SCIENCE: What Would Keep Ebola from Spreading in the US? Investing in Simple Research Years Ago. Sorry, too busy studying lesbian obesity rates. But this is true:

Detail is the question of whether health care workers treating pandemic-flu patients should expect viral spread for 3 feet or 6 feet; and why immunity conferred by the current pertussis vaccine fades a few years earlier than expected; and how hospitals can encourage their janitors to clean rooms more thoroughly, when they’ve always treated them as a disposable part of the staff.

All of those details are crucial to controlling those diseases. All of them are also research questions. None of them, guaranteed, have gotten the attention or funding that would answer the questions in a way that equips us to counter the dramatic problems.

Not sexy, not political. Thus, not done.