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The Internet Science

SARS and the Internet 213

Posted by michael from the good-for-something-after-all dept.
AndroidCat writes "In this story scientists who cracked SARS' genetic code credit the Internet as a key: 'The Internet has had a profound impact on how this data has been shared and how scientists have collaborated.' The Internet has also been useful in containing the outbreak by facilitating online discussion by ER doctors. Not mentioned in the stories is that Toronto researchers who were in quarantine were able to stay in touch. Slashdot has also covered Distributed Computing Attacking SARS. Go Internet!"
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SARS and the Internet More

SARS and the Internet

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  • SARS (Score:5, Funny)

    by ergonal ( 609484 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:17AM (#5862118)
    Speaking of SARS, check this [members.home.nl] out.

  • See, the Internet is good for something (Score:5, Informative)

    by flynt ( 248848 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:20AM (#5862144)
    I often here friends and collegues disgusted by the Internet, or simply bored by it. There's nothing to do on it they claim except play some games, check a few popular web sites, instant message, etc. I always claim to them that the Internet still finds a tremendous use in the research community, stories like this confirm my findings. The Internet is only as limited as your imagination I guess. If you have an interest in anything academic, the Internet can certainly help you stray abreast of the major topics and discussions in a timely matter.

    • Re:See, the Internet is good for something (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Beware of the stray abreasts. They're aflopping all around.

    • The internet is still so young! It's going to be years before we realize the full potential of it. I think that SARS research, SETI and others are just the beginning of a much bigger picture, a picture that's very hard to predict. Who would have thought ten years ago when we talked about the "information superhighway" that we were going to be using the internet to cure diseases with distributed computing?

      Information is power- it has been for a long time. The ability to send, receive, and process inform
    • I always claim to them that the Internet still finds a tremendous use in the research community, stories like this confirm my findings.

      This is where the 'net was originally useful. Things like (cyber) virus transmissions, playing games and selling stuff were add-ons. Ain't nothing wrong with commercial uses of the internet -- It's just a misunderstanding for new users that (mostly unimaginative) commercial use was anything close to it's original intent.

      • Re:See, the Internet is good for something (Score:4, Interesting)

        by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:06PM (#5862447) Homepage Journal
        In a way, little has changed.

        Originally (say before the www), only geeks/researchers/academics used the internet. Finding information was hard, but what was there was good. You needn't have had to worry about worms, spam, trolls, keeping down the noise etc. Today, everyone uses the internet. There's a helluva lot more information online than was 10 years ago, but it is buried in commercial noise. So, it is still largely the geeks/researchers for whom the internet is a life-changing and profession-changing thing. For the rest of the world, it is mostly an entertainment and advertisement medium.

      • Actually, academic research wasn't anything close to its original intent either. It was originally designed to be a survivable network for the US government in the event of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Academic use of the internet was an add-on.

        • Bullshit! (Score:3, Interesting)

          by devphil ( 51341 )


          Isn't this tired myth dead yet?

          Fuck, I just debunked it less than two weeks ago [slashdot.org]. Guess you're one of the millions who don't browse at +3. :-)

          It was all about research. Not necessarily acedemic, but research.

        • Academic use wasn't just an add-on. It was the vehicle by which Arpanet (later to become the internet) was created. It was something of a symbiotic process. The Military had lots of money to buy the equipment and pay for the leased lines, but they didn't really know how to go about doing it. (the idea of a communications network without any sort of real central authority just did not fit within the normal military thought process).

          Academics, on the other hand, had lots of interesting ideas and the tim

      • Actually, more and more people in the medical and possibly the scientific field (I only work with medical types) are breaking out into the internet. The thing is if you get over all the capitalistic nonsense spewed out on it, you get a really good way to communicate... If you can get past the spam and banner ads and adware and popups and spyware and...

    • These are probably the same people who sit around on their couch watching TV complaining that there's nothing to do in the world, and that they've got a crappy life.

      Dude - get out and have an adventure, try to get something accomplished, experience and enjoy life while you've got it. The internet has just as many things to choose from, including publishing your own content.

      I generally find that I don't have enough time to do & read all the things that I'd like to.

