Slashdot Mirror

How many people in the states died of it?
Over 800 people died worldwide, and over 8000 had it. See here

SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe this shit has been modded as "insightful". I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's Asians. :P

" if that will happen, then WHO will take responsibility for all the holes in Windows?! "

I hope WHO does take responsibility for all the holes in Windows. IMHO using Windows is a health risk.

SARS and ethnicity are completely separate entities but they are only linked by the abundance of Korean people (Asian areas in general) that are plagued by SARS right now. Don't misinterperate their comments as racially motivated.

first, you're right .. i dunno if that comment was racially motivated or not. but its up to writers (if they are in any way professional) to make sure that kind of thing isn't even a question.

second, according to the WHO, south korea has had only 3 probably cases reported with 0 deaths. this is as much as sweden, and less then the u.k. to make false judgements of a person based on their skin color soudns pretty racist to me.

The World Health Organisation are now saying it's likely to have originated in civet cats

I expect the author of the theory that 'The Lancet' printed in their letter page will now follow up with an equally believable theory that the cats flew here from Mars.

According to WHO Cumulative report in the US, there's been 54 total cases, two new cases and zero deaths. Perhaps you read the wrong column?

In this day and age, it is foolish to assume journalistic due diligence.

Don't base your numbers on things you've heard (no deaths in U.S.), or reported in the media (Singapore is in dire conditions).

Get numbers from the source: WHO

The U.S. has 2 confirmed deaths and 54 total cases.

Singapore has had 0 new cases for quite some time now. There has been, however, a local chain of transmission (hence the SARS affected designation).

The more we fear, the more we consume. As a whole our society has seen millions of dollars spent on research on a disease that has only killed 295 people out of over six billion. When diseases were feared in the past it was worth fearing them: Justinian's Plague (541-544AD) killed 40% of the population of Constantinople; In the 14th Century we saw as many as 800 people a day dying of the Bubonic Plague -- 30% of Normandy's population was decimated. By comparison, SARS has managed to destroy less than 0.0000005% of the world's population, infecting a mere 0.000077% of the population.

I've been following the statistics published by the WHO. You realize that despite all the attention that has been leveled against SARS, that it still has an accelerating growth rate? The number of deaths have been more than doubling every two weeks. From six deaths in early March to 293 at present. It fits a very nice exponential, with little sign that containment efforts have slowed it down.

But let's all just ignore SARS till it's killed it's first million people. If containment truly fails we could see that by the end of the year. Frankly I think we can do better than that, and that we do have a chance to beat this thing before it settles in for the long haul, but not if people like you whine about how little impact it has had, while ignoring the impact it could have.

The more we fear, the more we consume. As a whole our society has seen millions of dollars spent on research on a disease that has only killed 295 people out of over six billion. When diseases were feared in the past it was worth fearing them: Justinian's Plague (541-544AD) killed 40% of the population of Constantinople; In the 14th Century we saw as many as 800 people a day dying of the Bubonic Plague -- 30% of Normandy's population was decimated. By comparison, SARS has managed to destroy less than 0.0000005% of the world's population, infecting a mere 0.000077% of the population.

I've been following the statistics published by the WHO. You realize that despite all the attention that has been leveled against SARS, that it still has an accelerating growth rate? The number of deaths have been more than doubling every two weeks. From six deaths in early March to 293 at present. It fits a very nice exponential, with little sign that containment efforts have slowed it down.

But let's all just ignore SARS till it's killed it's first million people. If containment truly fails we could see that by the end of the year. Frankly I think we can do better than that, and that we do have a chance to beat this thing before it settles in for the long haul, but not if people like you whine about how little impact it has had, while ignoring the impact it could have.

My statements are based on the figures for Canada only. I live near Toronto and I do health-related research, so I have been following the development of SARS moderately closely.

