U.S. Senator Bill Frist (R-Tn) Delivers Remarks at the National Press Club On the Economic Impact of a Flu Pandemic

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U.S. Senator Bill Frist (R-Tn) Delivers Remarks at the National Press Club On the Economic Impact of a Flu Pandemic

SENATOR FRIST DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB ON THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF A FLU PANDEMIC

DECEMBER 8, 2005

SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR BILL FRIST (R-TN), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER

[*] FRIST: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

Imagine a cigarette carelessly (OFF-MIKE) When the elements are aligned, the path of a global pandemic is similar. Think of a fast-moving, highly contagious disease that wipes out 50 million people, 500,000 here in the United States. The killer pandemic claims more victims in 24 weeks than HIV/AIDS can claim in 24 years.

In the United States, the most developed nation in the world, bodies pile up in the streets. There aren't enough morticians to bury the dead. Nor are there enough doctors or nurses to tend to the sick.

Normal life stops. The churches close. The schools shutter. Communications and transportation grinds to a halt. The public succumbs to hysteria and panic. Police protection fails. Order decays. Productivity falls.

Sounds like science fiction, doesn't it? But what if I told you it already happened? What if I told you this was the pandemic flu that swept all across America, and indeed all across the globe, in 1918?

Or if I told you that this glimpse into the past might just be a preview to the future?

A viral pandemic is no longer a question of if, but it's a question of when. In recent weeks, the growing death toll of the avian flu virus and that mounting drumbeat of discussion have placed the virus under the microscope of the public eye.

While the story may recede from the cover of Newsweek and the centerfold of Time, I know that a threat that strikes at our very mortality, as this does, must not recede from the backdrop of our public concern.

FRIST: As a physician, as a heart surgeon, my entire professional life has centered on mortality, the preservation of life.

And, similarly, as public officials, the mortality of mankind should be our first and, if necessary, only concern.

Measured against just about everything else that we consider today, whether it's the budget or taxes or judges or pensions, your mortality, your life, is the most elemental responsibility that we are entrusted to address.

That is why we will not look away from what may come. So, today, I ask yo...

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