European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 24, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Doil Magazine the disease prevention front a cd s William Foege Battlefield tactics to eradicate smallpox. By Jack Stillman associated pressm Ore than a decade ago or. William h. Foege was huddled Over maps and micros Copic slides plotting his next step in the War against  medical missionary then the 6-foot-7 Foege was among the frontline fighters against a disease that was killing Between 500,000 and a million people a year. Today his Hopes of wiping out smallpox Are All but realized. By next year says Foege now director of the National Center for disease control in Atlanta smallpox will have just about disappeared from the Earth. He has new enemies to keep him Busy. Legionnaire s disease for example. His cd re searchers painstakingly tracked it Down to a bacterium. Now they Are finding it was not just an isolated Strain in an outbreak following the Pennsyl Vania american legion convention in Philadelphia last year. The latest incidence was in Burlington it. And Colum bus Ohio and the same Strain of bacterium has been identified in other outbreaks Over the past 15 years. Foege is confident that cd researchers eventually will discover How it is spread. Foege became director of the cd after last year s ill fated Swine flu immunization program. He says he plans no changes in the Center s Mode of operation but he d like to see the government do More to get people to Stop smoking. That tics in with Foege s stress on preventive medi Cine. Preventing disease has been the most significant Factor in our current longevity. It s been More important than curative Medicine. The effects of cigarette smoking May turn out to be the number one preventive Medicine problem in the country. The health people discuss this As a health prob Lem. There Are others who discuss it in terms of the econ omy. The implication is that the Economy is More important than the health aspects. I Don t think the argument makes much  he d like to see tobacco advertising much More restricted and believes the government should find ways to help people who want to Stop smoking but can to and also to Aid Farmers who give up growing tobacco. Foege pronounced Fay ghee is a vigorous 41, jogs two Miles each Day and considers a backpacking trip into the wilderness with his wife and three Young sons As the Ideal vacation. His sense of humor is an asset that sometimes overrides the tensions and difficulties that doctors and scientists sometimes find when they work for in Arm of government. Or. Donald Millar director of the cd s Bureau of state services recalls feeling the Burden of the Swine flu troubles both when it was unclear whether the vaccine would be needed it was t and later whether it was Safe. I was Down and out about a lot of criticism that was coming from All sides Millar says. I told Bill Foege that we needed a resident chaplain at the cd with whom we could  at the next staff meeting Foege presented a priest and told Millar your wish is my command. He s your father  i must say the priest listened to me patiently says Millar. Foege grew up in Chewelah wash., and retains a keen interest in the history of the West. He is an avid Reader and though much of what he reads is reports and scientific journals he still finds time for history. Unlike the fashionable pessimism of Many his View of the future is that life and the Quality of it will steadily improve. Life expectancy in the United states now is 72 years six More than a generation or so ago and Foege likes to think the cd had something to do with it. Foege is the ninth director of. The cd which was formed in 1946. He directs the activities of its 3,500 employees scattered throughout the world. A graduate of Pacific lutheran University he was named assistant director in 1975 after two years As director of the world health organization s smallpox eradication program. He became cd director last Spring. Even in the beginning Foege wanted to get in the Middle of things. As a recruit in the cd s epidemic intelligence service he asked to be assigned in the Field. Most wanted jobs in the Atlanta Center. After two years As an epidemiologist with the state of Colorado where he was assigned by the Eis he resigned to become a medical missionary to the Immanual medi Cal Center at ban Sara Nigeria. It was there that Foege began to plot his War against smallpox. He used Battlefield tactics says Millar who was in charge of the cd s smallpox eradication program at the time. He plotted where the disease broke out and that s where we attacked it. We had just gotten our Field people into West Africa. The civil War broke out in Nigeria and we got a contract with him to help us As a  Foege s family was sent Home As the civil War spread but Foege and the Small band of disease fighters worked on. Finally the doctors and other missionaries were pulled out of Nigeria in 1968, and Millar talked Foege into working for the cd. Foege likes to talk about what medical science has accomplished generally in reducing disease but the old enemy has t run out of tricks. New viruses keep crop Ping up Lassa fever marburg fever and ebola fever among the More recent. All Are often fatal but Only Lassa fever has occurred in the United states an import from Africa. Well continue to see new viruses and each time Well react As fast As we can to see How they spread and How to control them he says. No one will be foolish enough to say we will know All the answers. But the More we plan the More we will be prepared. We have Access to the whole world we get cooperation from everybody including  and there s always influenza mild at times severe at others. While the Swine flu program troubled from the Start gave cd a Blank Eye in the View of Many Foege notes that it was the first time that epidemiologists detected a shift in the flu virus fast enough to develop a vaccine quickly to fight it. The epidemic did t occur so we could t prove  he says. Foege and cd keep a wary Eye on shifting flu strains. We try to get new clues All the time. We share the surveillance with the world health organization we do the Southern hemisphere including South America South Africa and Australia. So far this year we be spotted Noth ing that will give us a clue As to the character of this win Ter s flu if we have any. The influenza surveillance program last year was the most elaborate we be had and it will continue this  the 135 ill com doll a Man monday october 24, 1977 the stars and stripes Page 13