Difference between revisions of "Pandemics"
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'''Predictions:''' | '''Predictions:''' | ||
Revision as of 15:55, 7 August 2009
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This article is part of the Pharma_Portal project of Spinwatch. |
Beginning in the 1980s, there have been regular predictions from the scientific community, governments, and the media about imminent or occurring pandemics (a pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through human populations across a large region). Reports in the media focus on raising alarm over the alleged seriousness of the disease concerned and predict high numbers of deaths.
It is instructive to look back over the history of these modern pandemics and see how many of these predictions have been borne out, and to what extent.
Contents
Heterosexual AIDS epidemic
Predictions: In 1987, a report in the New York Times announced, "AIDS May Dwarf the Plague". US News declared "the disease of them [homosexuals] suddenly is the disease of us [heterosexuals]". Oprah Winfrey stated on her TV show, "one out of five heterosexuals will be dead of AIDS by 1990" (that's about 50 million people). US health Secretary Otis Bowen said AIDS could make the Black Death seem "pale by comparison."[1]
Reality: In 2008 the World Health Organization declared the heterosexual AIDS epidemic, outside of Africa, over.[2]
West Nile Virus
In 1999 in the North-East United States, including New York City, an outbreak occurred of a mosquito-borne illness called West Nile Virus.
Predictions:
Reality: Multiple aerial sprayings of the city's streets were carried out. The spraying was blamed by some for the widespread die-off of lobsters and other crustaceans and the consequent death of the lobster-fishing industry. "The magnitude and suddenness of the 1999 die-off points to insecticide toxicity or pesticide runoffs," Bob Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, told a New York Times reporter. Bayer does not swallow a competing theory that a type of amoeba called Paramoebas was responsible. "Paramoebas would cause a gradual rather than a sudden change," he said.[3]
SARS
Bird flu
Swine flu
See main article, Swine Flu.
Affiliations
Contact
- Address:
- Phone:
- Email:
- Website:
Resources
(resources go here in alphabetical order)
Notes
- ↑ Medical correctness (New figures on AIDS cases reveals there is no epidemic), National Review, Mar 15, 1993, subscription req'd to access full article, accessed 7 Aug 2009
- ↑ Laurance, Jeremy, "Threat of world AIDS pandemic among heterosexuals is over, report admits", Independent on Sunday, 8 June 2008
- ↑ Laurie Nadel, With Lobsters Scarce, Questions Abound, New York Times, 9 December 2001, accessed 7 Aug 2009
