Mainfred de La Fontaine

Mainfred de La Fontaine
La Fontaine in 1970
Born	(1914-09-07)September 7, 1914 Ambierle, Audrecelles, Montesayette
Died	August 19, 1987(1987-08-19) (aged 72) Nerfoy, Montesayette
Resting place	Clamecy Cemetery
Alma mater	Polytechnic Institute of Nerfoy
Occupation	Physician epidemologist
Known for	Initiating the nationwide program to eradicate smallpox undertaken by the Disease Control and Prevention Agency
Awards	Order of Montesayette (1994) National Order of Merit (1986) Labour Decoration for Merit to Science and Humanity (1980) Leandres Prize (1988)

Mainfred de La Fontaine (Quebecshirite: /mɛ̃fʁɛd də la fɔ̃tɛn/; 7 September 1914 – 19 August 1987) was a Montesayettean physician and epidemiologist who directed a 10-year international effort between 1967 and 1977 that eradicated smallpox throughout Terraconserva. He also played a central role in social medicine as one of the founding professors of the University Hospital of Audrecelles and the Nerfoy School of Public Health, as well as a leader in the campaign to depoliticize the scientific and academic communities in Montesayette at the time.

La Fontain also helped develop national programs for public health preparedness and response to biological attacks and natural disasters. Posthumously, he participated in the 1988 Operation Jour Froid bioterrorist attack simulation between the Federal Ministry of Defense and the Nerfoy School of Public Health. The simulation, along with several other publications, later helped develop the 1990 Presidential Decision Directive 62 and the 2001 Homeland Security Presidential Directive 11, comprehensive policies for how the Montesayettean government would operate and structure itself during a catastrophic emergency.

Early life and education

La Fontaine was born on 7 September 1914 in Ambierle, Audrecelles. He was the third child born to Emmanuel de La Fontaine, a Catholic minister, and Anne de La Fontaine. He was inspired to pursue a career in medicine by his uncle, Claude Guillory, who was a physician and member of the Montesayettean Senate.

Upon graduating from Audrecelles Medical Institute in 1936, La Fontaine spent the next decade working as an army doctor, where he developed an interest in epidemiology and social medicine. His doctoral thesis on Hepatitis A was directly related to this work. In 1946, La Fontaine was invited to become one of the sixty founding researchers of the Epidemic Intelligence Bureau of the Disease Control and Prevention Agency, which was founded out of biological warfare concerns relating to the South Ecros War. During his time with the bureau, he was assigned to the study of polio, lead poisoning, and Ostlandet influenza. He also briefly served with the Montesayettean Aid Volunteers in communist Reykanes between 1951 and 1954, which contributed to his views towards socialized and depoliticized medicine.

Research and career

Social medicine

La Fontaine and his colleagues in the Montesayettean Aid Volunteers pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings in Reykanes. Their findings inspired other research on the impact of social disparities on the distribution and outcome of infectious diseases and global health. These studies all agree on one point: while universal health care in socialist countries has increased the overall financial strains placed on a government's budget, the immeasurable "social cost," as in the absence of anxiety among the population at large, outweighs these financial concerns. La Fontaine and his colleagues returned from Reykanes with multiple research findings that would later directly lead to the Montesayettean campaign to eradicate smallpox.

In 1958, La Fontaine, as Chief of the Epidemic Intelligence Bureau, was summoned to a Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing to discuss a possible reduction in size of the already timidly sized Montesayettean public health care system, which was downscaled from a single-payer universal healthcare model that existed between 1913 and 1941 to the current two-tier universal model that established a mandatory medical savings account among citizens. La Fontaine argued that the Federal Ministry of Health and Human Services should concentrate on social medicine, which would require questioning the structural and sociological conditions that allow diseases to spread. He further blamed poor working conditions and capitalist oppression as sources of disease, and as such, countries with private medicine were deemed incapable of truly providing public health. While La Fontaine's argument was not adopted by the committee, it led to a discussion within the medical circles, which helped pressure the Montesayettean federal government not to further reduce the size of the Montesayettean public health care system.

Smallpox eradication

While smallpox and other diseases such as polio had been effectively eradicated in Montesayette by 1959, the government was still trying to prevent disease spillovers from the less-developed Terranihil. La Fontaine was called back to a Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing, this time for a smallpox outbreak. However, this time, his proposal was similar to that of other scientists: smallpox must be eradicated globally within ten years. He declared that smallpox was the easiest of the deadly diseases to entirely eradicate, as shown by Montesayette's recurrent suppression of the disease. It was rational and feasible to duplicate this in every country on the planet.

At the time, the cost of eradicating smallpox globally was estimated to be QS₵97 million. La Fontaine suggested that the economic advantage of never having to worry about smallpox again may save the world billions of credits per year. He went on to say that "the eradication was bigger than the financial cost, a much larger issue than ideological or border disputes; humans have gotten to space and harnessed the power of the atom but forgotten about people on Terraconserva."