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Disease

Mar 2004Years required for the creation in 2002 of the first virus made from scratch with commercially available ingredients : 3
Source:

Professor Eckard Wimmer, State University of New York (Stony Brook)

Mar 2004Weeks required to create the second such virus last fall : 2
Source:

Professor Eckard Wimmer, State University of New York (Stony Brook)

Mar 2004Estimated percentage of British food-poisoning infections caused by bottled water : 12
Source:

Dr. Meirion Evans, University of Wales College of Medicine (Cardiff)

Mar 2004Amount Bill Gates has pledged to fight malaria through 2008, expressed as a percentage of USAID spending since 1998 : 86
Source:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Seattle)/U.S. Agency for International Development (Washington)

Jan 2004Factor by which a U.S. Gulf War veteran is more likely to develop Lou Gehrig's disease than an average American : 2
Source:

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Bethesda, Md.)

Sep 2003 Amount Thailand has promised to pay survivors of anyone who dies of SARS contracted there: $100,000
Source:

Tourism Authority of Thailand (N.Y.C.)

Sep 2003 Rank of measles among diseases that kill the most children worldwide each year and can be prevented by vaccine: 1
Source:

World Health Organization (Geneva)

Sep 2003 Cost of vaccinating the 745,000 children who died from measles in 2001: $558,750
Source:

World Health Organization (Geneva)

Jun 2003Percentage of cases of communicable diseases that California medical professionals are required to report that go unreported: 80
Source:

California HealthCare Foundation (Oakland)

Jun 2003Number of different strains of tuberculosis whose DNA has been catalogued by a New Jersey microbiologist: 17,000
Source:

Public Health Research Institute Tuberculosis Center (Newark, N.J.)

Mar 2003Year in which the last two federal studies of the possible side effects of mass smallpox vaccination were published: 1968
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta)

Sep 2002Estimated percentage of work-related deaths worldwide last year that were caused by communicable disease: 16
Source:

International Labour Organization (Geneva)/Harper's research

Sep 2002Number of monkeys that the federal government has infected with smallpox since May 2001: 24
Source:

U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (Frederick, Md.)

Jun 2002Chance of a child contracting the "rare disease" neuroblastoma, as cited by another Times article the same day: 1 in 7,000
Source:

"Screenings Found Harmless Tumors While Missing Deadly Cancers, Studies Say," New York Times, 4/4/02

Mar 2002Year in which a Pentagon report warned that banning chlorine sales to Iraq would cause epidemics of waterborne diseases: 1991
Source:

Defense Intelligence Agency (Washington)

Mar 2002Minimum number of Iraqis who have died of waterborne diseases since a ban on chlorine sales to that country was enacted in 1990: 100,000
Source:

Prof. Richard Garfield, Columbia University (N.Y.C.)

Feb 2001Number of Hooters girls who visited a teenage leukemia patient in a Philadelphia hospital last fall at his request: 3
Source:

Hooters (Atlanta)

Jan 2001Ratio of New York City residents who died of West Nile virus in 1999 to those who died of pneumonia or influenza: 1:619
Source:

New York City Department of Health

Nov 2000Year in which anxiety eclipsed depression among the most common mental-health problems in the United States: 1984
Source:

National Institute of Mental Health (Bethesda, Md.)

Nov 2000Percentage change since 1990 in the number of adult Americans with diabetes: +33
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta)

Nov 2000Amount the Centers for Disease Control has spent redecorating a stairwell to encourage obese employees to walk: $14,900
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta)

Oct 2000Factor by which pregnancy makes a woman more attractive to malaria-carrying mosquitoes: 2
Source:

Dr. Steve Lindsay, University of Durham (U.K.)

Aug 2000Percentage change in the gonorrhea rate among teens and young adults when the beer tax is raised by 20 cents: -9
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta)

May 2000Price of a night in Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's “special suite” equipped with antiques and a living room: $2,800
Source:

New York Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (N.Y.C.)

Apr 2000Percentage change between 1997 and 1998 in the number of cholera cases: +99
Source:

World Health Organization (Geneva)

Apr 2000Factor by which Africa's cholera fatality rate exceeds the rate achievable with proper treatment and adequate sanitation: 5
Source:

World Health Organization (Geneva)

Jan 2000Chance that a 16th-century Aztec was killed by smallpox: 1 in 2
Source:

Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jan 2000Chance that a 14th-century European was killed by bubonic plague: 1 in 4
Source:

Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jan 2000Ratio of the number of U.S. soldiers who died from disease during World War I to those who died in combat: 1:1
Source:

Alfred W. Crosby, America's Forgotten Pandemic, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, U.K.)

Jan 2000Projected rank of heart disease and severe depression among the leading causes of death and disability in 2020: 1,2
Source:

Harvard School of Public Health (Boston, Mass.)

Jan 2000Percentage change since then in the U.S. death rate for all cancers except that of the lung: -20
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta)/American Cancer Society (Atlanta) /Harper'sresearch

Nov 1999Percentage of turkeys tested by the Agriculture Department in 1996 and 1997 that were infected by campylobacteria: 90
Source:

Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington)

Nov 1999Rank of campylobacteria among the most common bacterial causes of diarrheal illness in the U.S.: 1
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, Ga.)

