Too many people were dying from automobile crashes on highways. But people considered these crashes to be “accidents,” or acts of fate for which we could not know the cause. They argued that if we could not know the cause, we could not prevent them. People were not thinking of cause and effect.

People were looking for something to blame for an increase in gun violence and they focused on violent video games, movies, and music that seems to extol violence. But people did not really know which factors were causally associated with violent behaviors.

Implementing the smallpox surveillance and containment strategy required massive resources, commitment, and coordination. But moving from a traditional strategy, used for over a century and a half with clearly defined roles for every participant, to a new strategy simply seemed too labor intensive and impossible. This required mobilizing and coordinating hundreds of thousands of implementers with a gradual increase in the number of people involved.

Gun violence research sought ways to prevent unnecessary gun deaths, disabilities, and anxiety. Many gun owners opposed research by the CDC on gun violence prevention because they believed that the goal of the research was to take their guns away. But the rise of mass school shootings led to a change in perspective because everyone was concerned about the safety of their children.

Partners in Health (PIH) is a non-profit global health organization established by Paul Farmer, Jim Kim, and three colleagues to bring health care to the poorest people in low-income countries. PIH believed that these people deserve healthcare that was as good as the healthcare that rich people in the most advanced countries received. They found that poor people living in a shanty town outside of Lima, Peru had very high rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB), a disease that was notoriously hard to treat.