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We are live and folks are joining us. And I'm excited about that because I've got a great friend here today, Dr. Tom Frieden, who was the former director of the CDC. And he has a new book. And it's called The Formula, The Formula for Better Health. And that's not at one level. It's at two levels, both at the individual and the population level. So there's a lot to discuss here, Tom.
Congratulations. I know the book was formally published yesterday. Is that right?
Absolutely. Thank you, Eric.
Yeah, no, it's really... Very thoughtful. And we're going to go through some of the really great points in it because you have nailed some of the issues that we are confronting to get us to a much healthier state, both as Americans or globally, and also as a personal health story. Now, one of the things that I thought was so perfect that you delved into was the Cassandra curse.
This is kind of a cornerstone of the book. and you take it to great extent. So maybe you can start with that about the Greek mythology, this curse, and how it all applies to getting us healthier.
Thanks so much, Eric. The Cassandra Curse, actually the working title for the book, which I've worked on on and off for 10 years, was How to Break Public Health's Cassandra Curse. And then I found out that most people hadn't heard of Cassandra. So that wasn't going to be a very effective book title. Cassandra was a priestess in Greek mythology, and she was blessed with foresight.
She could foresee the future and future tragedies that were going to strike. But She was cursed that nobody believed her when she prophesied those future tragedies, and so they all came to pass. And that's been what we've been like in public health and actually as individuals also. And breaking the Cassandra curse is part of the formula.
It is really an approach that's been proven that has saved millions, actually literally hundreds of millions of lives, and can save hundreds of millions more. And it's really relevant for individual health as well. And the approach, the formula is see Cassandra. believe, create. Three phases. And the Cassandra curse is really part of the C phase.
We have to see the invisible threats that are coming at us that are going to kill us. We also have to see the toxins that we can't see in our environment that may be poisoning us. And we also have to see the trends of... You know, like Ebola, when I was running CDC, Ebola was exploding in West Africa. We couldn't get anyone to pay attention.
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