COOPERSTOWN _ Americans are better prepared to cope with disasters than they were seven years ago, but recent efforts have been lagging, according to Dr. Donald Henderson, professor of public health and medicine at Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity.
Henderson, who was an intern at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown in the 1950s, delivered this message during a lecture at the hospital Friday.
``We are better prepared than we were before Sept. 11, 2001, but as often happens, when we get farther away from a disaster, we tend to grow complacent,'' he said.
And complacence is not warranted in the 21st century, he said, with threats that range from terrorist plots to tsunamis.
``I think of what we accomplished in the United States after 2001 as something like a vaccination,'' said Henderson, who directed the World Health Organization's global smallpox eradication efforts in the 1960s and 1970s.
``A vaccination provides a lot of protection at first, but less and less over time,'' he said.
In medicine, a second vaccination may provide much longer-lived protection, and the United States needs that booster shot, he said.
Disaster planners need workable evacuation plans, especially for urban areas such as greater New Orleans, said Henderson, who served as associate director of life science under President George H.W. Bush and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, from the current President Bush.
The efforts to rescue New Orleans' residents from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were every bit as hapless as the media portrayed them, he said.
``That was a mess. They had medical teams ready to go, but no one to authorize them and let them in,'' he said.
Although rural areas may be spared some of the mass confusion that affects cities in the throes of disaster, rural residents and their emergency officials should also be prepared for emergencies, he said.
Floods, tornadoes and flu pandemics are among the disasters that hit the countryside, said Henderson, and he noted that dire events in one part of the world can sometimes ripple out far from the source.
Henderson, who served on the hospital's Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2002, was introduced Friday morning by Dr. John Davis, who called him ``a treasure, one of our very best.''
These thoughts were echoed by Dr. William F. Streck, Bassett's president.
Henderson, ``a distinguished service professor at Johns Hopkins University,'' said he enjoyed his years at Bassett and was happy to return to Cooperstown.
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