Singing the Praises of Prevention

Ben Franklin was right. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Written byBob Grant

| 4 min read

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At The Scientist, we report stories that deal mostly with the nuts and bolts of biology. Whether we’re writing about cutting-edge cancer research or the latest ecological insights, we tend to focus on new conceptual or technical ground that scientists are breaking in the lab and field, and how this knowledge changes, confirms, or enhances our understanding of living things.

But when one considers the practical ripples that biology sends through societies—issues of public health and the shared goal of minimizing the impact of diseases on a global scale—human behavior and prevention become vitally important. As I write this piece, prevention of this type is on the lips of just about everyone, with infections of the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 virus sweeping around the world, causing illness and death and prompting closures and cancellations aplenty. Public health officials are rightly championing preventive measures, such as ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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