mslasky

'Bird Flu' Remains as Serious a Threat as Ever

The larger the population of any one species, as a fraction of all species, the greater the darwinian opportunity for disease organisms to adapt it as a host. This is a basic biological principle. Humans are the most numerous large animal on the planet earth. Pandemics like the black death, have occured long before our recent population explosion. They will occur again. It could be mutated bird flu, or a complete unknown. It's not a matter of IF, but a question of WHEN. Fortunately, diseases that are too rapidly lethal, inhibit spread (eg. ebola). There is a sweat spot of incubation time and lethality that offers the organism the greatest room to wreak havoc on civilization. Too slow and we hve time to adapt (eg. HIV). Nation-states appear to assign little value and few resources to combat threats that are historically infrequent, like asteroid strikes, tsunamis, and world wide plague. It remains to be seen if this posture is our civilization's achille's heel.