Why Should Clinicians Care About Infectious Disease Existential Hazards?

Of all infectious disease events, pandemics could result in significant human depopulation in this Anthropocene epoch or even in the next few centuries. Existential factors that exacerbate pandemic risk include global warming, overpopulation, habitat loss, permafrost thawing, geopolitical conflict, and bioterrorism from naturally occurring or engineered pathogens. This article argues that clinicians have ethical duties to strengthen global public health systems and research on pandemic risk factors, promote proven prevention strategies (especially vaccines), and incentivize domestic and international partnerships that build capacity to respond to existential pandemic harms. Scientific literacy is an intellectual vaccine against the ... charlatans who would exploit ignorance. Neil deGrasse Tyson1.