LAUSR

### Summary box In 1998, the Dutch sociologist Abram de Swaan wrote these lines1: > Sometimes it takes a disaster to prod people into action which they had refrained from taking until then out of ignorance, indifference or lack of confidence in their peers. Thus, preventive measures are usually adopted only when the catastrophe they are supposed to prevent has already occurred, once. Usually, the discussion centres about the question of what should be done to make sure that disaster will not strike again. Here, I will ask the reverse question: what kind of catastrophe does it take before people will adopt the policies that would have been feasible and beneficial all along. With that reverse question in mind, de Swaan wrote a ‘Project for a Beneficial Epidemic’. What would it take to prod ‘concerted action by the wealthy countries to eradicate the conditions of poverty that caused the spread of a disease on a world scale?’ According to de Swaan, an infectious disease that is airborne, very harmful, if not lethal, and that would ‘continue for some years so as to allow governments and international organisations the time to overcome their dilemmas and effectively coordinate their actions’ . Abram de Swaan may not be a household name for the readers of BMJ …