Elola paranoia

[Mark Van Alstine]

In article <3p17et$t3i at pipe1.nyc.pipeline.com>, ijiwaru at nyc.pipeline.com
(Lyle Najita) wrote:

> If you want to be paranoid about something, how about the fact that CDC will
> have a budget decrease amounting to almost half its current budget and NIH 
> getting a budget decrease amounting to 10% of its current budget. We'll be in 
> great shape for the next great outbreak when we have no one studying anything 
> remotely related and don't have the personnel to perform the surveillance. As 
> a burned out post-doctoral fellow (researching a hepatitis virus), I can tell 
> you that after more than ten years of college, grad school and post-doctoral 
> training I'm not looking forward to spending ten to twelve hours of day
in the 
> lab for the next five to ten years trying to keep grant funding for my grand 
> salary of maybe $40K a year (if I'm lucky). It is clear that my training and 
> expertise (as sorry as it may be) are not worth it to people in the US or any 
> other part of the world. Don't worry about Ebola, worry about the next
big flu 
> strain change that was unanticipated because of poor surveillance or the 
> emergence of multiply drug resistant TB (which is airborne). 
  
Lyle,

Yes, what you have described _is_ something to be _very_ worried about. In
light of Homo Sapien's clear inability to "conquer" such "mundane"
diseases as malaria, yellow fever, dengue, hepatitis, (MDR) TB, the
plethora of STDs and parasitic diseases, (not to mention HIV) etc., one
_does_ wonder where the collective head of our government is at these
days. One can only hope that they pull it out before a _real_ "slate
wiper" (As if HIV doesn't fit the bill!) crops up and nails humanity right
between the eyes... 

Mark