Interview Transcript
Interview
Dr. Bruce Weniger with Dr David Sencer
Transcribed: January 2009 | 0:31:56]
Dr. Weniger: First, this is Dr. Bruce Weniger, who is currently a CDC
employee. I am Dr. Sencer doing the interviewing. It's March
31st 2008 at 1:15-Bruce knows that this is being recorded and
has signed permission for us to use it.
Dr. Sencer: Tell me a little about your early days, Bruce.
Dr. Weniger: Well, I got involved with the Smallpox Program
actually before I -
Dr. Sencer: Let's go back to earlier than that-where are you
from?
Dr. Weniger: Well, I was born in New York, and grew up in New York and
went to college at Brown for a few years and then an
Experimental School in New York State, University at Old
Westbury, and then did a year of Law School at Berkeley, and
then did my pre-med courses when I decided that law was not as
interesting as I thought medicine would be, and then completed
those and got into UCLA School of Medicine and did my Medical
and Public Health Degrees at UCLA in Los Angeles.
Dr. Sencer: Why did you come into Public Health Service?
Dr. Weniger: Well, my role model there was Sandhu - I am trying to
remember his name. I am forgetting the name of the person who
was on the staff there who had been a CDC EIS graduate, I'll
probably think of it eventually-and became interested in public
health because you were treating the whole community rather than
one patient at a time and it was exciting. So immediately after
doing that two years of pediatrics training I applied to the EIS
Program and got in, in 1980 and started in Parasitic Diseases
and then did Preventive Medicine Residency at the University of
Oregon State Health Department and then Phil Brockwin[unsure of
0:02:22] assigned me to the Field Epidemiology Training Program
in Thailand where I did a three-year tour of duty as the Second
WHO Advisor to the FETPs as they were called, which were
basically carbon copies of the Epidemic Intelligence Service,
and the Thailand one was the first one outside of CDC around the
world. I went back to CDC after that for a few years, working in
International Health and then went back in 1990 to found and
start the CDC HIV AIDS Field Research Station in Bangkok in
collaboration with the Thai Government that I'd gotten to know
during my first assignment there. So we began that project and
when I left it had about 40 Thai nationals and two Americans, me
and Nancy Young, and now it's a multi-million dollar project
with like 10 or 15 Americans and 100 or so, or more, Thai
nationals.
Dr. Sencer: How did you happen to get involved with the Smallpox
Program?
Dr. Weniger: Well, I was at the time at the UCLA School of Public
Health and Medicine and Davida Coady was on the faculty there,
had worked in India on smallpox and at the time in '75 there was
a need for surge, if you pardon the expression, of a large
number of personnel to go into Bangladesh and India because of
some problems with the displacements of people from natural
disasters and a whole bunch of new outbreaks that were
occurring, and so I was among about a dozen or so people from
Los Angeles, UCLA and elsewhere that were brought over as short-
term consultants for WHO and she recommended my name. Peter
Drockman[inaudible name0:03:40], Mike Cenerelli, Mark Strasburg,
and a number of other names you may recall were in that cohort
that went around June of 1975 to Bangladesh and spent three
months there.
Dr. Sencer: This was before you came to CDC?
Dr. Weniger: It's actually before I came to CDC, but I still got credit
with my little ribbon on my uniform, Stan Foster was kind enough
to give me credit for that.
Dr. Sencer: Who was your supervisor in Bangladesh?
Dr. Weniger: I would say Nick Ward was one of them. Of course, Stan
Foster ran the program and Andy Hagel[inaudible name0:04:17] was
there handing out the big stacks of money that we needed for
buying off this epidemic, which is how I sort of feel we solved
- we basically eradicated smallpox by buying it off with hiring
tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of health workers
around the world to do the grassroots work of searching for
every last case and surrounding the cases and vaccinating and so
forth. Those are two of the names, and Daniel Tarantola was
there as well, and a number of other names that will come to
mind I think as we progress.