My information is from recent news conferences held by public health officials. I don't have a link to breakdowns by age, but here is a link to an article (CanWest News and Associated Press, April 27) stating (my italics),

Officials were unable to say if he had underlying medical problems, unlike a 44-year-old York Region man who earlier became the first middle-aged, otherwise healthy Canadian to die of SARS.

The World Health Organization indicates that as of April 26, there were 142 cases of SARS in Canada, associated with 18 deaths.

Further, the WHO placed the global case-fatality rate at 4%. They state that

In the Canadian outbreak, the higher case-fatality ratio appears to be linked to the older age of the patients, who frequently have underlying chronic disease.

Also the virus mutates, the more it learns about how our immune systems work, the more vulnerable we become, so even you can survive it while its killing at a rate of 15%, when it mutates again it might kill at 25%, and then when it mutates again it might go up to 40%, so eventually over a period of years it could reach a 90% death rate or higher, so this disease is no joke, the Flu does not mutate like this.

Er. No. The virus doesn't benefit from killing its host, or even crippling it rapidly. A virus isn't a malevolent being, bent on cold-blooded murder. Its evolution will be guided by whatever mutations allow it to make more copies of itself. It is just as likely to mutate into something that just gives you a bad case of the sniffles, so you can keep going to work and give copies of it to all your coworkers.

Finally, influenza does mutate like this. That's why a new flu vaccine comes out every year--the protein coat of the flu virus changes from year to year, and health officials have to try and hit a moving target. If there is a new and unexpected mutation, we could face a Spanish flu type epidemic very easily. Fortunately, SARS actually isn't bad practice for this type of situation, so that health officials will be ready for the next flu epidemic. See a new disease? Stomp on it. Hard. That's how to handle it. This disease is certainly no joke--but it doesn't warrant panic.

My statements are based on the figures for Canada only. I live near Toronto and I do health-related research, so I have been following the development of SARS moderately closely.

My information is from recent news conferences held by public health officials. I don't have a link to breakdowns by age, but here is a link to an article (CanWest News and Associated Press, April 27) stating (my italics),

Officials were unable to say if he had underlying medical problems, unlike a 44-year-old York Region man who earlier became the first middle-aged, otherwise healthy Canadian to die of SARS.

The World Health Organization indicates that as of April 26, there were 142 cases of SARS in Canada, associated with 18 deaths.

Further, the WHO placed the global case-fatality rate at 4%. They state that

In the Canadian outbreak, the higher case-fatality ratio appears to be linked to the older age of the patients, who frequently have underlying chronic disease.

Also the virus mutates, the more it learns about how our immune systems work, the more vulnerable we become, so even you can survive it while its killing at a rate of 15%, when it mutates again it might kill at 25%, and then when it mutates again it might go up to 40%, so eventually over a period of years it could reach a 90% death rate or higher, so this disease is no joke, the Flu does not mutate like this.

Er. No. The virus doesn't benefit from killing its host, or even crippling it rapidly. A virus isn't a malevolent being, bent on cold-blooded murder. Its evolution will be guided by whatever mutations allow it to make more copies of itself. It is just as likely to mutate into something that just gives you a bad case of the sniffles, so you can keep going to work and give copies of it to all your coworkers.

Finally, influenza does mutate like this. That's why a new flu vaccine comes out every year--the protein coat of the flu virus changes from year to year, and health officials have to try and hit a moving target. If there is a new and unexpected mutation, we could face a Spanish flu type epidemic very easily. Fortunately, SARS actually isn't bad practice for this type of situation, so that health officials will be ready for the next flu epidemic. See a new disease? Stomp on it. Hard. That's how to handle it. This disease is certainly no joke--but it doesn't warrant panic.

World Health Organization issued a travel advisory
(another article
on Yahoo.)

