Super Course-Newsletter, September 29
-------------------------------------
Sept. 29, 2001
Newsletter
Supercourse: www.pitt.edu/~super1
Dear Friend,
Sept. 11, 2001:
We appreciate so much the notes that you have sent to us. We have re-
ceived over 300 beautiful letters. Clearly we are appalled with the
public health consequences of terrorism, whether it be in this coun-
try or elsewhere. Your notes made us feel much better.
I (REL) just completely re-wrote the grant that we put on the web be-
cause of Sept. 11. The reason for this, is that I am a Professor in
Public Health, yet in the days following the Terrorist attack all I
could do was to sit bleary eyed in front of the television. Looking
back, I could have helped a lot of people if I were to present and
teach on the public health aspects of terrorism. However, I am a spe-
cialized diabetes epidemiologist. If I would have had Super course
lectures on hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorists attacks, I could have
helped, you could have helped in Germany, Iran, China, Tunisia as
well, by presenting to your students, family, and community about
this attack, or disasters in your own country. I therefore submitted
a grant to build 400 Supercourse lectures as background material with
your help, and then to construct just in time lectures. For example,
if there was a flood in India, we could generate a lecture on the
flood by our friends in India that could be used worldwide. Please
feel free to use parts of this grant for your own work. If you would
like to see what we wrote, please go to:
www.pitt.edu/~super2/GRANT2
We received beautiful comments, with many people obviously very upset
about the attack, and what will happen afterwards. Several suggested
that we "politicize" the lecture. Although we agreed with many of the
arguments, if we lose our scientific neutrality, we lose our network
and friends. We are going to avoid doing this, if people want a po-
litical advocacy model, there are other forums and the Super course
will try to stay politically neutral, while scientifically/teaching
on the cutting edge.
Status of the Supercourse:
The speed to which we are developing is astonishing. Currently there
are 4702 members. These people come form 130 countries out of 189 as
listed by the UN!!. This represents 69% of the countries of the
world. Wouldn't it be fantastic to have faculty members from every
country of the world? Below represents the countries listed by the
UN. It would be wonderful if you could identify people in these coun-
tries to have them join our effort, so we can get 100% of the world.
You can look to see how many people are from your country.
We are very pleased to have published in the BMJ last week an arti-
cle: Islam with the internet could do much to prevent disease
Abdullatif Husseini and Ronald E LaPorte for the Islamic Global
Health Network. BMJ 2001; 323: 694.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/694/b
Abed has done a wonderful job in developing this, and kindly allowing
me (REL) to participate. We want to focus part of the Supercourse as
a whole in preventing disease in Arab/Islamic populations. People
from all religions are invited to join.
Sadly, 5 days before the attack, we published an article titled: To-
wards an internet civil defense against bioterrorism: in the Lancet.
http://infection.thelancet.com/journal/vol1/iss2/full/laid.1.2.review
_and_opinion.17562.1. In this we argued that a virtual global civil
defense/neighborhood watch could help protect all of our countries
against terrorism. The concept was an open system where we as virtual
neighbors would help watch out for each other. It you have the oppor-
tunity to review it; we would very much like your opinion. We think
that this group of almost 5000 experts could use our public health
minds to be used to protect each other, and the world.
Format of lectures: We are excited as to the number of letters coming
in. Once again, it is important to indicate what we are looking for.
We want articles that are on epidemiology, global health and the
Internet. These need to be sent to us in PowerPoint. Several people
have been asking us to put their text papers, or even transparencies
into PowerPoint. We cannot do this. Most of the lectures are being
done in Siberia by a good friend, and one of the developers of the
Supercourse, Eugene Shubnikov, M.D.
Lectures: We are closing in, but it is going to be close. We cur-
rently have 474 lectures. We need 26 more to have 500 lectures by
Halloween!!! We would love to get some lectures from you, so that you
can be part of the pre-Halloween 500 lecture club.
We look forward to talking with you.
Best regards from Pittsburgh.
