Last Great Plague

Antibiotic use for humans versus livestock

The latest National Academy of Sciences report investigating the rising tide of new diseases spoke of myriad factors creating the microbial equivalent of a “perfect storm.” “However, unlike a major climactic event where various meteorologic forces converge to produce a tempest,” it reads, “this microbial perfect storm will not subside. There will be no calm after the epidemic; rather the forces combining to create the perfect storm will continue to collide and the storm itself will be a recurring event.”¹²⁴⁴ And there is no storm like influenza.

The dozens of emerging zoonotic disease threats that have characterized this third era of human disease must be put into context. SARS infected thousands of human beings and killed hundreds. Nipah only infected hundreds and killed scores. Strep. suis infected scores and only killed dozens. Influenza infects billions and can kill millions.

Influenza, the “last great plague of man,”¹²⁴⁵ is the only known pathogen capable of truly global catastrophe.¹²⁴⁶ Unlike other devastating infections like malaria, which is confined equatorially, or HIV, which is only fluid-borne, influenza is considered by the CDC’s Keiji Fukuda to be the only pathogen carrying the potential to “infect a huge percentage of the world’s population inside the space of a year.”¹²⁴⁷ “Make no mistake about it,” Osterholm says. “Of all the infectious diseases influenza is the lion king.”¹²⁴⁸

Because of its extreme mutation rate, influenza is a perpetually emerging disease. Anthony Fauci, the NIH’s pandemic planning czar, calls it “the mother of all emerging infections.”¹²⁴⁹ In its 4,500 years infecting humans since the first domestication of wild birds, influenza has always been one of the most contagious pathogens.¹²⁵⁰ Only since 1997 has it also emerged as one of the deadliest. If influenza is the king of all emerging infections, H5N1 is the king of kings. H5N1 seems a full order of magnitude more lethal than every known human influenza virus on record, completely off the charts. To reduce the risk of future escalating pandemics, we must trace its origin in greater detail to understand how a monster like H5N1 could be hatched.