[Born to Conserve]

"Still a SARS skeptic"

Don't be skeptical. Instead, look back at the patterns of disease a hundred years ago, and expect that to become again. We've had a century of success with medicines and hygiene, but at some point, nature and evolution will adapt and the successes will be seen as a temporary bubble.

Our only defense, ultimately, will be to adapt through evolution (die). The last time breeders died in quantity in the west was the WW 1 flu epidemic. That is what you should expect again. Get used to it.

[InterceptPoint]

Don't be skeptical. Instead, look back at the patterns of disease a hundred years ago, and expect that to become again. We've had a century of success with medicines and hygiene, but at some point, nature and evolution will adapt and the successes will be seen as a temporary bubble.

I'm sure you're right.

I'm not skeptical about the inevitability of an epidemic that will wipe out large numbers of people world-wide. That will surely happen. But I remain skeptical of this one (SARS) being that killer. It just doesn't pass the smell test for me. A real epidemic ramps up to peak pretty fast and then just dies off of it own accord. I predict we will see nothing like this with SARS. Let's look back in 6 months and see what we see. I'm betting SARS will still be with us but will not have followed or be following the classic peaking that true epidemics exhibit. This will be explained away by the CDC, NIH and WHO as a result of their quick action. That will be nonsense. The other news will be that we will funding SARS research and we will still be talking about it.