[Endeavor]

You are assuming a vaccine is possible. It takes quite a while to come up with a viable vaccine, not to mention getting it through FDA approval. Not all viruses can be fought with a vaccine - look at HIV. Maybe one day, but we've been working on that since the '80's.

Actually, I do believe that some of these problems will be solved with anti-virals, eventually. A new one was just approved for HIV a week or so ago.

I'm also not convinced our best and brightest will be working on this. I'm not a particularly big fan of the CDC after seeing them botch the anthrax situation. I no longer, quite frankly, trust their judgement.

Many of the best and brightest are at the pharmaceutical companies - and they'll only have a chance to work on this peripherally, initially - diagnostic test kit production. Any drug or vaccine will likely have to come through them - that's years away.

The rest of the "best and the brightest" are at the universities and specialized research institutes. Their work will depend on grant money - which, starting from the time they write the grant, will take at least 1-2 years from now to get a project up and running.

My point is, drug/vaccine discovery is very, very expensive and requires time. There is just no magical can of Whoop Ass outside the Marines.

[Mother Abigail]

Re: Time required to mount an effective response to the SARS outbreak

The old saying about "Nothing focuses the mind like being on the wrong end of a gun" comes to mind.

You may very well be right, which will be very bad news.

Do you view this as a pandemic, in the early stages, where the agent is loose in the population, centered in a closed and lying society, containable only in the most advanced facilities, requiring expensive and rare equipment and drugs to stabilize?

Do you feel that if this agent arrives in any number of third world countries the price of real estate gets real cheap?

And do you think that all species are subject to cycles of sustained growth and sudden calamity?

If you do, then you are not alone.
Judging from my overflowing e-mail.