    • I often here friends and collegues disgusted by the Internet, or simply bored by it. There's nothing to do on it they claim except play some games, check a few popular web sites, instant message, etc.

      I think a lot of people are taking the Internet for granted. E-Mail, in spite of SPAM, has revolutionized business (it's like a phone call with automatic transcription, very useful). Sites like Slashdot, in spite of trolls, stupid people, and repeat articles, are informative with quick feedback about proble

    • Re:See, the Internet is good for something (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:34PM (#5862763)
      Meh, they have no idea. The Internet is an extremely useful source of information. Any time I need to know something, I just head to the 'Net.

      Here are some examples of what I've used the Internet for (besides all the programming and normal computer junk I do):

      - I wanted to know how to make those hollow egg shell decorations for Easter. Looked it up on the 'Net.

      - Someone asked me if I knew how to spell chlamydia (I could hardly guess how to spell it; thanks Google) and if it was a bacterial infection. Looked it up on the 'Net.

      - I needed the blue book value of several cars I was helping a friend look for. Head to the 'Net.

      - I needed some tax forms from the IRS and my state. They're all on the 'Net.

      - Tons of DMV stuff can be done on the 'Net. license renewalls have never been so quick and easy.

      - I needed some hummingbird pictures for a nephew who is learning to paint and needed some color samples.

      - I do almost all my shopping online (especially for gifts). No more travelling 20 miles to find they don't even stock what I was looking for.

      - I got a weird engine check code on my car and needed to know how to fix it. Online forums are great.

      - I got more information on the Pony Express Rally that I plan on competing in next year.

      - I wanted to set up an official sized vollyball court in my backyard and got the dimensions on the 'Net.

      And that's just in the past few days/weeks. I could go on and on.

      I find the 'Net invaluable.
    • The epidemic of sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) highlights a key characteristic of Chinese culture. If you have a problem, do not discuss it. If you have a serious problem, aggressively hide it. This Chinese attempt to cover up an epidemic has caused it to spread to all corners of the world.

      Western technology has successfully fought the Chinese cover up. The Internet and the blinding speed with which it transmits information has effectively thwarted all attempts by the Chinese to cover up thei

  • Internet? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Dr. Mojura ( 584120 )
    What is this internet thing I keep hearing so much about, and how can I get on board? I've been thinking it could really help my colleagues and I share our IBM-360 punch cards a lot faster.
  • Does this mean Dan Quayle will get credit for it?

  • Was it like this back in the day? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:29AM (#5862219)

    When the telephone first came into widespread use did newspapers write articles about how the phone helped this or facilitated that?

    What I'm really asking is why is this news? The Internet, designed for communication, has helped people communicate. I don't see this as a huge breakthrough.
    • For the same reason that people backpat each other about television...a great number of people say there's nothing but trash on television, but when an event like 9/11 occurs and television is the only outlet for information because all the freakin phones are tied up, people suddenly realize that there is a reason, other than watching Survivor, for having a television.

      A great many of our 'innovations' come from entertainment sources...optics, radio, computing, to name a few. You don't, on a daily basis, h

      • Ok, but... so what? I happened to catch the early moments of the 9/11 attacks on TV and there wasn't much "news" there. There were live pictures, wild speculations, but that's it. The only way I can think of that instant visuals had any impact was that people called their relatives on one of the planes, who then crashed it. But while the 9/11 pictures were amazing, it doesn't seem to me that they did a whole lot of good to anybody.

  • SARS and distributed computing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Musashi Miyamoto ( 662091 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:32AM (#5862239)
    It is a shame that though a large number of the Internet community will altruistically join the fight against SARS, voluteering thier computer's processing power and the electricity used to keep it running, while the likely (pecuniary) beneficiary will be a giant biotechnology firm, which will quickly patent any findings that are uncovered by the distributed computing program.

    Since you volunteer your computer, I would bet that this fact does not need to be stated in any EULA.
    • So what if they do? They have to be able to recoup the costs of R&D somehow. There isn't any magic "Cure money" that just appears.

      Steven V.

