THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601200015
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: Long : 146 lines
A junior high friend of mine saw one science-fiction movie too many and went around chalking The Bugs Will Inherit the Earth on blackboards. This got him a reputation for being odd.
If he'd written The Germs Will Inherit the Earth instead, it might have gotten him a reputation for being prophetic. Thirty years later, this past week, a report warned that infectious diseases that we once thought on the road to extinction are staging a disturbing comeback.
The Centers for Disease Control reported a 58 percent increase in deaths due to infectious diseases between 1980 and 1992. They have gone from being the fifth leading cause of death to third - after heart disease and cancer.
In the middle years of the century wonder drugs and vaccines looked like they would put an end to age-old scourges like tuberculosis and malaria. But a variety of factors have changed the picture from imminent eradication to looming resurgence. For one thing, the bugs adapt.
In many cases, we've helped them to do so. The overuse and misuse of medicines have backfired. Instead of killing all infectious agents, we've killed the weak and left the strong in possession of the field, free to proliferate.
Today, bio-fear is widespread and even trendy. We have made best sellers of The Hot Zone and The Coming Plague. We flock to movies featuring men in plastic suits battling invisible killers instead of aliens - ``Outbreak'' and ``12 Monkeys.'' Our fears may be justified.
AIDS is no fantasy. It is a slow-motion plague. Septicemia is an increasing threat. TB, the great white death of the 19th century, is back. In 1992, 47 percent of deaths due to infectious disease came as a result of respiratory infections such as bacterial pneumonia. Respiratory-infection deaths are up 20 percent, 1980 to 1992.
Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg warns that due to international travel the world ``never has been more vulnerable to the threat of emerging and re-emerging infections.'' He calls the situation ``a tinderbox.'' Diseases once restricted to the world's isolated outbacks now have a chance to infect huge populations.
It wouldn't be the first time. An influenza pandemic killed 20 million around the world in 1918-19. European colonists dropped like flies in Africa and Asia in previous centuries. American Indian populations were scythed down when infections imported from Europe struck people with no immunity.
We'd be fools to suppose it can't happen here. In fact, Hampton Roads may be as vulnerable as anyplace its size. Thanks in part to a huge military presence, our region is an international crossroads. Annually 200,000 people move in and another 200,000 move out. And that doesn't begin to take into account tens of thousands who sail and fly away - to the Persian Gulf, Haiti, Somalia, you name it. When they return, they may bring along uninvited guests.
Are there solutions? Only the obvious ones. Doctors must be slower to prescribe antibiotics for minor maladies. Patients need to understand why. When such treatment is prescribed, patients have got to complete the medication to be sure of killing all the bugs and not unwittingly contribute to the survival of the fittest.
Much more public-health rigor is required. As a society, we've gotten lax about vaccination. Insects and parasites that carry disease are flourishing and need to be combatted. AIDS has not gone away. And the campaign to educate people about the risks of the disease and how to avoid them must continue.
Panic isn't called for, but complacency is surely a mistake. A scan of the headlines the same day the CDC study was reported made sobering reading. In Philadephia, ``an unexplained outbreak of a bacterial infection in a cardiac intensive-care unit at Children's Hospital. . . .'' From the Ohio State Medical Center, a report on penicillin-resistant strains of strep that cause 500,000 cases of pneumonia a year. A Duluth doctor warns about a new, possibly fatal disease - HGE - easily confused with Lyme Disease and carried by the same deer tick.
It's ironic and more than a little creepy that an era characterized by daily breakthroughs in the biological sciences is also plagued by daily reports of infections old and new. A wise man once said the human condition was a race between education and extinction. He might have been right, and the bugs might yet inherit the earth.
Ajunior high friend of mine saw one science-fiction movie too many and went around chalking The Bugs Will Inherit the Earth on blackboards. This got him a reputation for being odd.
If he'd written The Germs Will Inherit the Earth instead, it might have gotten him a reputation for being prophetic. Thirty years later, this past week, a report warned that infectious diseases that we once thought on the road to extinction are staging a disturbing comeback.
The Centers for Disease Control reported a 58 percent increase in deaths due to infectious diseases between 1980 and 1992. They have gone from being the fifth leading cause of death to third - after heart disease and cancer.
In the middle years of the century wonder drugs and vaccines looked like they would put an end to age-old scourges like tuberculosis and malaria. But a variety of factors have changed the picture from imminent eradication to looming resurgence. For one thing, the bugs adapt.
In many cases, we've helped them to do so. The overuse and misuse of medicines have backfired. Instead of killing all infectious agents, we've killed the weak and left the strong in possession of the field, free to proliferate.
Today, bio-fear is widespread and even trendy. We have made best sellers of The Hot Zone and The Coming Plague. We flock to movies featuring men in plastic suits battling invisible killers instead of aliens - ``Outbreak'' and ``12 Monkeys.'' Our fears may be justified.
AIDS is no fantasy. It is a slow-motion plague. Septicemia is an increasing threat. TB, the great white death of the 19th century, is back. In 1992, 47 percent of deaths due to infectious disease came as a result of respiratory infections such as bacterial pneumonia. Respiratory-infection deaths are up 20 percent, 1980 to 1992.
Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg warns that due to international travel the world ``never has been more vulnerable to the threat of emerging and re-emerging infections.'' He calls the situation ``a tinderbox.'' Diseases once restricted to the world's isolated outbacks now have a chance to infect huge populations.
It wouldn't be the first time. An influenza pandemic killed 20 million around the world in 1918-19. European colonists dropped like flies in Africa and Asia in previous centuries. American Indian populations were scythed down when infections imported from Europe struck people with no immunity.
We'd be fools to suppose it can't happen here. In fact, Hampton Roads may be as vulnerable as anyplace its size. Thanks in part to a huge military presence, our region is an international crossroads. Annually 200,000 people move in and another 200,000 move out. And that doesn't begin to take into account tens of thousands who sail and fly away - to the Persian Gulf, Haiti, Somalia, you name it. When they return, they may bring along uninvited guests.
Are there solutions? Only the obvious ones. Doctors must be slower to prescribe antibiotics for minor maladies. Patients need to understand why. When such treatment is prescribed, patients have got to complete the medication to be sure of killing all the bugs and not unwittingly contribute to the survival of the fittest.
Much more public-health rigor is required. As a society, we've gotten lax about vaccination. Insects and parasites that carry disease are flourishing and need to be combatted. AIDS has not gone away. And the campaign to educate people about the risks of the disease and how to avoid them must continue.
Panic isn't called for, but complacency is surely a mistake. A scan of the headlines the same day the CDC study was reported made sobering reading. In Philadephia, ``an unexplained outbreak of a bacterial infection in a cardiac intensive-care unit at Children's Hospital. . . .'' From the Ohio State Medical Center, a report on penicillin-resistant strains of strep that cause 500,000 cases of pneumonia a year. A Duluth doctor warns about a new, possibly fatal disease - HGE - easily confused with Lyme Disease and carried by the same deer tick.
It's ironic and more than a little creepy that an era characterized by daily breakthroughs in the biological sciences is also plagued by daily reports of infections old and new. A wise man once said the human condition was a race between education and extinction. He might have been right, and the bugs might yet inherit the earth. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page.
by CNB