To Survive the Next Pandemic, Walk More, the NIH Says

"The standard pandemic-preparedness playbook "has failed catastrophically," NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and NIH Principal Deputy Director Matthew J. Memoli wrote in City Journal, a magazine and website published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative think tank. The pair argue that finding and studying pathogens that could cause outbreaks, then stockpiling vaccines against them, is a waste of money."

"On its own, Bhattacharya and Memoli's apparently serious suggestion that just being in better shape will carry the U.S. through an infectious crisis is reckless, experts told me-especially if it's executed at the expense of other public-health responses. In an email, Andrew Nixon, the director of communications at the Department of Health and Human Services-which oversees the NIH-wrote that the agency "supports a comprehensive approach to pandemic preparedness that recognizes the importance of both biomedical tools and the factors individuals can control.""

Two top NIH officials proposed shifting pandemic preparedness toward improving population baseline health—better diet, more exercise, smoking cessation, and control of hypertension and diabetes—instead of prioritizing pathogen surveillance and vaccine stockpiles. Public-health experts warned that relying on baseline health alone is reckless, particularly if it reduces investment in other critical responses. The Department of Health and Human Services affirmed support for a comprehensive strategy combining biomedical tools and individual health measures. The proposal aligns with a broader movement that questions germ theory and promotes anti-vaccine perspectives, exemplified by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s claims that scientists overemphasize infectious microbes.

Read at The Atlantic