X-Message-Number: 21436 From: "Peter C. McCluskey" <> Subject: Re: URGENT HEALTH WARNING Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:05:22 -0800 (PST) () writes: >Message #21416 >disrupted. SARS may well behave much like the 1918 Flu. For an excellent and >comprehensive review of this pandemic I highly recommend Gina Kolata's FLU: >THE GREAT INFLUENZA PANDEMIC OF 1918 AND THE SEARCH OF THE AGENT THAT CAUSED >IT (ISBN: 0374157065 >Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC). Used copies are available from >bookfinder.com for as little as $1.00 (US). The 1918 Flu killed more people >than W.W.I. Estimates for deaths in the US are as high as 18 million. A good book on this subject is Ewald's Evolution of Infectious Diseases. It describes battlefield conditions and handling of sick soldiers that aided the evolution of relatively virulent strains of diseases. This book tends to encourage skepticism about alarmist claims of rapidly spreading diseases in conditions prevalent today where severe symptoms tend to reduce the infected person's contact with others. But without knowing much about the transmission mechanism and incubation time of a new disease, there's plenty of room for uncertainty. Also, there's an idea futures claim on whether 500+ people will be quarantined in the U.S. this year (not much trading yet): http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=QRNTN -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter McCluskey | http://www.rahul.net/pcm | Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21436