INTRODUCTION

There’s a kind of doomsday feel to things right now - have you noticed? It’s not just that the Mayan calendar runs out on December 21st of next year. It’s not even the plethora of new warnings from astrophysicists, doctors and geologists about the possibly catastrophic events that are now known to be on the not-too-distant horizon. It has more to do with the zeitgeist, an undifferentiated sense that things can’t go on like they are forever.
And, of course, there are clues. Almost daily, items half-buried in news reports point to the Doom scenarios just lurking around the corner. Maybe you are too busy or too trapped in denial to notice them all, so this blog is here to help you keep track.

Saturday, 5 November 2011

Something to Worry About Today:

A cocktail of influenza viruses which already exist could become the next global killer, epidemiologists have warned.

Some such cocktails have already appeared, as when ordinary winter flu infects a patient at the same time as the more virulent swine flu. The more dangerous variety can then “hitch a ride” on the other and form a new illness. The nightmare scenario for human health involves a deadly bug such as bird (avian) flu, not normally found in humans, attaching itself to winter flu viruses and mutating into an attack nobody is resistant to.

Medical scientists will keep working on vaccines, even though such a flu contagion could spread in days across the globe. Meanwhile, wash your hands. 

Then wash them again.



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