Bird Flu - AIDS: A Clear-Cut Disaster - The Diigo Meta page

• 29 May 07
  

  James Linzel
  • “Mostly these days,” wrote one prominent medical microbiologist, “it is man’s intrusion on the natural environment which is the all-important key to emerging viruses.”803
  • Having finally sequenced the genome of the chimpanzee, though, scientists realize we may share more than 95% of our DNA with our fellow great apes.818 “Darwin wasn’t just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes—he didn’t go far enough,” one primatologist said. “We are apes in every way….”819 By cannibalizing our fellow primates, we are exposing ourselves to pathogens particularly fine-tuned to human primate physiology.
  • Developers chopped America’s woods into subdivisions, scaring away the foxes and bobcats who had previously kept mouse populations in check. Animal ecologists recover some seven times more infected ticks from 1- and 2-acre woodlots than lots of 10 to 15 acres. The pioneer in this area concluded, “You’re more likely to get Lyme disease in Scarsdale than the Catskills.”810
  • In the accompanying Lancet editorial, we are reminded that zoonotic cross-species infections are “among the most important public health threats facing humanity.”830

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