Going Public with Ebola; NEIDL Director says Scientists Need to Engage with the Public about the Disease
Original article from: BU Today posted on November 20, 2014. By Sara Rimer
Speaking at a public forum on Ebola at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) on November 7, 2014, NEIDL director Ronald B. Corley stressed the importance of scientists engaging with the public about the realities of the disease. The NEIDL, he said, has mounted an education outreach campaign to do just that.
“It’s not just about Ebola,” Corley told the audience of several dozen people from the business and health care community. “It’s about infectious diseases in general. It’s about research. We have to show we’re not just nerds working in a facility. We want to exchange information—not just with our nerd colleagues, but with the public in general. It’s not something we’ve done well over the last 10 to 20 years and it’s up to us to change, I think.”
The forum was convened by The New England Council, a business organization that has been a strong supporter of research at the NEIDL. Corley was joined by Nahid Bhadelia, a physician who is director of infection control for the NEIDL and who traveled to Sierra Leone in August to help care for Ebola patients; Paul Biddinger, chief of the division of emergency preparedness and medical director for emergency department operations at Massachusetts General Hospital; and Jamie Childs, a Yale School of Public Health senior research scientist and lecturer in epidemiology.