To be honest with you, I have not taken the TTC (subways or buses) for a long time now so I do not know if there are many people wearing masks there, but on the streets I have only seen two people in the last month actually wearing surgical masks. On the radio (CFRB 1010) there was a discussion of a baseball game from where shots were broadcasted widely displaying a person wearing a mask, with headlines like "In Toronto, Fear Strikes Out ". The host from the radio was on that game and he only saw one (1) person wearing a mask out of thousands of people there. The camera-man concentrated his attention on that person.

Have you seen the shots from Baghdad, where supposedly thousands of Iraqi people were cheering while the US Marines took down Saddams statue? Later in the news they actually showed wide shots of that scene, and it became clear there were only a handfull of people in the area.

This is the same tactics used by the news crews for the single purpose of maintaining attention of millions of people on something that is not that newsworthy but something that can be blown out of the proportions and something that will boost news channels' ratings.

I live in Toronto and I swear to you there is no uncontrolably spread disease here, the offices are not closing, the restaurants and hotels are not closing business is as usual, people are not staying home out of fear but there are a few thousand people on quarantine, most of which will never show any symptoms.

Since last week there was no new cases of SARS in Toronto and the only deaths that occured (19 I think) can be attributed to SARS striking on the older people with some other health problems.

The only thing that WHO achieved was creating massive desinformation and boosting cnn and bbc audiences for the past month and costing Toronto travel industry hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Really, last year, about 2000 people died in Toronto from flue, but we did not hear about this on cnn.

There are over 5000000 people in Toronto area and there are about 200 people that have SARS, that is 1/50000 of 1 percent. 19 of the sick people died. So far this means about 10% mortality rate for a disease that is statistically so rare, that anyone will have better chances of been killed by a lightning bolt than getting it. Hell, there are more chances of been violently murdered somewhere in Texas than getting SARS in Toronto. Maybe WHO should post a travel advisory about that.

"If you want funding for your AIDS research, you're going to have to convince the organization offering you the money that your research is more important than research that will help tens, or even hundreds, of millions of people over the long term."

Like AIDS, right? According to the United Nations, over the course of the last two decades 22 million have died because of AIDS. They currently estimate that there are another 34.1 million infected persons right now, the vast majority of them in developing nations. Most of those countries are extremely poor and have very limited educational opportunities both in general and to combat ignorance about STD's. Result: explosive growth and a plauge that is decimating their populations--in that most productive 15-45 age group. The World Health Organization presents an even less rosy picture, as can be found here. Wow. A 33% adult infection rate in Zimbabwe for a disease that has what, a 99.9% or better fatality rate? Not even Ebola's fatality rate is that good. Another figure that I found in my very brief web search was that in 2000 alone there were an estimated 5.3 million people newly infected--infection rates are continuing to climb.

"If you want funding for your AIDS research, you're going to have to convince the organization offering you the money that your research is more important than research that will help tens, or even hundreds, of millions of people over the long term."

Like AIDS, right? According to the United Nations, over the course of the last two decades 22 million have died because of AIDS. They currently estimate that there are another 34.1 million infected persons right now, the vast majority of them in developing nations. Most of those countries are extremely poor and have very limited educational opportunities both in general and to combat ignorance about STD's. Result: explosive growth and a plauge that is decimating their populations--in that most productive 15-45 age group. The World Health Organization presents an even less rosy picture, as can be found here. Wow. A 33% adult infection rate in Zimbabwe for a disease that has what, a 99.9% or better fatality rate? Not even Ebola's fatality rate is that good. Another figure that I found in my very brief web search was that in 2000 alone there were an estimated 5.3 million people newly infected--infection rates are continuing to climb.

To view the latest info on sars check out the world health organization's specific site:

http://www.who.int/csr/alertresponse/en/ [ www.who.int ]

That is all! -Naomi

1. 69 (4/1)
2. 144 (4/7)
3. 174 (4/14)

1. 69 (4/1)
2. 144 (4/7)
3. 174 (4/14)

1. 69 (4/1)
2. 144 (4/7)
3. 174 (4/14)

Latest WHO statistics.

