The Role of Communications

Dr. Dingle, I would like to pick up where my fellow-displaced Hoosier, Dr. Burney, left off, and comment on a couple of other problems of communication mentioned by others during this meeting. Dr. Burney observed that the failure to develop effective local information was an "Achilles heel" in your programs. Previously, Dr. Korns observed that most frequently he learned of influenza outbreaks through the newspapers, and one of your other young men, Dr. Rosenstock, said that the failure of many communities to put on effective influenza control programs was because the medical society officers sometimes used a "pocket veto." I have been both pleased and shocked at some of the things that I have heard during this session. I have been pleased with the reports of the research. I have been pleased with reports of epidemiology. I am pleased even if these reports do not filter down in many instances to the local physician who sees the patient and sets the policy. However, I have been shocked quite a bit at organized medicine, of which many of you are a formal part. Some of you are also in touchy situations as far as effectual participation in your local medical societies is concerned. I am supposed to discuss communications, particularly newspapers, radio, television, et cetera, all of which are media-usually entirely voluntary and free-used in health emergencies. I am not certain that, in many health matters, the mass media are not in the same unfortunate position that Dr. Payne of the World Health Organization mentioned, i.e., everyone being two months late in identifying the Asian strain because the Chinese did not tell anyone. Let me outline the problems of newspapers and other media, and then let us see if there are suggestions for solution of them which will be of mutual advantage. I live and work in Chicago. On February 1 or 2, I called the Chicago Board of Health to try to find out how much influenza we had had during the month of January, and naturally I had to get clearance from Dr. Her-