Potential deaths > historical deaths? I think not.

Those diseases all killed a much greater per capita number than anything we have now, though. That's a much more relevant measure.

EVERYBODY PANIC!!

Uh oh! I must have yellow fever because I really like Asian women!

None of these diseases is more painful than having to click through 10 friggin screens of gallery views. Hello? One page option please??

Diogenes:I can't tell if we're better off or worse.

Better, by far.

That article was pure rubbish

Well, I wanted something other than the lowered threat of terrorism to worry about....

I'd sure like to 'find' & name a deadliest disease... hmmm

The Black Plague, Third Pandemic and Spanish Flu......compared to what? Anton Chigurh?

mistrmind:Yeah, what is our ROI on pandemics? We need to look at the bottom line here people!!!

I'd rather have the same amount of people suffer from a plague than the same percentage. "Bottom line" is simply the amount of people who have to suffer, regardless of who it is.

tomcatadam:mistrmind:Yeah, what is our ROI on pandemics? We need to look at the bottom line here people!!!

I'd rather have the same amount of people suffer from a plague than the same percentage. "Bottom line" is simply the amount of people who have to suffer, regardless of who it is.

75 million people dying in the 1400s caused a near-total collapse of society. 75 million people dying today would be a tragedy, but wouldn't be a serious threat to human civilization.

kanesays:The Black Plague, Third Pandemic and Spanish Flu......compared to what? Anton Chigurh?

+1, friend-o.

Glads to see aids not on the list, though a few of those things on the list would have been attributed (perhaps unfairly) to aids had the person coincidentally been hiv+.

After the manufactured scare with the Bird Flu a few years ago, they need something to scare us somehow.

/meh/

Farkers tend to trash all international organizations and institutions all of the time (Wow, that statement would kill my logic professor).

FTA the article about the SARS:

"The global public health response was a near-unparalleled success. Within weeks, control efforts led by the World Health Organization had identified a totally novel agent, devised a diagnostic test, and instituted plans for quarantine and isolation. It is undoubtedly a result of those efforts that the outbreak was contained before it could reach pandemic levels."

I had E. Coli poisoning once. It is not fun.

/Anyone ever read The Hot Zone? No love for String Fever?

It's in a 10-page gallery format, which in itself is a disease worse than any on that list.

er, is it just me or do some of those illnesses have pretty pathetic death rates among healthy people. Sure salmonella, sars and bird flu kill the sick, old and children. But so do the regular flu or even the common cold sometimes. My immune system is not impressed.

Good use of the semi-colon.

This list is full of fail.

SARS? 744 deaths total.

Bird Flu? 243 deaths deaths.

"Regular Flu" - 500,000 deaths world wide - 35,000 deaths EVERY YEAR in the US

We panic about exotic threats like brid flu, but every year the government has to chide us to get our flu shots.

Sarcasticus:I had E. Coli poisoning once. It is not fun.

/Anyone ever read The Hot Zone? No love for String Fever?

Read it, got an autographed copy from Richard Preston, studied microbology and virology. Filoviruses are scary but the truth is that they burn too fast to spread very far. They're difficult to transmit because they're fluid borne and they incapacitate and kill their hosts before they can transmit to many others. They're relatively easy to contain provided you put enough guys in blue suits on the ground. Yes, they're gory, but they're not the worst thing out there.

I haven't RTFA yet, but if Smallpox isn't on the top of the list I call 12 kinds of shenanigans.

I thought it was only the lead singer of The Black Plague who died.

Stile4aly:Read it, got an autographed copy from Richard Preston, studied microbology and virology. Filoviruses are scary but the truth is that they burn too fast to spread very far. They're difficult to transmit because they're fluid borne and they incapacitate and kill their hosts before they can transmit to many others. They're relatively easy to contain provided you put enough guys in blue suits on the ground. Yes, they're gory, but they're not the worst thing out there.

Yup, anmd the one time Ebola potentially went airborne its lethality dropped dramatically, thats the thing with viruses there is generally a trade off between how easily a virus can spread and its lethality. Typically what happens is attenuation, as an outbreak rages the later generations spread easier but are far less lethal until the outbreak stops. Or it burns itself out before it gets that afr because it kills the host before they can infect more people.

Viruses like the Flu typically can be spread well because the incubation time is longer and it isn't as debilitating (or lethal) as quickly. You have time to go to work when you just start to get sick or walk around town and spread it everywhere.

Get a hemorrhagic fever and you crash, infect a handful of people by coughing bloof all over them, then die. Its also why first responders and primary care givers are some of the first to go in nasty outbreaks like that.

Captain Trips?

This may sound unkind, but I think that overall a pandemic would not be a bad thing in the long term. In a local time frame it would suck.

We're due for a major culling of the population. Diseases generally thin the population of the weakest. We are hugely overpopulated now in many respects. Fark! Such a tragic [sic] spanking of humanity collectively could straighten out a lot of problems and get people on a better track.

/I'm not saying want to catch Captain Trips or something, but likely would.
//If I were a cat I'd have used seven lives by now.

Oh noe! Bird Flu strikes!

Misleading title. Should be:::

Top 10 Deadliest INFECTIOUS diseases.

None of these even come close to heart disease and Cancer. And don't even mention old age and taxes.

Lanmanager:Misleading title. Should be:::

Top 10 Deadliest INFECTIOUS diseases.

None of these even come close to heart disease and Cancer. And don't even mention old age and taxes.

They're infectious too. The vector is cultural.

See how native populations start to die of western diseases when "infected" by western culture (and are "cured" when they revert). Pollan, mentioned at the beginning of the article, goes into this quite a bit I seem to remember.

SJKebab:kevinfra:This list is full of fail.

SARS? 744 deaths total.

Bird Flu? 243 deaths deaths.

"Regular Flu" - 500,000 deaths world wide - 35,000 deaths EVERY YEAR in the US

We panic about exotic threats like brid flu, but every year the government has to chide us to get our flu shots.

This bears repeating

No, no it doesn't. Pandemic flu is some very scary shiat - the current 'bird flu' H5N1 is very similar to the previous pandemic flus that came before it. Read for yourself, then say that it isn't some really scary shiat. They're all based on the same strain as the current 'avian flu.'

1918 - H1N1: 'Spanish Flu' - 50-100 million dead (5% of the world population killed, 20% stricken within the same month)

1956 - H2N2: 'Asian Flu' 1-4 million dead.

1968 - H3N2: 'Hong Kong Flu' - low mortality, high rate of spread. 0.5 dead, 50 million infected in the US alone

Current Avian Flu: H5N1 - low rate of infection and spread so far, but the mortality rate has never before seen in a flu - 60% kill rate for those infected. If this were to spread like the Hong Kong Flu, with a time period of the Spanish Flu, 1/6th of the Human population would die within a month. Unlike other flu strains, Avian flu strikes those with healthiest immune systems the hardest, leaving the young and aged fairly unaffected. The highest death rates are those between 20 & 30.



Within weeks, high school gyms across the nation would look like this:



The media is correctly known for constantly blowing things out of proportion, but the specter of avian flu is not one of them. I wish US public schools would dedicate a week to teaching kids the full history and longstanding human relationship with 'bird flu.' Not just give the occasional 20second mention the culling of millions of infected chickens using 3 year old b-roll video.

You call those scary?

Cabin Fever. That's the real threat.

MrBentor:... Such a tragic [sic] spanking of humanity collectively could straighten out a lot of problems and get people on a better track. ...

Uhm... why the [sic]? I see no misspelling in that sentence, nor do I see you quoting anyone else.