The global mortality rate is sitting at 0.9%. A poster in this thread intimated that China has yet to release data on their case/death counts but the WHO report linked above indeed has this data (though perhaps in error).
-j

Do you mean geometrically? I graphed it; so far it looks linear. More data will tell. I based my analysis on data from:

the World Health Organization

45, March 27

85, April 3

154, today April 10

Now you can come back with the argument about cumulative vs current cases but you have to deal with the problem that a polynomial increase (which is all you can get out of going from current to cumulative) is applied against an exponential -- which the above 3 data points, separated by 7 days show. A polynomial increase discounts back to a mere decrease in the exponent applied to figure the doubling time so for instance if you try to say there is a squared law at work all you can do is double the doubling time from just over a week to a little over 2 weeks -- still an epidemic.

In other words, your hope of a very strange constant growth, while a possibility, is hardly a conclusion to be drawn from the present day to day fluctuations of reporting data.

The only diseases I know of that follow such linear patterns (after doing some searches a while ago to see what might produce such an optimistic scenario) are some very obscure blights appearing in agriculture.

We can hope.

45, March 27

85, April 3

154, today April 10

Now you can come back with the argument about cumulative vs current cases but you have to deal with the problem that a polynomial increase (which is all you can get out of going from current to cumulative) is applied against an exponential -- which the above 3 data points, separated by 7 days show. A polynomial increase discounts back to a mere decrease in the exponent applied to figure the doubling time so for instance if you try to say there is a squared law at work all you can do is double the doubling time from just over a week to a little over 2 weeks -- still an epidemic.

In other words, your hope of a very strange constant growth, while a possibility, is hardly a conclusion to be drawn from the present day to day fluctuations of reporting data.

The only diseases I know of that follow such linear patterns (after doing some searches a while ago to see what might produce such an optimistic scenario) are some very obscure blights appearing in agriculture.

We can hope.

45, March 27

85, April 3

154, today April 10

Now you can come back with the argument about cumulative vs current cases but you have to deal with the problem that a polynomial increase (which is all you can get out of going from current to cumulative) is applied against an exponential -- which the above 3 data points, separated by 7 days show. A polynomial increase discounts back to a mere decrease in the exponent applied to figure the doubling time so for instance if you try to say there is a squared law at work all you can do is double the doubling time from just over a week to a little over 2 weeks -- still an epidemic.

In other words, your hope of a very strange constant growth, while a possibility, is hardly a conclusion to be drawn from the present day to day fluctuations of reporting data.

The only diseases I know of that follow such linear patterns (after doing some searches a while ago to see what might produce such an optimistic scenario) are some very obscure blights appearing in agriculture.

We can hope.

I graphed the World Health Organization data. At 4% mortality expect 1800 deaths the first year. Nothing to panic over.

WHO SARs data

The whole plan, as far as I can see, is to eradicate the disease. It's in a very early stage right now, and if we can completely stop its spread and cure those who have it, then we will have no carriers of the disease at all. Do you know how many lives will be saved and how much work would become completely unnecessary if it's eradicated? We will not have to develop treatment for it. We will not have to develop a vaccine. We will not have to educate the public about it. Millions of people (or even hundreds of millions or billions of people) will never get sick.

If eradication can be accomplished through extremely vigilant quarantine, etc., then all the resources that might be spent fighting SARS can be spent fighting other diseases, like say AIDS.

For a bit of info on the benefits / feasibility of eradication, see here.

I have read the news articles in Hongkong and the mainland China newsgroups closely since Feb this year.

In terms of the timeline, it is not too fair to blame the Chinese govt of covering up for 4 months before reporting. SARS is a new virus, which is not too different from a nasty pneumonia. The Novmember index case is traced back from the medical records after they noticed something very unusual at around the first major outbreak in mid Feb. That outbreak was occurred in Guangdong province and has notified WHO on 11 Feb. It was known as atypical pneumonia by the time.

