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Obama stressed the importance of investing in research for the long term. "If and when a new strain of flu, like the Spanish flu, crops up five years from now or a decade from now, we've made the investment and we're further along to be able to catch it," he said. "It is a smart investment for us to make. It's not just insurance; it is knowing that down the road we're going to continue to have problems like this - particularly in a globalized world where you move from one side of the world to the other in a day."
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https://www.fic.nih.gov/News/GlobalHealthMatters/november-december-2014/Pages/ebola-funding-president-obama-nih-visit.aspx