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Aired January 11, 2006 at 9pm on CBC-TV
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| DR. ROBERT WEBSTER |
Dr. Robert Webster is a world-renowned virologist, an expert in the structure and function of influenza virus proteins and the development of new vaccines and antivirals. He has spent more than 50 years studying influenza, and was the first to isolate and identify the strain of avian influenza that killed thousands of chickens in Hong Kong in 1997 (when it moved into humans, the virus killed a third of the people it infected). Dr. Webster has traced the history of pandemics back through time, analyzing the descriptions of illness in the ancient medical records held at the Royal Society in the United Kingdom. Dr. Webster’s laboratory contains more than 12,000 samples of avian influenza – a collection like no other in the world. There, he tracks new and emerging flu viruses and guides the development of vaccines to stop them. He calls H5N1 the “scariest thing” he’s ever seen, and is currently working to pinpoint the threat of influenza transfer among migratory birds – something he thinks would be a primary source of the influenza’s spread. |
| DR. JOHN OXFORD |
Dr. John Oxford is an expert in the study of viruses, and believes research and understanding of past epidemics are key to providing an early warning system against pandemics of the future. Dr. Oxford is a hunter of live virus samples from the 1918 “Spanish Flu” pandemic. In 1998 he joined a Canadian-led expedition to Spitsbergen, on the Norwegian island of Svalbard, to uncover the bodies of a group of miners who perished from the 1918 flu. The group hoped to extract the virus from preserved tissue samples buried in the permafrost. (They were able to obtain only small fragments - full sequencing of the virus was later established Jeffrey Taubenberger, based on samples obtained from Alaska .) |
| DR. DAVID FEDSON |
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Dr. David Fedson is an expert in vaccines of many kinds, including influenza. After spending 30 years as a clinician and researcher in the Universities of Chicago and Virginia, Dr. Fedson joined the Medical Department of Aventis Pasteur MSD, a vaccine company located in Lyon, France. Since the mid-1970s Dr. Fedson's research has focused on adult immunization with influenza and pneumococcal vaccines. During this time he has published more than 100 scientific articles, chapters, and abstracts on the subject. Dr Fedson is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. |
| JOHN M. BARRY |
John M. Barry is the author of The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, which tells the devastating story of the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, and more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. Barry has been watching the emergence of the most recent avian flu threat, and has suggestions for ways in which we might head off another flu pandemic. Barry is the author of four previous books, including the highly acclaimed and award-winning Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. |
| DR. DAVID BUTLER JONES |
Dr. David Butler Jones works on behalf of the public to inform and provide leadership to the government's efforts to protect the health and safety of Canadians. He also manages services, both laboratory and expert, to health officials across the country in order to support the public health system in Canada. Previously, Dr. Butler Jones has served as Chief Medical Health Officer for the Province of Saskatchewan and Executive Director of the Population Health and Primary Health Services Branch for the province. He has worked in many parts of Canada and has experience with consultations and work exchanges in places as diverse as the Dominican Republic, Turkey, Scotland, Brazil, Kosovo, and Chile. |
| DR. ALLISON McGEER |
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Dr. Allison McGeer is one of Canada’s foremost infectious disease specialists. At Mount Sinai Hospital, she has developed a clinical and epidemiologic research groups to conduct population-based surveillance for infectious diseases and to study infection risks, prevention and control in long-term care settings. In addition to her position as director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. McGeer is an infection control consultant to The Scarborough Hospital and the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. She is also an Associate Professor of Pathobiology and Laboratory Medicine and Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. |
| DR. RON ST. JOHN |
Dr. Ron St. John is the Director General of the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response at Health Canada. Created in July 2000, the centre serves as the country’s coordinating point for public health security in Canada. Dr. St. John has also served as director of the Office of Public Health Security at Health Canada where he was responsible for planning, programming and policy review for quarantine and migration health, travel medicine, the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, and counter-terrorism. |
| PROFESSOR ROY ANDERSON |
Professor Roy M. Anderson is head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, University of London. His previous positions include the Linacre Professorship and head of Zoology, University of Oxford (1993-98), professor of parasite epidemiology and head of biology, Imperial College (1984-93) and director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology, University of Oxford (1995-2000). Professor Anderson is a fellow of the Royal Society and a foreign associate member of the Institute of Medicine at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. His principal research interests are epidemiology, population biology, evolutionary biology, biomathematics, demography, and parasitology. He also has a keen interest in science policy and the public understanding of science. |
| MAJOR-GENERAL LEWIS MACKENZIE |
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Major-General Lewis MacKenzie spent 33 years in the Canadian military, performing nine tours as a peacekeeper and commanding ground troops in some of the world's most dangerous places: the Gaza strip, Cyprus, Vietnam, Cairo, Central America and Sarajevo. General MacKenzie retired from the Canadian Forces in March 1993. He is the author of Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo, a personal account of his peacekeeping experiences, and subject of a two-hour documentary, "A Soldier's Peace", based on the book, which has aired in over 60 countries and won a New York Film Festival award in 1996. |
| DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM |
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Dr. Michael Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), associate director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD), and professor in the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In June 2005 Dr. Osterholm was appointed to the newly established National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity. Dr. Osterholm has been an international leader regarding preparedness for an influenza pandemic. His recent papers in the journals Foreign Affairs, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature detail the threat of an influenza pandemic and steps that should be taken in preparation for that event. |
| DR. FRANK PLUMMER |
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Dr. Frank Plummer is Canada’s leading virus hunter. He has spent much of his career working to develop an AIDS vaccine, focussing his research on African AIDS victims who appeared to have a natural immunity. In June 2005, Dr. Plummer and his team received $8.3 million US from the Gates Foundation to continue the studies on Kenyan prostitutes and develop a potential vaccine against HIV. Dr. Plummer also led Canada’s effort to uncover the cause of the SARS outbreak. |
| DR. MARGARET CHAN |
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Dr. Margaret Chan began her career in public health in the People’s Republic of China, after obtaining her medical degree fro the University of Western Ontario. In 1994, she was appointed Director of Health of Hong Kong. During her nine-year tenure in the position, Dr. Chan launched new preventative and promotive health care initiatives. She also developed new initiatives to improve communicable disease surveillance and response. Currently, she serves as Assistant Director General of Communicable Diseases at the World Health Organization. During her time in Hong Kong, Dr. Chan successfully managed outbreaks of avian influenza and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). |
| DR. JEFFREY TAUBENBERGER |
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Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger is a pathologist at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., and heads the institute's division of molecular pathology. In March 1997, a team of pathologists led by Taubenberger published a report in the journal Science about their discovery of genetic material from the influenza of 1918. Dr. Taubenberger’s hopes research into the 1918 viral genome will help improve current systems for predicting future pandemics. Dr. Taubenberger and his colleagues have also developed new methods to analyze the molecular makeup of preserved tissues and virus fragments. His aim is to bring the 1918 virus back to life by analyzing virus samples from victims of the virus, in the hopes of protecting the world from a repeat of the 1918 pandemic. |
| DR. KULKANYA CHOKEPHAIBULKIT |
Dr.
Frank Plummer
Dr.
Margaret Chan
Dr.
Jeffrey Taubenberger
Dr.
Kulkanya Chokephaibulkit