It sparked some social chaos in a number of citis in Guangdong, fuelled by rumours.... There were a few facts: 1) the medical staff knew that there were probably more people got infected by visiting the ER of the most affected hospital then thru other channels. Most of these patient rushed to ER unnecessarily -- they may just have normal cold to start with. 2) many people think that boiling vingear can "clean" their homes. At least, two person were killed by carbon monoxide when boiling that in closed rooms. It is part of the reason why they want to tone that down later on (in late Feb to March). Of course, we cannot discount the more selfish motivation of the officials/govt...

Chinese govt, esp for the officials in Guangdong, has a lesson to learn in the whole event. It is arguable whether 100% openness is the best way to go in crisis. For example, if I were the mayor of a city which was going to be flatten by a major earthquake in 4 hrs, I would seek special power from the central govt, mobilise all the police/troop, arrange transport before telling people to move. In any case, those in the power will definitely need to be more reactive. There are good ways to cooperate with WHO more fully in an early stage without causing further panic to the people...

Ah yes, the WHO's "overall health system performance" statistics. I don't think you actually understand what the figures mean, but I'll note that your beloved US is down at number 37.

I don't know where you got all the garbage from in your last paragraph - you're jumping to conclusions - but if you think there are two dozen better countries in which to live (though I doubt you've been to any of them), why don't you fuck off there?

On the related topic of virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has struck more fear for people in South East Asia. It has spreaded to many parts of the globe. You may find out more at World Health Organization (WHO). I'm not trying to spread fear, but so far there's no treatment for it, and the infectious agent hasn't been found yet. So watch for your personal hygiene. FAQ here. More news at CNN.

On the related topic of virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has struck more fear for people in South East Asia. It has spreaded to many parts of the globe. You may find out more at World Health Organization (WHO). I'm not trying to spread fear, but so far there's no treatment for it, and the infectious agent hasn't been found yet. So watch for your personal hygiene. FAQ here. More news at CNN.

US Center for Disease Control


World Health Organization (United Nations)

Hmmm, guess governments do something useful after all.

As I said, I'm in Hong Kong, which is not Singapore.

The Straits Times itself is reporting how many parents are clamoring to close the schools for a while

People are panicking. Has little to do with the real risks. Recall the idiocy with which AIDS sufferers are treated in most places. Actually, my dusghter's school has just closed, which is a case of bureaucratic CYA rather than anything else.

SARS is highly contagious in close proximity, as is smallpox. Look at what WHO reports.

I did (before I made my original post). I didn't see anything to contradict what I wrote. It is MUCH less contagious than smallpox, and MUCH less lethal (7 dead out of 222 confirmed cases). It's been here for two weeks (incubation period is a few days or a week) and if it was anything like as bad as smallpox, hundreds would be dead.

WHO SARS FAQ:
Q : How contagious is SARS ?
A : Based on currently available evidence, close contact with an infected person is needed for the infective agent to spread from one person to another. Contact with aerosolized (exhaled) droplets and bodily secretions from an infected person appears to be important. To date, the majority of cases have occurred in hospital workers who have cared for SARS patients and the close family members of these patients. However, the amount of the infective agent needed to cause an infection has not yet been determined.

The total cases of SARS as reported by the World Health Organization is 219 cases with 4 deaths. Doing some rather inexact extrapolation that works out to about 1800 deaths per 100,000. Bear in mind, these numbers have very small and inexact "n" values in the denominator and probably can't be directly extrapolated to this high an incidence (per 100,000).

Who knows how many people had milder forms of this viral infection and didn't need to seek medical attention or recovered on their own, or how many others were now calssified as having SARS. I'm afraid that's the problem with these statistics: It's hard to derive a truly accurate denominator.

To give you some perspective, the plain old pneumonia/influenzena deaths as tallied up by the CDC worked out to about 10-12 per 100,000.

