He's a novelist for cripes sake!
He can make practically ANYTHING 'make sense'!
Charles Ortleb, a novelist and former editor of the New York Native, a newspaper that served the city's gay and lesbian community and that investigated a link between pigs and AIDS in the 1980s,From: http://www.kaisernetwork.org/Daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=3772
The price tag could be much higher.
I agree. Thanks for pointing it out. It was one of the interesting and worthwhile comments on this thread.
However, a lot of this thread was devoted to some garbage arguments that have cropped up a lot lately. There are two basic arguments showing up in various cute forms in many SARS threads. Not only are they flawed, but some of them are straight from the darkest dungeons in the human soul. Hitler would be proud.
GROUP #1: The first argument, found in many various forms, is, "If it ain't killed anybody from 'round here, it ain't dangerous." If left at that it would simply be provincial and ignorant. But some posters have carried it to a much darker level. These posters loudly proclaim they are young and healthy enough to beat SARS, so why should they even care? Let the old and/or sick die. (Frees up resources, I guess. Hitler would be proud.) I hope these Freepers are not really as depraved as they sound.
GROUP #2: The second group thinks its clever to point out how many more people have died in practically every way imaginable compared to SARS. (They could have used the same "logic" to ridicule the power of nukes, too, especially in 1943. How many Americans have nukes killed? Flu kills more people every year than nukes ever did. Yada, yada, yada.)
I guess for these folks, the only news is local news, and the furthest they think ahead is Friday night.
Are the people in group #1 really so selfish, even evil? Are the people in group #2 really so shallow?
Maybe its late and I'm just cranky. Whatever. But I still can not see how ANYONE posting on this topic, on this forum, can fail to understand the concept of a pandemic. Nor can I understand how ANYONE who understands the concept of a pandemic can fail to understand how important it is to try to head one off before it gets going. Nor do I understand how ANYONE could possibly consider SARS to be a ho-hum disease if it breaks out.
Perhaps the answer is simply invincible ignorance, otherwise known as denial.
G'night, all.
BTW, Charles Ortleb, a novelist and former editor of the New York Native , a newspaper that served the city's gay and lesbian community and that investigated a link between pigs and AIDS in the 1980s, said that although he does not believe that HIV causes AIDS, he does believe that HHV-6 causes AIDS and is "swine in origin."
I would guess he likely pushes an agenda and not scientifically based criticism.