The thing you get concerned about is an outbreak of an infectious disease that’s respiratory-borne, that has a high degree of morbidity and mortality, such as a pandemic influenza.  You know, in 1918 we had a devastating pandemic that at the time killed from 50 to 100 million people — which, in the population back in 1918, that would spell out into many, many more people. So that’s the reason why we’re doing things right now to try and develop more universal countermeasures against these things.  And that’s what we need resources for, which is the reason why it’s a shame when you have budgetary constraints.

Like, one of those things is what’s called a universal influenza vaccine.  Namely, a vaccine that’s good against any strain of influenza: old strains, new strains, changing strains.  That’s something that we now have the scientific light at the end of the tunnel that we’ll be able to do that.  So yes, it keeps me up at night that one of these days that might happen, and you really want to be prepared for it, and one of the ways to be prepared is for an investment in basic clinical and translational research.  That’s what I think we all need to understand.