Ron, Akira, Eun Ryoung, Faina, Mita, Fan, Eugene, Arin, Abed, Deb,
Tom, Beatriz, Grace
If you would like to come off this list, please send a note to su-
per2@pitt.edu
Country - Number of people on supercourse
Afghanistan -
Albania -
Algeria -
Andorra -
Angola -
Antigua and Barbuda -
Argentina - 56
Armenia - 1
Australia - 75
Austria - 8
Azerbaijan -
Bahamas -
Bahrain - 1
Bangladesh - 2
Barbados -
Belarus - 1
Belgium - 11
Belize -
Benin -
Bhutan -
Bolivia - 6
Bosnia and Herzegovina -
Botswana - 1
Brazil - 98
Brunei -
Bulgaria - 4
Burkina Faso - 2
Burundi -
Cambodia - 3
Cameroon - 6
Canada - 571
Cape Verde -
Central African Republic -
Chad -
Chile - 9
China - 47
Colombia - 41
Comoros -
Democratic Republic of the Congo - 1
Republic of the Congo -
Costa Rica - 6
Cote d'Ivoire - 2
Croatia - 4
Cuba - 97
Cyprus - 2
Czech Republic - 5
Denmark - 11
Djibouti -
Dominica -
Dominican Republic -
Ecuador - 4
Egypt - 9
El Salvador -
Equatorial Guinea -
Eritrea - 2
Estonia - 1
Ethiopia - 2
Fiji -
Finland - 17
France - 19
Gabon - 1
The Gambia - 2
Georgia - 2
Germany - 59
Ghana - 8
Greece - 6
Grenada -
Guatemala - 3
Guinea -
Guinea-Bissau -
Guyana - 2
Haiti - 1
Honduras - 1
Hungary - 2
Iceland - 2
India - 46
Indonesia - 20
Iran - 11
Iraq -
Ireland - 22
Israel - 25
Italy - 34
Jamaica - 5
Japan - 54
Jordan - 1
Kazakhstan -
Kenya - 11
Kiribati -
North Korea - 9
South Korea - 3
Kuwait - 4
Kyrgyzstan -
Laos - 1
Latvia -
Lebanon - 2
Lesotho - 1
Liberia -
Libya -
Liechtenstein -
Lithuania - 3
Luxembourg -
Macedonia - 3
Madagascar -
Malawi - 4
Malaysia - 26
Maldives -
Mali - 2
Malta - 2
Marshall Islands -
Mauritania -
Mauritius - 2
Mexico - 26
Micronesia -
Moldova - 2
Monaco -
Mongolia -
Morocco - 5
Mozambique - 3
Myanmar (Burma) -
Namibia - 5
Nauru -
Nepal - 2
Netherlands - 34
New Zealand - 11
Nicaragua -
Niger - 2
Nigeria - 9
Norway - 17
Oman - 3
Pakistan - 27
Palau -
Panama - 2
Papua New Guinea -
Paraguay - 1
Peru - 75
Philippines - 4
Poland - 16
Portugal - 8
Qatar -
Romania - 4
Russia - 9
Rwanda -
Saint Kitts and Nevis -
Saint Lucia -
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -
Samoa - 1
San Marino -
Sao Tome and Principe -
Saudi Arabia - 10
Senegal - 4
Seychelles - 1
Sierra Leone -
Singapore - 9
Slovakia -
Slovenia -
Solomon Islands -
Somalia -
South Africa - 57
Spain - 48
Sri Lanka - 2
Sudan - 5
Suriname -
Swaziland - 1
Sweden - 15
Syria -
Tajikistan -
Tanzania - 7
Thailand - 21
Togo - 1
Tonga -
Trinidad and Tobago - 2
Tunisia - 1
Turkey - 18
Turkmenistan -
Tuvalu -
Uganda - 4
Ukraine - 3
United Arab Emirates - 6
United Kingdom - 126
United States - 2154
Uruguay - 4
Uzbekistan - 1
Vanuatu -
Venezuela - 9
Vietnam - 7
Yemen -
Yugoslavia - 1
Zambia - 1
Zimbabwe - 8
Ron Laporte
mailto:super3+@pitt.edu
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