a deadly E. coli outbreak revealed Germany’s dysfunctional public health system

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:04:40 -0700

The plot just kept getting thicker. First, the culprit was cucumbers and tomatoes from Spain. Then it was bean sprouts from northern Germany. Then it wasn't.

The uncertainty surrounding sustainable agriculture

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:29:01 -0700

All of our planet's problems began 10,000 to 15,000 years ago with the domestication of livestock and crops, and it went downhill from there. While agriculture provided a stable food supply, it also required the destruction of pristine land. Surplus food enabled the growth of cities; cities led to civilizations; and civilizations eventually discovered the science and technology that allowed our numbers to grow. And, while these advances have been great for us humans, they haven't been so great for the natural world.

The Biological Weapons Convention: Proceeding without a verification protocol

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 09 May 2011 06:26:54 -0700

The Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) will be held this December in Geneva, with member states convening to assess the bioweapons nonproliferation regime and discuss ways to improve it. But is it worth trying to strengthen the BWC? Since its inception, the treaty has been plagued with well-recognized deficiencies: It lacks an implementing body, a verification protocol, an ability to investigate alleged violations, universality (it has only 163 member states), and industry support.

Is the United States prepared for a nuclear reactor accident?

Laura H. Kahn — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:57:29 -0700

As Japan struggles to contain the crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, government officials in other nations are nervously assessing their own emergency-response policies and procedures for a nuclear reactor accident. If any country is prepared to handle the worst that nature can present, it's Japan, where strict building codes and evacuation drills saved many lives from the March 11 disaster. But even Japan was not ready for a colossal 9.0 earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami.

The unsolved anthrax murder mystery

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:18:09 -0700

The US public health system has serious vulnerabilities, and one major problem is identifying and responding to public health crimes.

Deforestation and emerging diseases

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:44:15 -0800

In the late 1990s a deadly new disease emerged from the tropical forests of Malaysia, spread by fruit bats whose natural habitat had been destroyed by deforestation. The Malaysian government was unprepared for this new disease and subsequently bore high costs from the outbreak, including more than 100 human lives lost as well as an economically devastating collapse of its pig-farming industry. Eventually, the new scourge was identified and named: the Nipah virus.

Lessons from the Netherlands

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 05:39:39 -0800

With more than 4,000 people falling ill since 2007, the Netherlands is experiencing one of the world's worst outbreaks of Q fever. A zoonotic disease (meaning it can be transmitted from animals to people), Q fever can cause sickness and even death in humans. The Dutch struggle to address the ongoing outbreak can be instructive in terms of how to improve the handling of public health crises, and the rest of the world would do well to learn from their experience.

Making sense of the Haitian cholera disaster

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 05:10:33 -0800

On January 12, 2010, Haiti, one of the world's poorest nations, suffered a 7.0 earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of people, flattened the government (literally), and destroyed the relief headquarters of the United Nations. Consequently, over a million people were left homeless and live in squalor without access to adequate hygiene, clean water, or food. And earlier this November, Hurricane Tomas only added to the devastation with widespread flooding. This setting was ripe for cholera, a deadly diarrheal disease, to rear its ugly head. And sadly, that's what happened.

When the H1N1 flu hits home

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:18:08 -0800

On Saturday, October 24, President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 flu a national emergency. To date, more than 20,000 people have been hospitalized and more than 1,000 have died.

When science is lacking, good leadership is critical

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:21:55 -0700

Since the middle of the twentieth century, more than 330 novel infectious diseases have emerged in human populations. The majority of these new diseases spread from animals to humans--take, for example, HIV/AIDS, SARS, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (commonly known as "mad cow disease," or BSE). Some political leaders chose to respond to these dangerous diseases by ignoring or downplaying the problem. Others consulted scientific and medical experts in order to make informed decisions to combat the threats.

The need for political leadership during a crisis

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:29:33 -0700

The concept of "meta leaders"--individuals who make decisions beyond their official lines of authority in order to facilitate collaborations across jurisdictions and agencies--was proposed in an effort to overcome the silo thinking that characterizes how traditional government leaders carry out their roles. Since then, meetings and summits have promoted the concept of "meta leadership" among business, government, and nonprofit sectors.

Leadership in a public health crisis

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:21:08 -0700

Max Weber, the noted German sociologist of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, wrote that an inherent conflict exists between political and bureaucratic leaders. Political leaders strive to get reelected and implement their ideologically based policies while bureaucratic leaders aim to perpetuate and expand their bureaucracies.

Reduce the spread of flu with good hand hygiene

Laura H. Kahn — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:58:32 -0700

A recent report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology estimates that a resurgence of the H1N1 influenza virus during the 2009-2010 flu season could lead to 30,000-90,000 deaths, mostly in children and young adults. What's worse, the flu season could begin as early as September, just as school is starting.

Hiroshima, (re)visited

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:13:04 -0700

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, my father, who had struggled through the Great Depression to become a surgeon, volunteered with the U.S. Army. He was stationed in the United States for some time, but eventually sought an overseas assignment. In March 1944 he shipped out of San Francisco to join the 35th General Hospital in New Guinea and then, one year later, transferred to the 1st Portable Surgical Hospital at Leyte Island in the Philippines where he operated on wounded soldiers in an active combat zone.