    • Where's the shame in that? The fact is that these firms are working hard to provide therapies that could only be dreamt of years ago - they should be rewarded, along with the shareholders that provide the resources to make it happen. Are the altruistic volunteers getting taken advantage of in any way? Not that I see - all that happens in your scenario is that a solution gets developed, lives are saved, and a firm gets financially rewarded for doing so. That is a good thing.
      • What you are describing is different from what is (likely) occuring. The firm is not doing research, but allowing others to unknowingly provide them with computational power to brute-force a solution.

        The persons volunteering for this program are doing so in the belief that their efforts will help in saving the lives of those infected or those that might be infected with the disease. HOWEVER, what they will wind up doing is helping only those who can afford the medications that are created (under a patent

    • argh (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bryanthompson ( 627923 ) <logansbro.gmail@com> on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:20PM (#5862587) Homepage Journal
      Are you saying in your post that you'd rather they didn't do this research?

      keep trolling with your leftist agenda. it's sad that a post like that passes for insightful or interesting. The fact is, this is a good thing. I'm sure if you spent the time creating what they're doing, you'd want something in return.

      This helps everyone. From people in toronto to china to the US. Finding a cure for sars will restore confidence in travel and economies. I know toronto in particular has had a bad hit from the bad publicity.

      Anti-establishment, anti-capitalism types push this off as a bad thing that only helps corporations. Clearly they haven't though it thorugh, or they're just living in lala land.
      • Wow. Calm down little man. He says he thinks it's a shame that in order to help humanity and save lives people also have to help someone make millions. He didn't say people shouldn't make millions. He didn't say people shouldn't help them. He said that it's a shame people have no choice. He said it's a shame that the cure for SARS has to be commercial.

        Another point: just because what he says makes you mad, he does not automatically become an extreme leftist. Does anyone else find it interesting that conser
    • There are two separate responses to this:

      1. The distributed computing project attacking SARS is a giant hand-waving exercise. The technique it uses is simply molecular docking, which has been studied for years but hasn't been truly proved as a successful method to drug design. The people I know who use this sort of tool admit that right now the methods aren't very sensitive - the hope is that they'll at least be able to reduce the (vast) number of false positives that make it into experimental screening
    • while the likely (pecuniary) beneficiary will be a giant biotechnology firm, which will quickly patent any findings that are uncovered by the distributed computing program.

      So? They are saving money by using volunteered computing power and saving time in the same swoop.

      Somebody has to back the project. They have to pay for the research.

      Compare the two:

      Distrubuted Computing Solution
      Saves R&D costs and time. A cure will be available sooner and will cost the general public less. The company that impl
      • Why should I charitably help one company research towards a cure rather than another? Why not have a non-profit organisation to provide the 'Intellectual Property' resulting from distributed computing for free. If this is not practical, then the findings could be patented by an exhaustive corporate consortium (open to any company which decided to participate) or a non-profit organisation.
    • I don't know if I am quite that cynical. In this case, two labs a sharing the coronavirus mapping freely so that peer review can take place. Companies that want to make a quick buck aren't so quick to share. What strikes me as a bit odd is why they would bother when other researchers are only able to identify the presence of coronavirus in 40% of SARS patients. Admittedly, this might be because the virus doesn't hold up well in the lab, making it difficult to identify even when present. But it's got a bad s

  • Reminds me of an old Wired Issue... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shoten ( 260439 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:34AM (#5862249)
    They did a special issue back in the '90s, which was essentially a theoretical copy of Wired from about 20-ish years in the future. At any rate, one of the stories was about how mankind was almost wiped out by this horrific plague...which originated in China, interestingly enough...and the massive social change that resulted from it. There were two keys to developing a cure, in the story, one of them being that we'd cracked the human genome, which gave us an edge on understanding the virus' interaction with our DNA. The other key was the internet, because it allowed the remaining surviving researchers to collaboarate without physical proximity or risk of contagion. You see, most of the medical research community had been wiped out when they gathered for an emergency global conference...the disease was horrifically contagious. I wish I still had a copy of that issue, it was amazing.
      • No, it's older than that. Perhaps from their second or third year.

