Something's in the air: liberties in the face of SARS and other infectious diseases - Singapore

Reason, August, 2003 by Declan McCullagh

Nearly 100 years ago, the Spanish Flu tested medical science's ability to respond to a deadly worldwide threat, with researchers in 1918 venturing beyond the germ theory of disease and postulating the then-novel existence of a virus as the cause of the infection. Their attempts to unravel the mystery of influenza soon led to the creation of a hybrid vaccine administered to the British military.

Today, researchers already have used the virus' genetic sequence to create tests that weed out people who may have breathing problems but are not infected with SARS. While the panic mongers have an undeniable head start, so far the ability of modern science to deal with such a novel and destructive threat seems up to the task. Let's only hope that governments' reactions to SARS are equally careful.

Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) is the Washington correspondent for News.com. His Web site is www.mccullagb.org.