We'll see as the number of SARS cases continue to come in what a more accurate Mortality rate works out to being. I really doubt that this condition is 180 times more deadly than your typical pneumonia. But the media is sure treating it like that in it's daily search for sensationalism.

DaveC

Cysticercosis of the central nervous system (neurocysticercosis) is caused by the larval stage (cysticerci) of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium. The two-host life cycle of this tapeworm comprises human beings as definitive hosts and swine as intermediate hosts. Pigs become infected when they ingest human faeces containing T. solium eggs, which develop in the muscle and brain into cysticerci. When people eat undercooked pork containing viable cysticerci, they develop an intestinal tapeworm infection, but not cysticercosis of the central nervous system. Human beings can also become intermediate hosts, however, by directly ingesting T. solium eggs shed in the faeces of human carriers of the parasite. These eggs then develop into cysticerci which migrate mostly into muscle (causing cysticercosis) and into the central nervous system where the cysticerci can cause seizures and many other neurological symptoms (cysticercosis of the central nervous system).

Uh, limonene isn't a good thing to be eating.

It smells fantastic, but it's a pretty potent solvent and can irritate the hell out of your digestive tract.

...maybe we could just lock in the coordinates on our freight transporter and teleport it directly into the sun. You're thinking 1000 years, not 100. Think of what we have accomplished in the past 100 years and stop being ridiculously optimistic.

Um...maybe you should actually look up some of the most common health problem among Native American's. One of the leading causes of death is liver failure. Nearly all of that liver failure is wither due viral hepatitis (A, B, C, etc...) and/or alcoholic cirrhosis. From a public health perspective it would be almost unthinkable not to vaccinate a population at high risk for liver failure against the two most common forms of hepatitis. You might also want to check your facts about the WHO's recommendation regarding the Hepatitis B vaccine .

The implicationin the article is that since Hep A and B infection is correlated with HIV infection which is correlated with AIDS that vaccinations against Hep A and B must be related to AIDS. The big problem with thie is that CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSALITY! Hepatitis b infection is higly correlated with HIV infection, but that is because both are transmitted by transfer of bodily fluids. Hepatitis A is transmitted primarily by a fecal-oral route which understandably places individuals who participate in anal sex at increase risk (just like HIV). It also places people with poor water treatment and little opportunity to wash their hands after using the restroom at increased risk.

Quite the opposite form the implication in the article, vaccination against Hepatitis A and B would be of great benefit to individuals who drink margninally treated water are likely more succeptible to alcoholic cirrhosis.

1)Liberally pepper your post with oversimplified pseudoscientific pablum such as "...And, according to the World Health Org, only 31 people were killed in Chernobyl" thereby craftily distracting your audience's attention away from any actual facts about the true magnitude of the disaster. For instance that annoying little statistic of Thyroid cancer(yes I did specifically pick a site from the WHO as a jab at your laughably out of context quote) incidence increasing by oh, 10 times or so. Or maybe the statement by the Board on Effects of Ionizing Radiation and the International Commission on Radiation Protection that the collective dose of 600,000 person-Sieverts released from Chernobyl to the population of the USSR would correspond to 24,000 additional deaths(from the Federation of American Scientists) in that area?

2)Proclaim your unquestioned infinite knowledge on all things related to the topic at hand: "In Yucca mountain, the waste is stored inside these metal casks, which are in turn inside an ultra-thick concrete subterrainean room. Also, the storage place is 2,000 feet above the water table, so you're OK there." Phew good thing we have people like you to tell us such important things lest we waste millions paying doctors of geology to try to figure out such things.