        The best part was they had a future "United Colors of Benetton" ad. It featured eight people in identical hazmat suits in front of a post-apocalyptic landscape. Due to the hazmat suits, there was no way to detect what race the models were. That idea had me giggling for weeks.
        • Yes, that's the one...that was the most interesting part of that article, I think...the way they showed what advertising was like in such a changed world. Color-coordinated suits, gloves, and gas masks, all under the Swatch moniker. And in the end, when the cure was developed, only one organization still had enough of a distribution network to disseminate it to the population...McDonalds!
    • [..] the disease was horrifically contagious.

      Fortunately, SARS is very different from such a type of disease. It's neither very contagious (close physical contact is required), nor is it very effective: only about 8% of those infected die, usually those with an already weakened immune system, like children, old people and anyone already suffering (or recovering) from another disease.

      It still sounds like an interesting article, though.

  • Genetic codes..... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 )
    scientists who cracked SARS' genetic code credit the Internet

    That's great. Now they know what it looks like. But, beyond that...... It seems to me that a great deal of effort is being placed on genetic squencing lately but, I haven't seen any advantages yet. They talk about using it for developing a vaccine or cure for the various diseases and I suppose that may happen in the future. Right now however, it seems that having a picture or genetic sequence of whatever virus isn't yielding much more than a po

  • 2001... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <shadow.wrought@g ... minus herbivore> on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:35AM (#5862256) Homepage Journal
    Am I the only one who, when seeing a headline with SARS in it, automatically pictures an astronaut floating in space over a large monolith saying, "Oh my god, its full of SARS!"

    Yep. Figured I was alone.

  • Hong Kong (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yehim1 ( 462046 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:36AM (#5862269) Journal
    Let me report the situation in Hong Kong. Perhaps this is the first regional economic hub to be affected, and well, it got hit pretty hard.

    The tourism industry is down by 70%, restaurants, bars and popular entertainment spots, well, empty as people are staying at home.

    However, there are industries that are surfing tidal waves that's sweeping the economy; and Internet has been one of them.

    I just called the sales manager of our service provider, and business has never been so good in years! This is due to companies that's cancelling their business trips and meetings, conferences, etc has to be done online. Phones have been ringing non-stop, with queries from companies to speed up and upgrade their internet access. I guess that's the break that all these internet companies have been waiting for!!!

    People suspected of contracting SARS are quarantined for 10 days; but communicate with their families via videophone donated by the telecommunication companies and the government.

    Technology has never found better use, and importance!

    Also enjoying boom are, the facemask industry, the herbal medicine industry (chinese herbs which are slow stock for a few years have been wiped out by hungry consumers), television industry, and, the food snack (instant noodles, etc).

    Perhaps this is the break that this fast-paced region needs: some time to rest, breathe easy for a while. It isn't long before the pace picks up again and everything resumes to normal!

    HKSAR territory resident, SARS-free for 5 weeks...

    • ..., breathe easy for a while.
      I am sure you did not mean that as a joke.

      Good luck, man.
    • Perhaps this is the break that this fast-paced region needs: some time to rest, breathe easy for a while. It isn't long before the pace picks up again and everything resumes to normal!

      I don't think many people are using this time to breathe easy...

      I'm sorry. That was bad.

  • Internet and BC Outbreak (Score:5, Informative)

    by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:36AM (#5862271) Homepage
    Actually, in BC, the Internet served an incredibly important role.

    In Canada, one of the most remarkable things about the SARS outbreak (at least, IMHO) is that Vancouver, which is Canada's gateway to the pacific region, saw a relatively small SARS outbreak, as compared to Toronto, or many asian countries. This despite the fact that many infected travellers either passed through their airports, or actually disembarked there.

    Recently, this fact was discussed in a piece on the CBC. In response, the BC health officials said they had been aware that something was coming down the pipe for some time now. This was possible, in part, because the Internet allowed for quick distribution of information regarding the mysterious disease outbreak in China. Many websites had been warning for months that there appeared to be a mysterious "atypical pneumonia" in existence, and that health officials in other countries should be on their toes. As a result, the BC health ministry requested that all hospitals immediately quarantine any patients who exhibited signs of atypical pneumonia.

