TMC PULSE

t m c » p u l s e | j u n e 2 0 1 5 7 Classified under this umbrella are the exploding rates of cancer, heart diseases, chronic lung disease and diabetes. "We recognize that while we call them non-commu- nicable diseases, they are, in fact, communicable. I call them socio-communicable diseases, because they are spread from society to society, often from rich western societies to some of the poorer societies," Daulaire explained. "The drivers there are not just the health interventions, but what we call the social and economic determinants of health. Trade policy is relevant, eco- nomic development priorities, the ways in which food is processed and distributed and used—all of these things need to be a part of our common dialogue between the two strongest economies in the world in order to help protect those that are less fortunate than we are." Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., who serves as U.S. Science Envoy (North Africa and Middle East), dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, professor of pediatrics and molecular & virology and microbiology and head of the Section of Pediatric Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics, and direc- tor of the Sabin Vaccine Institute Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, expanded on Daulaire's remarks and stressed the importance of addressing poverty in the context of global health. "If you look at poor people across the planet, every single poor person living in poverty has at least one neglected tropical disease," Hotez explained. "We all know about Ebola, but the rest are what I call the most important diseases you've never heard of. They occur in the setting of poverty and they also cause poverty. Many of these neglected tropical diseases and chron- ically debilitating infections actually shave IQ points off children. We've shown that hookworm actually reduces your future wages by 40 percent, that many of these diseases make individuals too sick to go to work, or they affect the health of girls and women—the point is that every single person living in poverty has them, and these are the stealth diseases that trap the bottom 1.5 bil- lion people in the world in this vicious cycle of poverty." Giroir echoed these sentiments in a later session. "Sometimes, curing and preventing infectious diseases means more about economic development than it does a specific vaccine," he said. "There can never be global economic development until we release the poorest 1.5 billion people on the planet from the traps of pov- erty and illness." Thomas Frieden, M.D., director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who delivered one of the keynote addresses, focused on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the importance of early intervention and preparedness in the future, including an increased focus on biosafety and security, immunization, surveillance of zoonotic diseases in humans and the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. By utilizing surveillance technology, lab-work and enhanced information systems, and increasing disease detectives and other public health staff throughout the world, Frieden explained that nations could respond more rapidly and effectively to the emerging and ongoing public health crises. He encouraged conference attendees to commit resources to field epidemiology training programs and national public health institutes throughout the world. "It would be wonderful if one of the collabora- tions between the U.S. and China would be to help strengthen, identify and support national public insti- tutions like CDCs in countries in Africa and Asia and all over the world, because they provide the sustain- able basis for keeping people safe," Frieden said. That the prestigious international conference was set in Houston, in the middle of the Texas Medical Center, was no coincidence. For one, TAMHSC is home to the Texas A&M Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (CIADM), one of only three centers in the country established as a public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help ensure the development and production of lifesaving vaccines and therapies in the event of a pandemic or other national emergency. Even more, Houston is famously driven by innovation in medicine, and it is only fitting that some of the world's most celebrated scientists and policymakers would convene here to collaborate on such pressing issues. "We are known as an oil and gas capital, and that is still very much a part of who we are as a city and what fuels our economy," said Mayor Annise Parker during the opening ceremony. "But the single big- gest destination for foreign visitors to Houston is the Texas Medical Center—as doctors, as researchers, as patients, as thought leaders—and in our examination of what we are as a city, we've discovered some things: oil is what drives our economy, space is what fuels our imaginations—because we are the home of NASA and the astronaut corps—but medicine is our future." FIRST HELD IN 2003 UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH, THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE WORKS TO ADVANCE HIS VISION AND LEGACY OF ESTABLISHING BETTER UNDERSTANDING, CLOSER TIES, AND COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE U.S. AND CHINA. Political and scientific leaders from the U.S. and China speak at the opening reception program for the 6th George H.W. Bush China-U.S. Relations Conference.

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