Commentary
Donald Henderson, who died in 2016, was a giant in the field of epidemiology and public health. He was also a man whose prophetic warnings from 2006 we chose to ignore in March of 2020.
Dr. Henderson directed a ten-year international effort from 1967–1977 that successfully eradicated smallpox. Following this, he served as Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health from 1977 to 1990. Toward the end of his career, Henderson worked on national programs for public health preparedness and response following biological attacks and national disasters.
In 2006, Henderson and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Health Security, where Henderson also maintained an academic appointment, published a landmark paper (embedded below) with the anodyne title, “Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza,” in the journal Biosecurity and Terrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science.
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