In the battle to eradicate smallpox in India in 1974, finding and containing thousands of outbreaks was the key to getting smallpox under control. In mid 1974, the number of new outbreaks was starting to decrease slightly. The strategy of surveillance and containment - which included a massive workforce, tireless efforts, and rewards for identifying new cases - was paying off. But then we started to notice that members of previously vaccinated families were still coming down with smallpox. We should not have been seeing these new cases.

Infants were dying in rural health centers because they had complications that couldn't be dealt with in those hospitals. Doctors thought that a way to address this would be to transfer them to a larger hospital with more neonatal capacity. But, when the transfer solution was tried, it turned out that more infants were dying. Lives were not being saved. Babies continued to die because the transportation to the secondary or tertiary facilities took so long. The infants could not survive the trip.

Gun violence takes an extraordinary toll on individuals, families, and communities in the United States. But the NRA has been successful in working through Congress to make sure that much of the critical data for assessing the problem, and finding interventions that work, is not collected, maintained, or made available.