    This experience contrasts with what occured in Toronto, where the first SARS patient was admitted to a hospital, and, because the doctors there had no inkling about this upcoming disease, placed the patient in a room with two other patients, who also developed SARS. And thus began the outbreak in Toronto which, while in the end was handled quite well, still presented a serious challenge, as they simply weren't prepared for it.

    So, in the end, BC fared very well. Why? Because the health officials there kept their ears to the ground. And they were able to do this, in part, because the Internet allowed them to gain and share information amongst one another quickly and easily.

    • Re:Internet and BC Outbreak (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Greedo ( 304385 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:59AM (#5862398) Homepage Journal
      So what's BC's excuse for not sharing that information with Toronto?

      • Re:Internet and BC Outbreak (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:34PM (#5862762) Homepage
        Err, why would BC think they had to? They're separate health ministries, and it's up to Toronto to keep themselves informed. I'm sure if the BC health ministry knew Toronto was in the dark, they would have warned them, but they were privy to the same information. The difference is that BC heeded the various warnings that were coming out of Asia, whereas Toronto either didn't notice or didn't heed those warnings.

        Keep in mind, the other major factor to BC's relative success in the SARS outbreak was it's response. They chose to be highly proactive about any potential outbreaks. They ensured that doctors were warned ahead of time, and dictated a strict policy for how to handle potential cases (immediate quarantine). The Ontario health ministry didn't take these measures. Why, I don't know. Maybe they didn't know what was going on. Maybe they just didn't take it seriously enough. Either way, Ontario's initial failure was their own responsibility. Hopefully they've learned a lesson from all of this.

        • Hopefully [the Ontario government has] learned a lesson from all of this.

          Not likely. Last I checked, they're still refusing to provide as much as a dime for use for quarantine enforcement, monitoring of quarantined individuals, or wages for quarantined individuals. (To encourage them to stay home) Meanwhile, they've put together a $118 million funds package for... Not research, not public health improvements, not (god forbid) a proper information campaign, but for a PR campaign to rebuild the city's "in

  • When the newspapers were reporting mortality rates of 2-3%, I was reading the regular SARS updates on The Agonist [agonist.org] that made a convincing case for mortality rates of greater than 10%. Sure enough, a week later than the papers were also quoting 10%

  • Sequenced SARS ? Really ? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Last I heard the Canadians were saying that only 80 per cent of the people with SARS had that particular coronavirus, and 15 per cent of some samples of people with bad colds but no SARS did have that coronavirus.

    While sequencing the virus seems generally useful, shouldn't these people be finding a pathogen ? You know, saving lives as opposed to rushing for the publication and the grant before the hype dies down ?
  • While I do support the open source movement, perhaps we should stress caution when it comes to the genetic code of viruses. I'm not sure if it is a good idea to have that type of thing floating around the internet.

  • Cure for Cancer (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ristoril ( 60165 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:40AM (#5862301)
    If only we could harness the true power of the Internet, and somehow embed distributed computing clients into pr0n. Cure for cancer in 10 minutes.

  • Internet good in another way too (Score:5, Insightful)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot&elliotjohnson,com> on Friday May 02, 2003 @11:45AM (#5862319) Homepage
    One of the major problems facing us with regard to pandemics thesedays is air travel. In the past, SARS would not have spread directly from Hong Kong to Toronto for example.

    The Internet also provides help in this area by making it less necessary to make physical trips to do business or keep in touch with friends and family.

    One of the recent trends in Business Continuity Planning for example is considering the idea of a the virtual workplace as a hot site. How useful is a physical backup location if your workers can't sit in the same room together for medical reasons? For this reason, I suspect the Internet will continue to play an increasingly important role in emergency management.
  • The interenet:

    The world's most complex and intricate machine, of variable size and of huge expense to the world's resources, used to crack the genetic code of SARS, which makes a cure possible.

    OR.....
    A white hanky:

    A small white rectangle of tightly woven cloth, totally impervious to SARS, which provides absolute protection to its spread. Simply cover mouth and nose with said cloth to prevent infection.

