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What New Things Are Going to Kill Me? by Richard Preston As we make headway against the old diseases, the ticking time bomb in the next century will be the new microbes -- natural and man-made... Remember in the movie "Aliens" when Hudson asked, "Is this gonna be a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?" Well, the 21st century is going to be one hell of a bug hunt. There's no doubt that eerie new infectious diseases will appear, and the struggles against some of them will make the fight against the AIDS virus look like the opening battle of a war. Of course, by then there will probably be a vaccine for AIDS, and the shot will cost a few dollars or be given for free. Today new viruses are coming out of nature and "discovering" the human species, while in hospitals and in jungle clinics exceedingly powerful mutant bacteria are emerging that can't be treated with antibiotics. In the past decade, at least 50 new viruses have appeared, including Ebola Ivory Coast, Andes virus, hepatitis G, Fakeeh, Pirital, Whitewater Arroyo, Hendra virus, Black Lagoon virus, Nipah and Oscar virus. This summer West Nile virus showed up for the first time in the western hemisphere, when it was discovered in New York City. Viruses are moving into the human species because there are more of us all the time. From a virus' point of view, we look like a free lunch that's getting bigger. My grandfather was born in 1899, on the eve of a new century, when there were 1.5 billion people on earth. He died in 1995, and by then there were almost 6 billion people. Thus in one lifetime the population quadrupled, and it's heading for 9 or 10 billion. In nature, when populations soar -- and become densely packed -- viral diseases tend to break out; then the population drops. This is nature's population-control mechanism. It happens with rodents, insects and even plants. There is no reason to think the human race is exempt from the laws of nature. |
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