Dr. Sencer: What was your first impression of the Smallpox
Program?
Dr. Weniger: Well, it was remarkable in many ways. Obviously as a young
epidemiologist still in training, technically, I just took
everything for granted: that we would hire people on the spot,
15 or 20-30 people off the street literally, or the brother or
cousin of somebody who was already on our team, pay them Seven
Taka a day, and the nature of the job was basically assigned to
search teams to go to this village, you go here, you go there,
and then our role for the most part was checking that they
actually did the work and when we went to a village and they
said nobody showed up showing this Smallpox Recognition Card, we
knew that fellow didn't do the work, he didn't get paid and he
was fired. So it was basically a supervisory role of organizing
search campaigns and of course once we found cases, we assigned
people to stay in that village and vaccinate, guard the patient,
pay money to the patient's family to feed them, keep them at
home and vaccinate within that containment ring.
Dr. Sencer: What were some of your most vivid recollections of things
that happened while you were there?
Dr. Weniger: After 30 or so years, one's memory fades. I brought some
journal entries that I had written back then that I think
captured more live what I was feeling. Let me see if I can turn
to some of my impressions here. These are still on my way to the
location, here's our welcome in Delhi on the 15th of June;
Martin Jones from WHO brought us in. I do remember it was about
114 degrees as we walked from the airplane to the terminal.
Let's see if I can come up with something interesting other than
the details with the actual work in the field.
I am in Narshingdi, we had our district meeting in Dhaka - this
is 23rd of June, 1975 - I'm in Narshingdi, we had our district
meeting in Dhaka this morning, ordered some supplies and already
ate a hearty lunch at the American Recreation Association,
courtesy of Finance Officer, Tim so-and-so, loaded the jeep with
my luggage and took off. Roland and I -
This is Roland Sipple -
...rode two Suzuki 80s on the two-hour drive through the
countryside. What a thrill to speed along on a motorcycle past
the rice paddies and lush fields of green jute with the sun
setting behind one's shoulder and the clouds making beautiful
formations in the clear, blue and pink sky. Bangladesh has the
most lovely clouds, majestic, substantial and pure white almost
like kinetic sculpture. We rode into Narshingdi under the full
moon's light. What a challenge riding a cycle through the
crowded hamlets and bus stops that clustered along the highway."
Let me skip some of this now, and I can leave copies with you.
Let's turn to 25 June, 1975.
Yesterday a trip to Parkouri outbreak; today, we took a five
hour ride in a dingy to two outbreaks down the Magoni River.
Many forced vaccinations and a magnificent meal. Details to
follow when I have time - Very tired, left at 5:00 am, returned
at 5:00 pm.
The village of Chardigaldi had no active cases, but there had
been much resistance to the vaccinating team, so Roland and I
split up to carry out what was becoming standard procedure, to
vaccinate by force those villagers who have intimidated the
vaccinators. These refusers are often the young, strong family
men; but the surprising fear of seeing a white man with absolute
assurance and calmness, walk into their home, asking to see
their vaccination scar and ordering the vaccination, overcomes
all resistance. Often it is the older women who try to run away,
and whose arms must be grabbed and held. One man locked himself
in his house. At first I thought it was a woman, since they are
more afraid of vaccination and extremely embarrassed about being
seen by a man. I told the resident supervisor to inform the
person that if the door was not opened in one minute, I would
break it down. Half the village was screaming at him to open up.
Finally, the door was unlatched and I discovered an absolutely
terrified man clutching his child. I tried to reassure him with
an arm round his shoulder, but the fear in his eyes was
unchanged. I shall never forget his look and the absolute terror
that I must have caused him. We vaccinated them both immediately
and left and perhaps the relative painlessness of it and speed
of our departure afterwards calmed him down.
