ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on opportunities for organizational improvement at the national and international levels in response to the Covid pandemic. It is an arena where health professionals could make an even greater difference than they already have. Similar to the relationship between physicians Bernard Lown and Yevgeny Chazov, the founders of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in the 1980s, hopefully, there will emerge another pair, or better yet, a group of health professionals from different countries and continents to better address this and future pandemics. A new group of health professionals pursuing effective pandemic responses could represent the next generation of health-based peacebuilding. Such a group of health professionals would constitute leadership in its best form. While absent today, hopefully, this will emerge over time with this book playing a small part in its emergence. In the meantime, leaders can focus on making necessary changes in national and international health organizations. That is the focus of this chapter. In particular, this chapter will focus on needed reforms at the Federal level with a separate section on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and international agencies with a particular focus on the World Health Organization (WHO).
