• WE’RE ALREADY BARRELING TOWARD THE NEXT PANDEMIC - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/america-prepared-next-pandemic/620238

    America’s frustrating inability to learn from the recent past shouldn’t be surprising to anyone familiar with the history of public health.

    Inability ou unwillingness?

    During the pandemic, many of the public-health experts who appeared in news reports hailed from wealthy coastal universities, creating a perception of the field as well funded and elite. That perception is false. In the early 1930s, the U.S. was spending just 3.3 cents of every medical dollar on public health, and much of the rest on hospitals, medicines, and private health care. And despite a 90-year span that saw the creation of the CDC, the rise and fall of polio, the emergence of HIV, and relentless calls for more funding, that figure recently stood at … 2.5 cents. Every attempt to boost it eventually receded, and every investment saw an equal and opposite disinvestment. A preparedness fund that was created in 2002 has lost half its budget, accounting for inflation.

    #santé_publique #états-unis