FRONTLINE / World Doomsday Thinking?

November 18, 2009

VIEW: A clip showing public health experts at work in Uganda's lush mountains, which are a hotbed for diseases that cross the species barrier: Plague, Ebola, Anthrax, Tuberculosis, and HIV.

The experts have come up with a new public health idea for the world, based on the human-animal connection. (View the full video report here, along with more background on the story.)

Meanwhile -- two good reads:

--This speech by a Nobel Prize-winning researcher lays out how mankind's "only real competitors remain the viruses" and warns against complacency in the age-old contest between man and microbes (bacteria and viruses).

--And bestselling author Robin Cook offers a fact-based scenario for a possible new thriller: An imminent and serious pandemic caused by the emergent avian flu strain, H5N1, which is circulating silently right now in Asia and Africa.