Unfortunately this is the price that must be paid if smallpox is
to be eradicated from its last stronghold among this illiterate,
uneducated, poverty-stricken rural population. We were treated
to a royal meal in the [inaudible 0:09:25] of the resident
supervisor of a nearby outbreak in Chandwani. As several men
cooled us with palm frond fans in the tiny crowded hut, we were
served rice and curry, roasted duck, eggs, chicken, prawns and
lentil chickpea stew. The custom seems to constantly put more
food on your plate, unless you make a fuss that you have had
enough. They seem prepared to serve Roland, Metteus[inaudible
name 0:09:46] and myself enough for 10 people. After a dessert
of Bengali spaghetti served in warm milk and sugar, of which I
ate half, balancing my responsibility to be a gracious guest
with my concern over milk that might have sat for hours; covered
with flies in the hot sun after coming from a
tuburculous[inaudible0:10:02] cow. Then we were treated to pan,
which I decided I might as well try. Its sliced betel nut and
lime rolled in a betel leaf and chewed for many minutes and
eventually swallowed. After chewing mine about 10 times, I
realized it would make me sick to swallow it and an unmannered
guest to spit it out. So I stuck it in my cheek and prayed for
the soonest opportunity to get rid of it. Within a few minutes
that side of my mouth was numb and every swallow of the copious
juices that were being secreted by my captive mouth was a
carefully planned exercise in controlled nausea. Fortunately
conversation was not possible with our interpreter chewing his
pan and after taking a picture of this incredible repast
surrounded by half the village peering in the windows, I was
able to leave for our boat jettisoning my pan on the way.
I think that will be enough for now and as we have some more
opportunities.
Dr. Sencer: Do you think you contributed anything to the
eradication?
Dr. Weniger: Well, I don't think I contributed anything in the way of
new strategies. I was just another foot solider on the front
lines, working in my assigned areas. Originally I was in
Narshingdi with Roland Sipple from the United Kingdom and then
the latter half of my three-month tour of duty was in Dhaka, the
capital city; responsible for the southern suburbs on the island
of Keraniganj in the Northern suburbs, and obviously I was just
one small component of the procedure of the whole effort. In
retrospect in terms of what we think now about how the campaign
was done, I really wonder if we could have done it again in the
same way. These days we'd have to have written consent forms and
so forth for vaccinating and -
Dr. Sencer: How did you communicate?
Dr. Weniger: Well, I knew a few words of Bengali. You know, "Bugi
ashanti ase[inaudible 0:11:54]?" "Are there any smallpox
patients here?" But I had an interpreter.
Dr. Sencer: I was thinking, how did you communicate with Dhaka when
you were in the field? How did Dhaka communicate with Atlanta?
Dr. Weniger: Well, we were in Narshingdi which is only a couple of
hours away by ferry boat and motor cycle that travel, or
vehicles when we finally had them. We did not have radios.
Others who were more remote used radios to communicate back to
Dhaka, but I don't recall having a radio to make - I'm not sure
how we did it, it's been so long, we might have sent telegrams
or just come in on a weekly basis.
Dr. Sencer: You didn't have a cell phone?
Dr. Weniger: No, we didn't have cell phones.
Dr. Sencer: You didn't have email?
Dr. Weniger: No email, no cell phones.
Dr. Sencer: Do you think your experience in smallpox changed
your career?
Dr. Weniger: Oh! I think it definitely did. I think I was already
focused on public health and coming to CDC at the time, but it
certainly cemented that to be part of that great effort and so
when polio eradication came around 15 or 20 years later, I was
clearly quite excited about that and I think some day measles
would be eradicable because it doesn't have a natural host and
someday it would be nice if the world could figure how to
eradicate measles. But it was seminal in that respect. Since
that time of course, I have been working in many areas, most
recently vaccine technology and have an interest in injection
safety and I have realized that some of the practices that we
did carry out in terms of the bifurcated needles, although we
provided plenty of needles to the health workers, it's clear we
weren't thinking or educating, or strict enough as we would be
today with ensuring that every patient got a separate sterile
needle put back in the holder to be re-sterilized, and it's
probable that in those days we were effectively transmitting
Hepatitis-B from patient to patient in a large degree.
