Disease

"And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven."

Luke 21:11

Pestilence: #3061 loimos - a plague(literally disease, or figuratively a pest)

Pestilence: A virulent , usually fatal epidemic disease, especially bubonic plague.

Pestilence: Any wide-spread and fatal infectious or contagious malady. Figuratively, a noxious or malign doctrine, influence, etc.

Revenge of The Killer Microbes

Newly emerging viruses, drug-resistant bacteria and a wide variety of other germs are making a mockery of the notion that humans can win the battle against infectious disease.

The Flu Hunters

What Ails Antibiotics?

Many common bugs are becoming more and more resistant to the once powerful drugs--at an alarming rate. A study presented at this month's Infectious Diseases Society of America conference in San Francisco revealed that Streptococcus pneumoniae, the bacterium that causes pneumonia, has doubled its resistance to penicillin in just the past year.

Killer Bacteria

Common bacteria are now so resistant to antibiotics that they can kill. We have no one to blame but ourselves. BY AMANDA SPAKE

Pneumococci are the deadliest bacteria in the United States, killing 40,000 yearly. The bug also causes an estimated 7 to 10 million middle-ear infections in children a year, 500,000 cases of pneumonia, and thousands of cases of meningitis and bloodstream infections...

The first penicillin-resistant pneumococcal strain was reported in New Guinea in 1967. By 1992, about 5 percent of U.S. samples tested by the CDC were resistant to penicillin. Now, seven years later, an average of 25 percent of cases are resistant; in some areas the rate tops 40 percent.

Cattle feed now contains things like manure and dead cats.

Bargain breakfast. Agriculture experts say a slew of new and questionable methods of fattening cattle are being employed by farmers. To trim costs, many farmers add a variety of waste substances to their livestock and poultry feed--and no one is making sure they are doing so safely. Chicken manure in particular, which costs from $15 to $45 a ton in comparison with up to $125 a ton for alfalfa, is increasingly used as feed by cattle farmers despite possible health risks to consumers...

Animal-feed manufacturers and farmers also have begun using or trying out dehydrated food garbage, fats emptied from restaurant fryers and grease traps, cement-kiln dust, even newsprint and cardboard that are derived from plant cellulose. Researchers in addition have experimented with cattle and hog manure, and human sewage sludge. 

New feed additives are being introduced so fast, says Daniel McChesney, head of animal-feed safety for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, that the government cannot keep pace with new regulations to cover them.

Aids - Africa

When the United Nations Security Council meets, it's usually to try to sort out some regional trouble spot — a war between countries, a looming military threat. On Monday, they met to discuss a war of sorts. Certainly there have been a lot of casualties — 2 million dead in 1998.

While the entire continent continues to reel from the disease, eastern and southern Africa have been hit with particularly staggering numbers of AIDS cases. More than 10 million children have been orphaned by the disease, and experts predict the numbers will continue to climb unless extraordinary measures are taken.

Aids - The Global Plague

The Global Epidemic-Aids is tightening its grip on the developing world-- where the costly new drugs won't do much good at all.

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