Man ought not get so arrogant with modern technology and modern medicine that we begin to believe that we've defeated disease.
This is a critical reason for closing up our borders, controlling the stem of immigration into our country, and reinstating health-checks before admittance.
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Thanks for your incredibly important words of reminder. TB and other diseases continue to re-appear in the U.S.
Australia has one of the most compassionate, liberal and legal immigration policies in the world. (I am not going to research this morning, but I think I heard on the BBC that it is the country allowing more people in than any other country in the world, that is, if you are considering LEGAL immigrants.) Of course their borders are much more easy to control. Grin. Nonetheless they get lots of flack for their policies. Why? Because they screen for disease and criminal history, and because they deport illegals.
Funny how when we have something to learn from other countries, its always Canada's health care system (Gag) or Europe's liberal attitudes about sexuality, never Australia's immigration policy.
Maybe in a general way, but penicillin does just fine for plague.
Utah is a Western state, not midwestern. And because plague is endemic in western rodent populations like rats, gophers and prairie dogs as well as bats, closing the border is a moot point. There are other good reasons for border control, plague is pretty low on the list.
An widespread outbreak in the US is unlikely because we control rats and fleas, we bathe, we launder our clothes and bedding. We have much higher general health and nutrition.
I suspect that these AQ terrorists were a bunch of dirty malnurished men living in caves and cohabiting with rats, bats and fleas. Which is pretty much the best way to catch it. They should have done their laundry. ROFL.
You’re of course absolutely correct. When I moved to Colorado about 10 years ago, and first read the Public Health warning about the Plague being found in Prairie Dogs only blocks from our home I thought it was, at first, a joke, and then thought it may just be some “scare tactics” or something (lots of fighting going on at the time about these prairie dogs habitats and such...). Anyway, when I realized they weren’t joking, or being sensationalists it was quite a shock. I had had no CLUE that this disease is still a factor for humanity - all it takes is one idiot getting bitten by a rat, or prairie dog, etc... for it to become a BIG problem.
Looks like Al Qaeda has found this out the hard way (not that I’m shedding tears for THEM). However, this could be a VERY big problem because if these folks were exposed and then “ran away” they only brought the disease to another population and have exposed them...
I don’t want to give them ideas, but combining this with a suicide attack could be a VERY bad thing — like a human biological weapon, really...