Philip Bowring IHT
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
HONG KONG Ebola, SARS, avian flu, mad cow disease: We live in the shadow of new epidemics. The avian virus, for instance, might mutate, we are told, learning to transmit itself directly from human to human. But is that possibility 50:50, 50:1 or 500:1.
Philip Bowring IHT
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
HONG KONG Ebola, SARS, avian flu, mad cow disease: We live in the shadow of new epidemics. The avian virus, for instance, might mutate, we are told, learning to transmit itself directly from human to human. But is that possibility 50:50, 50:1 or 500:1?
No sensible policy is possible without assessing risks and the likely costs of avoiding them. It may be the World Health Organization's duty to warn of dangers, but societies have broader interests in weighing costs and risks and a right to subject current scientific wisdom to scrutiny.
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/129995.htm
[Editor: The preceding article was not written by A4M/WHN]
