(OPE-L) deadly plague

["Gerald A. Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx>]

Forwarded with permission of the author.  Long-term OPE-L
members may remember Walter from the old (& long since dead)
'marxism' list./ In solidarity, Jerry

----- Original Message -----
From: "foxcave" <foxcave@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gerald_a_levy@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 12:50 PM
Subject: deadly plague


 Hi Jerry,

 I saw (in the OPE archives) that you asked whether Mike Davis' account
is accurate. A friend, a scientist who follows these things, says:

 On a world scale, there is probably a great deal of truth in what this
article says.  Even since Florence Nightingale and it has been known
that poverty breeds infection.  Crowding in slums is one aspect of
poverty  which enhances infection, but so does poor nutrition, poor
personal  hygiene, availability of clean water, availability of clean air
and other forms of pollution.

In the West, we would probably have enough time to get a vaccine, but
that would certainly not be true in the Far East.

The influenza pandemic was before they had vaccines. Remember swine flu
-- it didn't happen because of mass vaccination. I assume they would
work very hard on the same kind of thing. They do expect it to mutate,
but I believe they have the ability to make a vaccine quickly.

P.S.  On birds:  If there is a bird pandemic, it might well be because
of underlying immunodeficiency and the birds, due to high PCB and/or
dioxin levels.  In the past animals have been found to have this type of
immunodeficiency when they become infected in unusual numbers. (For
example, dolphins and other large mammals as well as some fish. )

 Walter Daum