Fortunately, HIV was not around at the time and I think if it
had been we would have seen the effects of it. But clearly it
would be difficult to conduct the campaign today in the same way
we did then, or at least it would cost so much more and would
require so much more manpower and perhaps take much more time.
Dr. Sencer: If you were in charge of the program in the 70s, would you
have organized things differently?
Dr. Weniger: I don't think so, and I am not sure, at the time I had
enough experience to be able to see areas where it could be
improved. Clearly we were working with difficult circumstances.
We didn't have the fancy satellite telephones they have today
for communications and I do recall that if you had four things
or five things you wanted to accomplish in one day, whether it
was buying fuel for your vehicle, or arranging some shipment of
something, or getting to a village, if you accomplished one of
those five things you had succeeded. I mean things were
difficult in those circumstances.
Dr. Sencer: Did you work with other people from the United States
while you were out in the field, or were you the only -?
Dr. Weniger: Well, for the first part of my assignment I shared the
Narshingdi District with Roland Sipple and we lived in a Dak
Bungalow, which is like a Government guesthouse in that town
about two hours or so away from Dhaka. But for the most part we
were working with interpreters that we hired locally who could
speak enough English for us and who could work with the local
population. I do recall that one of our missions was to
publicize the reward for reporting a case of smallpox, and I
recall vividly we had one individual who had reported a case. It
turned out to be a real case, and so it was time to recompense
him. I can't remember exactly how many Takas he was getting at
the time or what its value is in U.S. dollars, but probably it
was the equivalent of US$500.00 in his income situation and we
made sure that everyone in that whole area, we had bull horns,
and anytime you make any kind of noise, crowds assemble and you
have 500 or 1000 people watching you, we announced clearly, this
gentleman had reported a case of smallpox and he was now being
paid this princely sum and that was part of the effort to get
the public to cooperate in finding all these every last case and
stopping the chain of transmission.
Dr. Sencer: Did you get a lot of chickenpox reported?
Dr. Weniger: Yes. Most of the reports we were getting were chickenpox
and the big differential which we learned quite carefully was
how to distinguish one from the other, and to me one of the key
criteria was if you could take your thumb and push it over a
blister or a pox and it burst and liquid came out that was more
likely chickenpox, among all the other differential criteria.
This was just a few months: this was June, July, August of 1975.
The last case in Bangladesh was in October of 1975, so it was on
the tail end of the epidemic. We had basically only one
confirmed outbreak to deal with in Narshingdi.
Dr. Sencer: Were you involved in any of the refugee camps?
Dr. Weniger: Yes-the refugee camps were in my area of responsibility in
the Northern suburbs of Dhaka and I do recall when we went to
visit the refugee camps searching for cases, that the refugees
themselves seeing foreign personnel, white persons, assuming we
were connected to the refugee effort, would come up and complain
to us that the responsible authorities were stealing all the
donated food and other supplies for the refugees and they were
not getting anything, and this was just a few weeks before there
was a revolution in which Mujibur Rahman was overthrown and
assassinated and it had been rumored that the amount of
corruption going on in terms of selling rice, donated by other
countries, on the black market or to other countries, was
occurring widely, and that was one of the many reasons for
overthrowing him. So I remember waking up, I probably have
another letter home that I wrote to my parents after the coup in
Bangladesh. I have to look and talk at the same time.
Dr. Sencer: Did you ever have a feeling that you were in
physical danger?
