For those who remember the mysterious Mother Abigail here at FR, the H1N1 ‘swine’ flu was a disease that caught her eye.
Mother Abigail appeared to be a retired CDC researcher whose specialty was some truly scary diseases, Ebola and Marburg included. She correctly predicted that fruit bats would turn out to be the reservoir species for the Ebola virus.
But she seemed far more worried about the H1N1 flu than she was about Ebola. IIRC she thought that H1N1 has the potential to mutate into the most deadly disease in history.
Yesterday our pal Rush Limbaugh was dismissive of the threat of the flu in general and H1N1 in particular. He might want to reconsider.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2237650/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2237650/posts
Mother Abigail is also a character in a Stephen King novel - The Stand, which is about the accidental release of a bioweapon from a military compound that pretty much does in most of the world.