3)Regurgitate amateurish propaganda supporting your cause which contains self-parodying scare tactics aimed at any opposing viewpoints: "Coal naturally contains some thorium and uranium. When you burn coal, this is realesed into the air. We burn so much fscking coal that we realease around 150 thousand tons of uranium and 350 thousand tons of thorium!!!". It's important to remember that while using this shoe-in of a tactic to attain your +5 that you should ignore all obvious holes in your strawman theory such as the fact that coal has BACKGROUND levels of radiation, and burning it has negligible effect on concentrating this radiation. By Spike hay's logic I could argue that the millions of human bodies incinerated every year in cremation ceremonies increases the radioactive pollution of the atmosphere and soil because of all that Carbon-14 and Potassium-40 released when your body burns. Why it must be thousands of tones total every year!!

4)Finally if all else fails, just make a link like he does to to the nearest nut job you can find whose home page should have the latest instructions on "How to Find Osama bin Laden with guaranteed anonymity" apparently using some whacked out pin number conspiracy theory or some such scheme.

That's all! Your're on your way to karma whore heaven! (p.s. i'm already at 50 so I don't really give a crap about what happens to this post)

I've read the World Health Organization's ten year report and I'd point to it if I could. Unfortunately, that one and a new one are not free information. Order it or go visit a library.

I'm not going to say there are no risks, what I'll ask you to do is weigh the risks of doing nothing. The shutdown of the US space program is a national embarassment. We beat up all the lions, tigers and bears. Even the baboons gave up (Appologies to W. Chruchill). The world is watching us and they expect results. We should show them that it is better co-operate and create new resources than it is to squabble over and destroy old ones. If we wait too long, we may no longer be able to afford the effort.

Wow, not even close with the stats on Plague. The US averages 10-20 cases per year whereas the majority of Plague cases occur in Asia, with recent outbreaks in India as lately as 1997 with roughly 700 cases.

Given your track record, AnonCow, I'll leave your "starving children" stats for others to tease out, Gods help them.

India's project to build this network is an investment in their future - I can't fault them for that one bit, and am encouraged by it, actually. Given time, it has the potential to produce jobs, technology for exports, and encouragement for investors from other countries...+,+,+.

Don't do them a disservice by "quoting" stats just to deflate your mad-on toward the US.

A good example that nuclear stuff is dangerous would be the use of depleted uranium in bombs used by the NATO in Bosnia for instance...

http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/du-weapon.htm

Here is a more levelheaded assessment from the WHO. Generally the radiation impact of DU weaponry seems to be small and manageable, particularly if some remediation is undertaken after the conflict.

Still not so sure I want a radioactive battery in my pocket, though...

AC.

True fact. The gene that is linked to Sickle-Cell Anemia only causes it under unlikely mutations. If you are a carrier of this gene however, it provides a degree of protection against Malaria. Therefore it is found most often in malarial reigions of the world.

The issue is, If we wipe out a disease such as sickle cell from the worlds population then those people who live in malarial reigons will be far more at risk possibly causing large-scale epidemics.

Healthy babies are good but not if preventing one disease causes an outbreak of another possibly worse one. We have to be careful about our assumption that we *know* what will happen. This is what all the nonfiction opponents of genetic engineering are really on about. We simply *dont* know what all of our genes do or how they behave in specific combinations and under specific conditions. There are just so many possibilities that total prediction and total control is not possible.

Gattaca was less about genetic engineering as ego and fear. It showed a socity so wrapped in its own genetic confidence and so afraid of its own diseases that babies with a 10% chance of heart disease were treated as if they were already dead. The assumption that say the likely appearence of a gene coding for melanin in the skin meant that you were permanantly incapable of any significant task no matter how smart you actually were.

OK, they give birth to larvae, not lay eggs like ordinary respectable arthropods. Principle is the same, anyway. Here is all you probably want to know about sleeping sickness with large drawings of the brain-eating microbes, from a professor at Tulane.

The World Health Organization's page on trypanosomiasis.

For population control, predators (including parasites) don't work nearly as well as the demographic transition. Learn about this concept, because it controls your future. Definition with nice graph.

Hemos' commentary is quite the misinformed hysteria.

What will he complain about next: those half-dead virii that are intentionally injected into people!?!

