Overview

Physician and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb asks: Has America's COVID-19 catastrophe taught us anything? In Uncontrolled Spread, he shows how the coronavirus and its variants were able to trounce America's pandemic preparations, and he outlines the steps that must be taken to protect against the next outbreak. As the pandemic unfolded, Gottlieb was in regular contact with all the key players in Congress, the Trump administration, and the drug and diagnostic industries. He provides an inside account of how level after level of American government crumbled as the COVID-19 crisis advanced. A system-wide failure across government institutions left the nation blind to the threat, and unable to mount an effective response. We'd prepared for the wrong virus. We failed to identify the contagion early enough and became overly reliant on costly and sometimes divisive tactics that couldn't fully slow the spread. We never considered asymptomatic transmission and we assumed people would follow public health guidance. Key bureaucracies like the CDC were hidebound and outmatched. Weak political leadership aggravated these woes. We didn't view a public health disaster as a threat to our national security. Many of the woes sprung from the CDC, which has very little real-time reporting capability to inform us of Covid's twists and turns or assess our defenses. The agency lacked an operational capacity and mindset to mobilize the kind of national response that was needed. To guard against future pandemic risks, we must remake the CDC and properly equip it to better confront crises. We must also get our intelligence services more engaged in the global public health mission, to gather information and uncover emerging risks before they hit our shores so we can head them off. For this role, our clandestine agencies have tools and capabilities that the CDC lacks. Uncontrolled Spread argues we must fix our systems and prepare for a deadlier coronavirus variant, a flu pandemic, or whatever else nature -- or those wishing us harm -- may threaten us with. Gottlieb outlines policies and investments that are essential to prepare the United States and the world for future threats.

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9781665100205

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Reviews

Uncontrolled Spread will make you anxious, and it should. It is an intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened. It is also sprinkled with notes of true wisdom that may help all of us better prepare for the future. -- Sanjay Gupta, MD, New York Times bestselling author and CNN chief medical correspondent An intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened...[to] help all of us better prepare for the future. -- Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN chief medical correspondent If we had listened to Scott Gottlieb, 2020 might have been a very different year. We must listen to him now, before the next pandemic arrives. -- Mark Thiessen, Washington Post columnist and author of Courting Disaster

Uncontrolled Spread will make you anxious, and it should. It is an intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened. It is also sprinkled with notes of true wisdom that may help all of us better prepare for the future. -- Sanjay Gupta, MD, New York Times bestselling author and CNN chief medical correspondent An intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened...[to] help all of us better prepare for the future. -- Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN chief medical correspondent If we had listened to Scott Gottlieb, 2020 might have been a very different year. We must listen to him now, before the next pandemic arrives. -- Mark Thiessen, Washington Post columnist and author of Courting Disaster

Author Information

"Dr. Scott Gottlieb served as the twenty-third commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration and is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a regular contributor to the business news channel CNBC and a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates. Dr. Gottlieb serves on the board of directors of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. and the genomic sequencing company Illumina, Inc. Fortune magazine has recognized him as one of the ""World's 50 Greatest Leaders,"" and Time magazine has named him one of its ""50 People Transforming Healthcare."" A graduate of Wesleyan University and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Dr. Gottlieb is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. He lives with his family in Westport, Connecticut. Fred Sanders, an actor and Earphones Award-winning narrator, has received critics' praise for his audio narrations that range from nonfiction, memoir, and fiction to mystery and suspense. He been seen on Broadway in The Buddy Holly Story, in national tours for Driving Miss Daisy and Big River, and on such television shows as Seinfeld, The West Wing, Will and Grace, Numb3rs, Titus, and Malcolm in the Middle. His films include Sea of Love, The Shadow, and the Oscar-nominated short Culture. He is a native New Yorker and Yale graduate."

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