    Yay white hanky!
  • this internet thing allowed communication? next you'll be saying it will allow you to communicate with peopel on the other side of the world....


  • Importan SARS work, pr0n, goatse.cx, Kazaa... Is there anything the Internet can't do?
  • I didn't want to troll my article, so I didn't point out the fact that these researchers found plain email to be the most useful part of the Internet. The same email that's being hit with billions of spams a day.

    I can't say that I have anthing urgent to communicate via email, but the thought of people like these having to wade through all that crap makes me very angry, very angry indeed! *huff*huff*!

    • What these researchers found useful is what all researchers find useful in molecular biology and genomics: quasi-instantaneous access to data. There are many bacteria, viruses, plants and animals (including human) that have been sequenced and almost all of it is freely available on the net.
      Without the internet, progress in this area would have been much slower. For instance a few hours/days after the publication of the SARS sequence, many labs had "assembled" the data and commented it.
    • You know, they could set up a system that give certian email an official 'stamp' so it can get routed into a special folder/directory/whatever.

      If not a stamp, then a code phrase in the subject.
      Yes it would have to rotate, but that detail could be worked out.

      Finally, they could set up an IM system that assins ID's to a specific group. And you can only get the ID after going through some procdure. Suchs as the Admin calling the person, via a business phone line.
      If you have a special need, you can set up som

  • Ah, but... (Score:1)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    Isn't there a risk that a SARS virus will fall into the computer, get digitized by the onboard sequencer, and get transmitted down the Internet?

  • Free trip to Toronto (Score:4, Interesting)

    by luugi ( 150586 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:00PM (#5862403)
    I don't know about you guys but since the SARS scare, I've been checking out for deals to go to Toronto. Some people might say I'm crazy, but hey! Check this out: Free Trip to T.O. [newswire.ca]
    • You're not crazy, I live in Toronto, don't know anyone with SARS. I don't even know anyone who knows anyone who has SARS. Everyone at the office howls with laughter when we get an e-mail from overseas asking if we're ok and how the situation is.

      Find any great deals, go for them! You've got nothing to worry about.

  • The good and the bad (Score:5, Informative)

    by upstateguy ( 90019 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:05PM (#5862437)
    As someone in public health, I can see both sides of the story.

    Certainly, being able to share information quickly with others is useful. My scientific collaborations are (literally) all over the globe whereas 10 years ago I was lucky to be able to collaborate with labs within a few hundred miles.

    But science works best by putting forth hypotheses, testing them, and eliminating the false ones. A downside of the net is that these hypotheses get spread as facts, are then amplified by the media, and then the truth gets ignored since a negative finding doesn't seem newsworthy as the original sensation.

    SARS is bad, but it luckly hasn't been that bad so far in US (no deaths...*yet*). And I think undeserving of the sheer amount of attention it has received. But sexy new killer diseases always trump real boring old threats to your well being. SARS even managed to trump an otherwise other guaranteed reporting of the recent outbreak of Ebola in Africa. Let alone the much bigger but mundane killer of influenza (flu).

    And in the age of HIPAA, you have to extrememly careful about what and how you share any kind of patient information (check out the forms the next visit to your physician or pharmacy). You cannot compromise patient confidentiality but it happens, due to ignorance or lazyiness, far too often.

  • why isn't anyone doing anything about this!

    if i click on my inbox will i get sars from it?

    this is not funny...

  • Not all good (Score:3, Funny)

    by GraZZ ( 9716 ) <jack&jackmaninov,ca> on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:36PM (#5862777) Homepage Journal
    The Internet also produces funky websites about SARS like this [sars.com].

    I laughed my ass off when I stumbled across this by accident.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:36PM (#5862781)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Right now, the response to SARS can be considered to be disproportionate. However, SARS seems to have been a recent member of human-infecting virii and may refine its infectiousness through rapid mutation/evolution. Stopping it now can save many lives later on.

      Just imagine if the first hundred people with AIDS were quarantined. How many lives would that have saved?

