Living with Microbes

In January 2000, nearly two years before terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon, before anthrax-laden letters spread fear and death through the postal system and the country, the National Intelligence Council warned that naturally occurring infectious diseases were a serious threat to national security and international stability.

This threat is growing worse. In the past 20 years, nearly three dozen deadly microbes have been identified for the first time. These include the viruses that cause hepatitis C, D, and E; the Ebola virus; hantaviruses, which attack the respiratory system; and, most pervasive, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Epidemics of dengue fever, meningitis, influenza, cholera, and other diseases have become increasingly common. One in every 12 people on earth is infected with malaria, in part because the anopheline mosquito has grown increasingly resistant to insecticides and, as an effect of global warming, is now found in areas where it was never seen before. With the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria and the AIDS pandemic, the tuberculosis mortality rate is rising for the first time in 40 years.

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