Ending the War Metaphor: The Changing Agenda for Unraveling the Host-Microbe Relationship. Workshop Summary

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Released On:

June 23, 2006

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In the mid-1970s, the U.S. Surgeon General claimed that infectious diseases had been conquered through the development and use of antibiotics and vaccines and that therefore it was time to shift the U.S. government's attention and resources to the "War on Cancer". The ensuing years have brought us Legionnaire's disease, toxic shock syndrome, an awareness of Lyme disease, outbreaks of hantavirus throughout the southwestern United States, SARS, and of course, HIV. The discovery that infection with Helicobacter pylori is associated with peptic ulcer and gastric cancer has led to an increasing search for the infectious nature of other "noninfectious" diseases such as atherosclerosis.

Infectious diseases remain the leading causes of death and morbidity on our planet. For these reasons, the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats hosted the public workshop on "Ending the War Metaphor: The Future Agenda for Unraveling the Host-Microbe Relationship" which aimed to inform the Forum, the public, and policymakers of the dynamic host-microbe-environment relationships and to explore the issues that must be resolved to better prepare and protect the global community from infectious disease threats.

This report is a summary of that workshop.

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