We will not be stamped out by the swine flu of the moment.

The hanta virus did not do us in.

The avian flu that did in numerous chickens in 1997 didn't do us in.

An avian flu threat has been on the radar since forever. And mostly hasn't come to wipe us out.

We have had more people die from badly packaged food stuffs than we have from the virus du jour. So I think I want to talk a little bit about the big, bad buggies.

Unlike the anthrax attacks we had shortly after 9/11, there is no reason to believe that the current swine flu, even if it has avian and swinish flu DNA, was engineered. Viruses aren't picky about where they get their DNA from, is all. While powdered spores of anthrax in a white powder does look pretty "weaponized"--

Cross-species transmission of "bugs" occurs quite a bit. For example, the famous issue of cow-pox being thisclose to smallpox, which helped Jenner sort out the smallpox virus and the means to vaccinate against it. Or consider how AIDs or ebola or Marburg crossed from our fellow primates to ourselves. Viruses evolve. Quite a bit, and fairly opportunistically. The idea of swine flues and avian flues going back decades should be proof enough.

The study of epidemiology is about as exquisite a proof of evolution at work as can be asked for, as the micro-biologial culprits are so short-lived, have such rapid turn-over, and make such a terrific, terrible mark on any ecosystem they decide to disrupt. Where they come from and how, at what point was their mutation, etc--all trace back to their propagation and the mutative nature of their existence.

They are most effective when striking the species they were "designed" over time, to infect and propagate in. Like the rhinovirus in all its nasty forms, they don't kill the host but manage to spread themselves and mutate just enough to fool the passing immune system. But when they jump that barrier, they are often deadly, and their propagation is limited, because they kill the hosts before the infection can spread. Mostly. Unless they happen to have found a host that is, shall we say, a "joiner". A traveller? Who gets around.

At any rate, the difference between ourselves and the people who lived through the influenza epidemic of 1918 is that we are much better apprised of germ-theory, more inclined to wash our hands and to know to isolate the sick, and well, we have enough virology under our belts to probably figure out how to immunize against this thing if need be.

I ain't scairt.