Intimations of a Mega-Plague?

As human population grows apace, is Mother Nature sending us warning notes?  Consider the following recent stories:

A few days ago, a seven-yarold girl contracted bubonic plague while camping in Colorado.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/girl-bubonic-plague-saved-quick-thinking-doctor/story?id=17170384#.UEzRUo7R2F

This is the self-same Black Death that decimated Europe during the Middle Ages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague

Concurrently, an outbreak of Ebola has killed 15 in the Congo... so far.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-09-09/ebola-outbreak-kills-15-in-eastern-congo

Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses of modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease

Last, but hardly least, is the incidence of flesh-eating virus in the U.S.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/michigan-woman-flesh-eating-bacteria-aimee-copeland-survived/story?id=16722988#.UEzTFI7R2FI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrotizing_fasciitis

Viruses and bacteria may be evolving to resist antibiotics.  As long ago as 1994, researchers were reporting the evolution of resistant strains of tuberculosis.

http://www.pnas.org/content/91/7/2428.full.pdf

Between 2003 and 2005, the incidence of hospital infections doubled.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/mrsa-on-the-rise-infections-have-doubled-in-5-years/260495/

Here's the abstract for a June 2012 article reporting on this fact.

ncreasing burden of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus hospitalizations at US academic medical centers, 2003-2008.

David MZ, Medvedev S, Hohmann SF, Ewigman B, Daum RS.

Source

Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. mdavid@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

The incidence of invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in the United States decreased during 2005-2008, but noninvasive community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) infections also frequently lead to hospitalization. We estimated the incidence of all MRSA infections among inpatients at US academic medical centers (AMCs) per 1,000 admissions during 2003-2008.

DESIGN:

Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS:

Hospitalized patients at 90% of nonprofit US AMCs during 2003-2008.

METHODS:

Administrative data on MRSA infections from a hospital discharge database (University HealthSystem Consortium [UHC]) were adjusted for underreporting of the MRSA V09.0 International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification code and validated using chart reviews for patients with known MRSA infections in 2004-2005, 2006, and 2007.

RESULTS:

The mean sensitivity of administrative data for MRSA infections at the University of Chicago Medical Center in three 12-month periods during 2004-2007 was 59.1%. On the basis of estimates of billing data sensitivity from the literature and the University of Chicago Medical Center, the number of MRSA infections per 1,000 hospital discharges at US AMCs increased from 20.9 (range, 11.1-47.7) in 2003 to 41.7 (range, 21.9-94.0) in 2008. At the University of Chicago Medical Center, among infections cultured more than 3 days prior to hospital discharge, CA-MRSA infections were more likely to be captured in the U

HC billing-derived data than were healthcare-associated MRSA infections.

CONCLUSIONS:

The number of hospital admissions for any MRSA infection per 1,000 hospital admissions overall increased during 2003-2008. Use of unadjusted administrative hospital discharge data or surveillance for invasive disease far underestimates the number of MRSA infections among hospitalized patients.

From Stephen King ---- http://www.amazon.com/The-Stand-Stephen-King/dp/0385121687---to the recent proliferation of Zombie Apocolypse shows, movies and books --- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/zombie-apocalypse/--- writers and film makers have given us their visions of the end of the species due to a pandemic.  

Could it happen?  Some seem to think so.

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2012/05/09/human-race-being-terminated-by-scientific-suicide/

A Public Health Warning and Political Essay by a Harvard-trained Author of Fifteen Books Including the American bestseller,
Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola-Nature, Accident or Intentional?

Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz, DMD, MA, MPH

Abstract
If avian flu becomes more than a threatened pandemic, it will have done so by political and economic design. This thesis is supported by current massive media misrepresentations, profiteering on risky and valueless vaccines, gross neglect of data evidencing earlier similar man-made plaques including SARS, West Nile Virus, AIDS and more; continuance of genetic studies breeding more mutant flu viruses likely to outbreak, inside trading scandals involving pandemic savvy White House and drug industry officials, curious immunity of these pharmaceutical entities over the past century to law enforcement and mainstream media scrutiny, and published official depopulation objectives. With the revelations and assertions advanced herein, the public is forewarned against this physician assisted mass murder best termed "iatrogenocide."* This genocidal imposition is expected to serve mainly economic and political depopulation objectives.

http://www.natural-remedies-hiv-aids.com/avianflu.htm

Others see such a pandemic as just one of a number of threats to the species' survival.

http://scienceray.com/physics/10-ways-the-human-race-could-become-extinct/