Dr. Weniger: Yes. There was one time when we had a disagreement with -
Roland and I with the storekeeper who wanted to charge us a
deposit for some bottles and we discarded the bottles and all of
a sudden a crowd of 500 people surrounded us and right outside
the Dak Bungalow; and it's a such a populated country that we
were really probably in danger of being torn apart for the
disagreement with the shopkeeper, and so a senior official in
the town brought us into the Dak Bungalow with the person who
was complaining about us and resolved it with payment of
whatever the value was of the Coke bottles or Fanta bottles that
we had discarded; and it was not a danger resulting from
smallpox eradication, but just from a disagreement; and we
learnt quite easily, you've got to be very careful when you are
a foreigner in a country, to avoid crowds forming. We were told,
for example, if there was ever a car accident, if you are ever
involved in a car accident, don't stop the car because the local
villagers who are upset there wouldn't be any justice, will tear
you apart and kill you-just keep driving to the next town and
turn yourself into the district officer and if you have ever
driven in Bangladesh, you know people don't pay much attention
to vehicles, they are using the roads to walk and it's driving -
Here's the letter I was looking for about the coup d'état. It's
dated the 16th of August, 1975.
Dear everybody: Since I have been here I haven't had a boring
day and yesterday was no exception. At 5.30 in the morning I
woke to the sounds of machine gun and rifle fire that seemed
really close. Every so often the house shook from explosions,
probably the cannons of tanks. Somehow I knew immediately that
this was a revolution. The Sheikh's house is only a few blocks
away...
This was the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of Bangladesh -
...and we guessed correctly, this fighting was the assault on
his residence. It was really rather exciting standing just
inside the doorway to the roof of our house. We could hear the
bullets flying overhead, sharp cracking noises that seemed to
come from the President's residence which we could just see from
our roof. Probably 200 rounds were fired during the first half
hour and about 10 explosions, tapering off to some sporadic fire
for the rest of the morning. Bangladesh radio came on about 7:00
am to report the death of the Sheikh and to announce the curfew.
Jennifer, my assistant, lives five blocks from the guest
house...
She was the daughter of a U.S. diplomat in the country and was
volunteering to help us with the smallpox eradication.
...and awoke with a tank in front of her house. Amazingly enough
the telephones worked and we telephoned the Smallpox Director to
inform them of the fighting...
This was Dan Foster.
...since his part of Dhaka was quiet, by calling friends around
the city I was able to learn that probably half a dozen
Government Ministers, mostly relatives of the Sheikh, had also
been wiped out. Our first fears were that the Iraqi Bahini, a
sort of private army of the Sheikh, not unlike Hitler's S.S.
might oppose the army coup and fighting between the two groups
could lead to a messy Civil War. But 36 hours later as I write
this letter, things are calm and getting more relaxed all the
time.
During the hour and a half lifting of the curfew yesterday, I
rode my motorcycle over to the house of a Bengali friend who
knows a lot about the political situation; and she reported how
the house of another minister was attacked and all killed except
one servant that managed to escape. The streets were eerily
empty, a strange sight in a city that is normally bustling with
every imaginable form of vehicle, ox carts, rickshaws, baby
taxis, cars, buses and hordes of pedestrians. Soldiers were
posted with rifles and machine guns on strategic corners and the
streets were scarred with the tread marks of tanks. There is
somewhat of a holiday atmosphere among the people on the
streets, since except for the deaths of the few corrupt families
that were in control of the Government there is no indication of
any other violence. Last night the city was as quiet as a
graveyard. We sat on the roof watching the moon and the clouds,
listening to the B.B.C. and Voice of America as well as Radio
Bangladesh, the source of all the information. Military cars
would occasionally drive by, presumably patrolling the curfew.
