| From: | Andrew Huang <adh8@*******.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Epidemic (relating more to the original question) |
| Date: | Sat, 18 Oct 1997 16:17:14 -0400 |
standards, but given how quickly this thread went off the original
question, here goes.
IMHO, I'd expect disease in 2050 to be a massive problem.
With the breakdown of organized government most public health measures,
tenuous as they are right now (our friends in Congress vetoed funding for
the CDC to build and/or upgrade their level 4 biosaftey labs) would just go
to pot. Unless you're affiliated with some corp or tribe or something, I'd
expect that the quality of healthcare for the majority of people would just
slip down the drain. And really, in terms of controlling communicable
disease, a key factor is its treatment and elimination in the populous as a
whole. So your corp CEO sitting on high might not be at risk (or maybe they
might, the sub-minimum wage cleaning lady could have some meta-infection),
our heros the PC's come in contact with a large demographic cross-section
all of the time.
On that note, how many of our valiant adventurers wash their hands (one of
the major preventative measures against disease) before eating, using the
can, patching up a wounded chummer, crawling through some god-awful sewer
line, getting into a major gunfight in some 'hot' biowarfare lab? Or what
about deconning in general? Even if you're wearing some crazy Rating 6
chemsuit, getting shot qualifies pretty well for a breach of barrier
integrity not to mention a dirty penetrating wound.
In any case, other factors that increase not only the spread of diseases
and the emergence of new ones include faster travel (the world's getting
smaller), intrusion into previously uninhabited areas (think ebola,
hantavirus), mismanagement of health resources (ever demand antibiotics for
a viral infection? well, antibiotics don't do dick against a virus, they
only work of bacteria), and demographic trends.
Whoever that fool was who said he'd "bet on science" to create some
technological panacea for disease is way off track. Modern science is key
to curing and treating disease, but no way in hell are we ever going to
outstrip the microbial evolutionary curve. First, bugs (microbes) multiply
like all hell; a single E. coli, left to its own devices for 24 hours,
could cover the earth in a few feet of its descendents. Second, bugs mutate
at the drop of a hat, which means that a good number of them will be
non-viable it also means that statistically a bunch of them will come out
bigger and meaner. Antibiotics were hailed as the miracle of the 40's and
50's, now we have increasing numbers of antibiotic resistant bacteria
causing infections. Cynically thinking, no treatment is really a cure, it's
just a new selection pressure.
Other wildcards can come into play too. In the US, tuberculosis was
becoming fairly rare up until recently when cases of tuberculosis
coninfecting with HIV were reported, and correspondingly increased
transmission of TB to other people. What kinds of wildcards that will pop
up in 2050 are best left to the imagination, but I'm willing to bet that
metavarients and paranormal microbes would be a pretty formidable wildcard.
Hope that helps.
Andrew
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