John Moore | February 18, 2005
When AIDS first hit the United States, AIDS activists were able to prevent some routine public health measures, resulting in a dramatically higher death toll than was necessary. They opposed contact tracing and quarantine, both normal measures with deadly contagious disease.
If one of the AIDS patients had contracted the less deadly multidrug resistant tuberculosis, they [...]
John Moore | February 5, 2005
Last Christmas, my extended family traveled to the Yucatan jungle (Belize – San Ignacio). 4 of us spent 5 nights in an “authentic thatched roof hut” (not our plan, of course). The consequences were potentially deadly, and very expensive. Yours truly was a fool!
John Moore | January 23, 2004
The World Health Organization is becoming seriously alarmed at a “historically unprecedented” epidemic of the most dangerous (to humans) strain of Avian Influenza. Their 22 January 2004 bullten is titled: “Avian influenza H5N1 infection in humans: urgent need to eliminate the animal reservoir – update 5″. The full bulletin is at the end of this [...]
John Moore | January 19, 2004
Chinese corruption and secrecy allowed the SARS epidemic to get out of hand last year, when for several months they refused requests of international health workers to provide information on what they called “atypical pneumonia” in Guangdong province. That disease turned out to a new human viral disease, SARS, but the world’s scientists learned [...]
John Moore | September 19, 2003
Glenn Reynolds has commented about the level of hype associated with Hurricane Isabel. However, the comment “Category 2 Storm, Category 5 Hype” betrays a common misconception: that the category rating gives a good approximation of the danger to you. Lots of people say “I’ve ridden out a Category 2 before, so what’s the big [...]
John Moore | September 10, 2003
Way back at the “Earth Summit” in 1992, the usual useful fools foisted a treaty on the world called the Convention on Biological Diversity. Actually, it wasn’t so much well meaning as greedy. The treaty was seen by third world countries as a way to grab a lot of money for any products resulting from [...]
John Moore | February 28, 2003
Fox News Reports: The IAEA has declared a “radiological emergency” based on the theft of “strategic quantities” of radioactive Americium in Nigeria – a country with a significant Muslim population and a history of Islamicist violence.
Presumable the terms “strategic quantities” means that enough has been stolen to be useful for one or more radiological [...]
John Moore | February 24, 2003
Viruses are normally named after a landmark near where they were first discovered. Thus Ebola is named after the Ebola River, near the home of it’s first case. Marburg (a relative of Ebola) was first discovered in Marburg, Germany. Hantavirus was first discovered during the Korean War and was named after the Hantaan River.
In 1993 [...]
John Moore | February 20, 2003
[UPDATE:2/24/03 The H5N1 Influenza has no human influenza genes, and thus cannot spread from human to human.]
Reports of a mysterious pneumonia have been arriving from Guangdong Province of China since November 2002. At least five people have died and 305 hospitalized, including about 100 health care workers.
Recently two cases (one fatal) of “bird flu” (Influenza [...]