    • Re:This disease is blown way out of proportion. (Score:4, Informative)

      by hackstraw ( 262471 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @02:30PM (#5863822)
      Irresponsible and sensational journalism makes people panic for nothing.

      Shamelessly taken from http://bowlingforcolumbine.com/library/fear/index. php [bowlingforcolumbine.com]

      We compound our worries beyond all reason. Life expectancy in the United States has doubled during the twentieth century. We are better able to cure and control diseases than any other civilization in history. Yet we hear that phenomenal numbers of us are dreadfully ill. In 1996 Bob Garfield, a magazine writer, reviewed articles about serious diseases published over the course of a year in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and USA Today. He learned that, in addition to 59 million Americans with heart disease, 53 million with migraines, 25 million with osteoporosis, 16 million with obesity, and 3 million with cancer, many Americans suffer from more obscure ailments such as temporomandibular joint disorders (10 million) and brain injuries (2 million). Adding up the estimates, Garfield determined that 543 million Americans are seriously sick-a shocking number in a nation of 266 million inhabitants. "Either as a society we are doomed, or someone is seriously double-dipping," he suggested.


      The press (and the people that pay attention to it) like to sensationalize things about 1) disease 2) man against man "crimes" 3) weather/natural disasters. When in actuality your much more likely to die from any number of other accidents [dotson.net] than being a "victem" of these headline incidents.
    • According to the may 2nd report on CBC news, SARS has killed at =~ 418 people worldwide.

      Compare this with annual deaths from the flu [proratenih.com] which kills approximately =~ 36000 people in the USA alone.

      What the fuck?

      The flu situation is not expected to get much worse. The SARS situation will get far far worse unless strong rapid action is taken. That's what.

  • SARS genome free at Science magazine (Score:3, Informative)

    by MonkeyBoyo ( 630427 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:47PM (#5862889)
    Science magazine decided to give free access [sciencemag.org] to its reports on the sequenced genome of SARS. Rather enlightened of them.

  • O Canada! (Score:5, Funny)

    by lhand ( 30548 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:53PM (#5862948)
    ...story scientists who cracked SARS' genetic code...

    Good thing they did this in Canada; here in the U.S. they'd be arrested for DMCA violations!

  • Open communication saves lives (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tiger Smile ( 78220 ) <.james. .at. .dornan.com.> on Friday May 02, 2003 @01:07PM (#5863074) Homepage

    While I get the distinct feeling that governments fear free and unmolested communications, and to a lesser extent corperations, they must also realize it's importance.

    In the United States of America, durring it's forming, we included free and open communication as part of the supreem law of the land. Nothing can trump it.

    By voicing ideas, by communicating there is no problem that cannot be solved. Sure a good right can also be used by a bad person to some evil ends. That happens. But that is a price of this freedom.

    Still the benefits always out weigh any problems.

    Help keep alive the right of free and open communication, the right of the people to gather peaceably assemble(online or in person). If you don't have this right where you live. I firmly believe you should have it. Do what you can to insure you keep or gain this right.

    Know you rights...

    First Amendment

    Crongress shall make no law respecing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

  • False Statistics, Media Statistics... (Score:3, Informative)

    by grimani ( 215677 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @02:03PM (#5863597)
    In this day and age, it is foolish to assume journalistic due diligence.

    Don't base your numbers on things you've heard (no deaths in U.S.), or reported in the media (Singapore is in dire conditions).

    Get numbers from the source: WHO [who.int]

    The U.S. has 2 confirmed deaths and 54 total cases.

    Singapore has had 0 new cases for quite some time now. There has been, however, a local chain of transmission (hence the SARS affected designation).
  • Scientists have only identified the virus in only about 40% of the patients infected with SARS, and they have identified in patients who DON'T have SARS. Which means that cracking the genetic code of this virus will mean exactly jack sh*t for finding a cure.
  • is as a communication tool. Thats why in the past 50 years we have invented more than at any other time in history. as the world becomes networked, it becomes easier to work together. problems on one side of the world are connected with resources on the other side.

  • Uh Oh (Score:2, Funny)

    by senorsangre ( 657498 )
    SARS and the internet?!?! I'd better update my virus protection.

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