This morning we received a cross-notification from another
district that someone had died of smallpox after coming from a
certain section of Dhaka. So we were faced with the necessity of
going out to check out the information to see if there was any
smallpox there. We heard that some vehicles were traveling the
roads despite the curfew, such as diplomatic cars and such. So
we decided to go to the smallpox office to organize a search
team. We had heard that the army would probably stop us, but
being internationals and showing something official looking, we
would be allowed to proceed. So we put our U.N. passports in our
pockets, picked the Land Rover that had the most official
looking insignias, seals and posters on it and took our
houseboy, in case we needed an interpreter for the three mile
ride. I drove slowly and carefully and was fully prepared to
stop if anyone flagged us down, but surprisingly none of the
troops bothered us as we drove by the tanks and machinegun
emplacements. It confirmed to me my long-held belief, that no
matter where you are or what you do; if you act like you belong
there nobody bothers you. At the smallpox office, we were able
to learn that things were quiet in the countryside as well as
Dhaka and that our radio contact with the advisors in the field
is still in operation. By the time we put big red crosses on our
car to look even more official, we found out the curfew had been
lifted for three hours anyway. Old Dhaka where we searched for
outbreak was as crowded and normal looking as ever. We weren't
able to find any smallpox, but it will be necessary to send in a
really large search team to comb the area in a few days when
things are expected to be back to normal. I tried sending a
message home to say I am alright, but the U.S. Embassy says they
can only send general messages to Washington that all Americans
are believed to be safe, which is probably true.
This is a letter to my parents and family in the States.
I expected that some sort of revolution in Bangladesh in a year
or two, but was really surprised that it would happen now. Not
that the Sheikh didn't deserve to be overthrown. He had
appointed all his relatives to Government posts, which they used
to rake in large amounts of money, doing things like taking the
relief supplies donated from abroad and smuggling and selling
them in India. He had also been bringing the country closer and
closer to India and the Soviet Union and further away from the
Islamic world. That is probably why the army chose the day of
India's Independence celebration to stage the coup and
indirectly slap India in the face. There is fear among the
Bengalis that India might invade a la Czechoslovakia in 1968
when [inaudible word 0:25:10] Government crisis effectively ties
our hands vis-à-vis Bangladesh interference. We are all hoping
that in a few days the curfews will be over and our smallpox
work can continue. There are only 38 known active cases of
smallpox left in the country and it would be a shame if this
political crisis prevented the success of our program. As it is,
the WHO Director General who is due to arrive today to meet the
Sheikh has cancelled his trip. Unfortunately the Government
health structure will probably be in a shambles for weeks and
this is not good for our program. I spent the afternoon swimming
and sunning by the pool at the InterContinental talking with
other foreigners staying there during the crisis. It's really a
rather pleasant way to spend the revolution. I love their banana
splits. Love Bruce.
Dr. Sencer: Of the foreign nationals who worked at Bangladesh, I think
there were more people from the United States than any of the
other countries. Were you involved with people from some of the
other countries?
Dr. Weniger: Yes; we had periodic meetings in Dhaka for those who would
get to Dhaka and we had Olof Ringard[inaudible name0:26:20] from
Sweden. Right now I can't remember off the top of my head, I'd
have to open up the small Pox Bible and read the list of
expatriates that were there, but they were coming from many,
many countries. In fact, many years later, when I went to
Thailand for my assignment, my counterpart in the Ministry of
Health was Dr. Pa... Koona....[inaudible name0:26:41] who was a
fellow smallpox worker in Bangladesh, who then became Head of
the Division of Epidemiology that ran the Field Epidemiology
Training Program in Thailand.
Dr. Sencer: The smallpox program was really a sort of breeding ground
for many people who made a very profitable career in public
health?
Dr. Weniger: That's right, and I think that the Polio Eradication
Program over the last decade or so has been the same thing for
the next generation of bringing people into the field.
Dr. Sencer: You think they are going to make it with polio?
Dr. Weniger: I think so, eventually. There are some difficult problems
in that there is virus sitting in test tubes frozen in freezers
around the world from laboratories, and every last one has got
to be found out. Another problem we face in our work is how to
convert from the inexpensive easy oral polio vaccine to the much
more expensive injectable vaccine which costs ten times as much;
and so people -
Dr. Sencer: In which you won't be able to use the jet injector?
