The wisdom of planning ahead.

I have often wondered whether Mankind is a truly intelligent species. I am led to wonder because, on the whole, Man does more stupid, than intelligent things. Mankind is more remarkable for its moments of utter dumbness, than its peaks of intelligent action.

Now, many of you might be moved to argue with me, over this. Yet, it only takes a little reflection on what Man actually does, to realize that it is true. I will give you one example: New Orleans. Most of you will remember that Hurricane Katrina demolished this US city, some years ago. What you might not be aware of, is that this was entirely avoidable. You see, for many years before Hurricane Katrina, disaster planners would use New Orleans as an example of what could happen in the event of a hurricane hitting the US. They even ran a simulation not long before the actual hurricane hit (a year or so, I think). In that simulation, they calculated the devastation that would be caused and all agreed that it would be terrible indeed. Yet, what did they do to prepare for it? Nothing much. As I have noted, Mankind is stupid. When confronted with the knowledge that certain death and destruction is going to occur, sometime, in the future, in a particular locality, the collective will of Mankind is to do nothing about it. People would rather "save money" now, than worry about a "hypothetical" disaster later. Of course, this makes said disaster inevitable, when it could have been avoided. I am even led to propose a principle: there is no such thing as a natural disaster, only human inaction, before it. Hurricane Katrina was as much a product of a human unwillingness to prepare for the future, as it was a result of the movement of air, over water.

What gets me about this, of course, is that the cost of not preparing for the future, is always greater than the cost of actually doing so. There is, in truth, no money to be "saved" by doing nothing to avert predictable disasters.

Another disaster waiting to happen to Humanity, is bird flu. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has occasionally showed itself, over the past decade or two, in Asia, promptly killing most of the people it infected. Indeed, the World Health Organization website says that "avian influenza can reach a mortality rate of 100% in 48 hours of onset". So, bird flu is something to be feared. It is also something, one would have thought, to prepare against. Just imagine that bird flu, say H5N1, mutates to become readily transmissible between humans. Just think what would happen once it boards planes around the world, from China (a likely source), to scatter widely about the Earth before anyone notices. (China has a history of hushing up disease outbreaks, which leads to the world being unaware of what is happening until too late). Imagine a disease as infectious as the common cold, or typical flu, but with a fatality rate approaching 100%. It could destroy the human race.

Yet, what, precisely, is the human race doing about it? Zero. As far as I am aware there is no real preparation for this eventuality which will, eventually, occur, without any doubt. It is just a matter of time. Somewhere, in a rural area of, most probably, Asia, a sick chicken is going to make a child sick and that child is going to kill the world.

What can we do about this, you might ask? Well, it is simple really: make a stockpile of vaccine that immunizes against all the strains of H5N1 that have been noted so far and give two shots to everyone one can find, on Earth. Now, some of you might object that we can't know what the proposed highly infectious strain of H5N1 looks like. It might differ significantly from the known strains. Well, this might be true - but I have read something which is very hopeful on that front. Some people were immunized against a 1997 strain of H5N1. Later, their immune reaction was tested against a 2005 strain of H5N1 - and CONSIDERABLE cross protection was noted. Thus, immunizing against the known versions of H5N1, would probably confer a significant degree of protection against future strains. It may, for instance, turn it from a disease which kills, to a disease which merely makes people sick. Another benefit is that it might shorten the period that specific immunization might take, needing, perhaps, only one shot, rather than two, of a vaccine, to confer specific resistance.

So, here we have an example of something Mankind can do to prevent millions, perhaps billions of human deaths. Indeed, something which might even save the human race. Yet, no nation is doing it. They prefer, instead, to wait until disaster strikes, to wait until people are dying en masse of H5N1, before trying to protect against it. The problem with that is that the lead time for producing a vaccine is about 6 months. Thus, in that period, a pandemic H5N1 could kill millions or billions of people.

It seems that Mankind is so enamoured of money, that "saving" it now, is worth more than the death of the human race, later.

I hope that H5N1 never becomes pandemic. Should it do so, one thing seems most likely: the human race will be completely unprepared and millions of people will die. Should you be among the survivors, remember this: all those deaths were unnecessary, caused only by the collective unwillingness of Mankind to prepare for the future.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

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