Ha Ha Ha! The tetse fly carries the sleeping sickness that threatens the lives and livelihoods of 60 million people.

Boy, what a hoot!

We would hate to use an innovative idea to fight this scurge. Better for people to basically die of insomnia than Hemo's hippy-dippy sensibilities to be offended by the use of ,*horror*, radiation in a completely safe way.

AIDS is disappearing ???? What have you been smoking ? and can i have some ?
AIDS is still spreading fast.
Ebola, we dont even know what the natural carier of it is so how the hell can we contain it ?
"Thought I wouldn't consider this -evolution-, just adaptation to one minor problem" euh last time i check evolution was just that, adaptions to problems, by survivel of the fitest

"ELF fields commonly found in our environment are normally much lower than the strongest electric currents naturally occurring in the body such as those that control the beating of the heart"

"ELF magnetic fields were classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans based on epidemiological studies of childhood leukaemia."

"ELF fields commonly found in our environment are normally much lower than the strongest electric currents naturally occurring in the body such as those that control the beating of the heart"

"ELF magnetic fields were classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans based on epidemiological studies of childhood leukaemia."

People died and most of those people would not have died if they did not have access to a gun (suicide statistics from other countries without guns bear this out).

Guns make suicide easy and private. Most suicides would not happen if the person had to poison themselves, jump to their death, etc. That's why we have such a high suicide rate in the U.S.

[Life expectancy] has increased from 42 to 49 in sub Saharan Africa

What planet do you live on? Life expectancy is falling like a stone in sub-Saharan Africa. A half century of progress has been erased by HIV/AIDS.

• Life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is currently pegged around 47 years, down from 59 years--reached in the early 90's.
• The average Zimbabwean can now expect to live 39 years, down from 65 prior to the AIDS epidemic
• Life expectancy in some African countries is dropping to "Medieval" levels.
• The dramatic bottom of the list for years of healthy life for babies born in 1999: Sierra Leona, 25.9; Niger, 29.1; Malawi, 29.4; Zambia, 30.3; Botswana, 32.3; Uganda, 32.7; Rwanda, 32.8; Zimbabwe, 32.9; Mali, 33.1; and Ethiopia, 33.5

No other century in history was as good for the human race as the 20th, despite the efforts of Hitler (6 million Jews), Stalin (20 million Ukrainians and rural Russians) and Mao (30 million)

Please don't forget to include the 28 million currently sentenced to die by the WTO.

While capitalism may not be a sinking ship, it is failing to guard its own future. Capitalism is good at sharing its diseases with the poor nations, and not very good at sharing the cure. By aggressively defending intellectual property rights, capitalism is a snake swallowing its own tail.

[Life expectancy] has increased from 42 to 49 in sub Saharan Africa

What planet do you live on? Life expectancy is falling like a stone in sub-Saharan Africa. A half century of progress has been erased by HIV/AIDS.

• Life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is currently pegged around 47 years, down from 59 years--reached in the early 90's.
• The average Zimbabwean can now expect to live 39 years, down from 65 prior to the AIDS epidemic
• Life expectancy in some African countries is dropping to "Medieval" levels.
• The dramatic bottom of the list for years of healthy life for babies born in 1999: Sierra Leona, 25.9; Niger, 29.1; Malawi, 29.4; Zambia, 30.3; Botswana, 32.3; Uganda, 32.7; Rwanda, 32.8; Zimbabwe, 32.9; Mali, 33.1; and Ethiopia, 33.5

No other century in history was as good for the human race as the 20th, despite the efforts of Hitler (6 million Jews), Stalin (20 million Ukrainians and rural Russians) and Mao (30 million)

Please don't forget to include the 28 million currently sentenced to die by the WTO.

While capitalism may not be a sinking ship, it is failing to guard its own future. Capitalism is good at sharing its diseases with the poor nations, and not very good at sharing the cure. By aggressively defending intellectual property rights, capitalism is a snake swallowing its own tail.