Dr. Weniger: Well, you will; and we are actually studying the use of
the jet injector for an intradermal delivery of influenza
vaccine. Others in Cuba and Oman under WHO sponsorship are
studying the use of injectable polio in an intradermal dose
which can reduce the dose by 20% of the normal dose, and that
would affect dose-sparing and as well perhaps be a way to do it
without needles which is a big problem. So we are actually
working in our vaccine technology program on intradermal
delivery with or without needles for such indications.
Dr. Sencer: I think the fear has been, again of Hepatitis and so on,
but with the intradermal you don't think that's an issue?
Dr. Weniger: Well, if you are using standard needle syringe, there are
many drawbacks to using intra-dermal. The Mantoux test is very
difficult to do. Even here at CDC, I recall my last two intra
dermal T.B. skin tests were not performed correctly by the nurse
and if they can't do right here at Mecca, you can imagine how
difficult it is in much of the world. But there are new
technologies being developed for quick and simple intra dermal
delivery that don't have the high failure rate of the
traditional Mantoux test. The ideal ones would of course be
without a needle, so you don't have the problem of potential
reuse or the syringe or needle-stick injuries and so forth.
Dr. Sencer: Anything else about smallpox you'd like to add?
Dr. Weniger: Well-probably I will think of it as soon as we turn off
the camera. But I think it represents in my mind what can be
accomplished when the world works together and overcomes all the
tremendous boundaries that existed. We had the Soviet Union
cooperating with the United States across that terrible Iron
Curtain and Cold War. We had all racial groups and political
groups meeting together, and to some extent that type of
cooperation continues to occur. We still have truces in various
Civil Wars around the world to let the kids be vaccinated
against polio during the Polio Eradication Program; and so it
shows you what can be accomplished if people come together and
set their minds on very difficult goals. You will never satisfy
every possible objection, and there are those who also say polio
can't be eradicated so why are you wasting all this money. But I
think if you have the vision as Duff Hagee[inaudible
name0:30:14:5] and D. Henderson and others who were the leading
strategic strategists for this effort, it can be done and it
will be done again with other diseases I hope.
Dr. Sencer: That's a good note to end on. Thank you, Bruce.
Dr. Weniger: Thanks a lot.
* * * * * *
Dr. Sencer: That will end the formal interview, but here, your
briefcase there would you hold it up so I could get a -?
Dr. Weniger: Yeah, well what this is: these were carrying bags that
were given to all the eradication people. It is obviously WHO
sponsored: World Health Organization; and this Smallpox
Eradication Program. I can't read the Bengali but these were
made in Bangladesh for the staff to carry their papers. I ended
up actually bringing an attaché case with a WHO logo on it and
it was necessary because we were carrying bundles of cash, I
mean literally stacks of money. This was probably in the
equivalent of their society; hundreds of thousands of dollars
walking around because we would have to pay all these hundreds
of health workers and one of the photographs there is payday,
where we would sit down and we'd check if someone was still on
the list and had done their job, and would get a stack of bills
and that would be once a month. So I'm surprised we didn't have
more armed robberies carrying around that kind of money.
Dr. Sencer: I remember riding a train from Delhi to Patna with Bill
Foege with a briefcase so big of Rupees.
Dr. Weniger: And nobody knew what was in there?
Dr. Sencer: Right. Well thank you very much, Bruce. That's a
good interview.
Dr. Weniger: Dave, you're welcome. Thank you.
[End of audio 0:31:56]
Bruce Weniger Oral History
Bruce Weniger interviewed by
David Sencer
March 31, 2008
Bruce Weniger served in the Smallpox Eradication Program as a short-term consultant for WHO in Bangladesh beginning in June 1975. Bruce explains how the smallpox program worked in Bangladesh and reads aloud from the journal he kept during that time, including a letter to his parents detailing his experience during the coup.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced this government publication. Use of this public domain resource is unrestricted.