Oct 1999Chance that an American who contracted rabies from a bat since 1981 survived the illness: 0
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, Ga.)

Oct 1999Chance that the victim of a bat bit who contracted rabies noticed being bitten: 1 in 20
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, Ga.)

Mar 1999Estimated chances that a U.S. child diagnosed with leukemia will be in remission five years later: 4 in 5
Source:

Leukemia Society of America (N.Y.C.)/Professor Richard Garfield, Columbia University (N.Y.C.)

Apr 1998Number of biological materials with military potential sent to Iraq by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the 1980s: 14
Source:

Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Apr 1998Estimated ratio of veterans reporting Gulf War syndrome symptoms to total U.S. Vietnam War combat deaths: 4:1
Source:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta)/Department of Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense

March 3, 2009Alan Landers, the 68-year-old face of Winston cigarettes, died of lung cancer.
Source:

New York Times

February 25, 2009A study of 1.3 million British women found that a single drink per day increases the risk of cancer of the breast, liver, and rectum.
Source:

The Washington Post

December 3, 2008 Zimbabwe, with unemployment at 90 percent and inflation at 23 million percent, said it would issue new $200 million notes. Police in Harare clashed with marching doctors and nurses who were protesting the 10,000 cases of cholera in the country; the Limpopo River was declared infected. “Defecating everywhere,” said one victim.
Source 1:

CNN

Source 2:

BBC News

February 15, 2008The Centers for Disease Control reported that fewer children died while playing the “choking game” last year than in the two years prior.
Source:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

September 29, 2007A 14-year-old boy was reported to be the sixth American to die this year after contracting a brain-eating amoeba that thrives in warm-water lakes.
Source:

AP via azfamily.com

June 20, 2007Benign forms of E. coli had learned to reproduce in sand, indicating higher overall microbe content for American beaches; scientists advised beachgoers to bathe after their outings, and researchers warned that children digging holes at beaches, at construction sites, and in sandboxes often die when their holes collapse.
Source 1:

Live Science

Source 2:

Washington Post

March 30, 2007U.S. government health officials warned of the risk of salmonella from live Easter chicks.
Source:

AP via local6.com

March 2, 2007Social scientists found that Americans born after 1982 have succumbed to an epidemic of pathological narcissism.
Source:

Christian Science Monitor

November 13, 2006There was a fistula epidemic in Congo; doctors said this was because after gang-raping women, men were shoving sticks, pipes, or gun barrels into their victims' vaginas.
Source:

MSNBC

August 1, 2006An epidemic of bird flu among geese in northern China was driving up the price of badminton shuttlecocks.
Source:

CNN

August 1, 2006 Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control failed in their attempts to create a more virulent strain of bird flu.
Source:

Washington Post

July 17, 2006Advisers at federally funded “pregnancy resource centers” were telling women that abortions increase the risk of cancer, infertility, and mental illness.
Source:

Reuters via Yahoo News

June 6, 2006 Bird flu was discovered in Prince Edward Island.
Source:

GlobeAndMail.com

May 16, 2006 Plague was found at a campground in Utah.
Source:

Findlaw

May 14, 2006Bird flu appeared to have been eradicated in Thailand and Vietnam.
Source:

The New York Times

May 12, 2006In south Texas 100 people had been diagnosed with Morgellons disease. "These people," said a nurse practitioner, "will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry." "It looked," said the mother of a Morgellons patient, "like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long, and it was sticking out of his chest."
Source:

MYSA.com

May 4, 2006There was a marked increase in cases of fish lice.
Source:

Practical Fishkeeping

April 19, 2006A woman in Los Angeles was hospitalized for bubonic plague.
Source:

Times Online

March 26, 2006The world health community was close to eradicating Guinea worm.
Source:

The New York Times

March 21, 2006The World Health Organization reported that 103 humans had died from bird flu since late 2003, mostly in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Source:

BBC News

March 7, 2006 Britain planned to kill one third of its wild badger population--about 100,000 badgers--in order to slow the spread of bovine tuberculosis; critics of the plan argued that slaughtering badgers will speed the spread of bovine tuberculosis.
Source:

The Guardian

February 28, 2006A cat died of bird flu in Germany.
Source:

The New York Times

February 20, 2006 Scientists found that new infectious diseases were emerging at a faster rate than they had in the past. "These are good times," said a scientist, "for pathogens to be invading the human population."
Source:

BBC News

January 30, 2006A teenage girl in northern Iraq was reported to have died of bird flu.
Source:

Reuters

January 29, 2006 Marine James Blake Miller, whose face became emblematic of the Iraq war after he was photographed smoking a cigarette during the November 2004 attack on Fallujah, was at home in Kentucky, where he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and had cut back to a pack and a half a day.
Source:

SFGate.com

January 16, 2006Western Australian Premier Geoff Gallop resigned due to depression. “I now need the space required,” he said, “to start the process of full recovery.”
Source:

ABC News Online

December 1, 2005In Gabon and Congo, scientists traced the origin of the Ebola virus to three different species of fruit bat; by stopping people from eating the bats, a scientist suggested, the spread of the virus could be slowed.
Source:

LA Times

November 11, 2005 Bird flu arrived in Kuwait.
Source:

BBC News

November 7, 2005 Polio was eradicated in Sierra Leone.
Source:

AllAfrica.com

November 2, 2005Twenty-three people had died in Brazil from rabies transmitted by vampire bats.
Source:

BBC News

November 1, 2005 President Bush asked Congress for $7.1 billion to fight bird flu.
Source:

Reuters

October 27, 2005A woman in Texas came down with dengue fever.
Source:

Austin-American Statesman

October 24, 2005In the UK a quarantined parrot died from the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Croatian swans were dying of flu, and pigeons in Australia were under close observation.
Source 1:

BBC News

Source 2:

CNN.com

Source 3:

ABC News

October 15, 2005Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that a pandemic was on its way. “It's not a matter of when or if,” he said.
Source:

Reuters

October 13, 2005 Avian flu arrived in Romania and Turkey. In response, Bulgaria refused entry to a flock of 20 circus doves that had been performing in Turkey.
Source 1:

BBC News

Source 2:

Reuters

October 5, 2005 President Bush expressed concern over bird flu and asked Congress to consider legislation that would allow the U.S. Army to enforce quarantines in case of a pandemic.
Source:

IndyStar.com

September 15, 2005Two plague-infected mice were missing in New Jersey.
Source:

MSNBC

September 6, 2005 Encephalitis had killed at least 600 people in India.
Source:

BBC News

August 12, 2005A Florida man was cited for painting “die you miserable bitch” on the side of his house; the words were directed at his seventy-three-year-old neighbor, who has cancer.
Source:

The St. Petersburg Times

August 4, 2005Prairie dogs in Colorado were found to have the plague.
Source:

9News.com

July 26, 2005 New Mexico announced its first case of bubonic plague in two years. “Plague,” said a New Mexico man who contracted the illness in 2002, “changes your life forever.”
Source:

TheNewMexicoChannel.com

July 9, 2005Cats were suffering from plague in Wyoming.
Source:

USA Today

June 6, 2005A vaccine against the Ebola and Marburg viruses was found to work on monkeys.
Source:

News24.com

May 25, 2005A hamster-borne virus, transmitted through donated human organs, was linked to the deaths of six people since 2003.
Source:

MSNBC

May 16, 2005The polio outbreak in Yemen was getting worse.
Source:

Reuters

May 12, 2005 Mali sentenced eleven men to jail for refusing to let their children be vaccinated for polio; in Nigeria, several states have banned the vaccine because they believe it will make their daughters sterile.
Source:

BBC News

May 6, 2005An outbreak of meningitis in India killed fifteen.
Source:

BBC News

May 6, 2005A seventeen-year-old woman was thrown out of her village in India after her stomach swelled up; villagers believed she was carrying the “devil's child,” but the swelling turned out to be a 33-pound tumor the size of five fetuses.
Source:

News24.com

May 6, 2005In San Francisco, twelve penguins died of chlamydia.
Source:

AP

May 4, 2005A second case of polio was reported in Indonesia.
Source:

BBC News

April 29, 2005There was an outbreak of polio in Yemen.
Source:

BBC News

April 18, 2005Samples of the deadly Asian flu were accidentally mailed out to 3,700 labs worldwide. Several samples were missing.
Source:

Reuters

April 8, 2005In Florida, investigators traced an outbreak of E. coli to a petting zoo.
Source:

KansasCity.com

April 5, 2005The Marburg virus was still killing people in Angola.
Source:

Medical News Today

March 16, 2005The Department of Homeland Security was preparing for: the detonation of a ten-kiloton nuclear device; a biological attack with aerosolized anthrax; an outbreak of pneumonic plague; a flu pandemic starting in south China; the spraying of a chemical blister agent over a football stadium; an attack on an oil refinery; the explosion of a tank of chlorine; a 7.2-magnitude earthquake; a major hurricane in a metropolitan area; three Cesium-137 dirty bombs going off in three different cities, each contaminating thirty-six city blocks; the detonation of improvised bombs in sports stadiums and emergency rooms; liquid anthrax in ground beef; a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak; and a cyber attack on the nation's financial infrastructure.
Source:

The New York Times

March 12, 2005A study showed that thousands might die of the avian flu in New Zealand.
Source:

Canada.com

March 10, 2005It was likely that half a billion people had malaria.
Source:

BBC News

February 20, 2005Scientists were waiting for H5N1, an avian flu virus that has killed forty-one people in Thailand and Vietnam, to mutate into a form that can spread more rapidly among humans. If that happens, the flu is expected to kill tens of millions worldwide. Thailand rejected a plan to slow the spread of the flu because the plan's execution—which called for the destruction of millions of possibly infected ducks and chickens and the distribution of face masks—would alarm the public.
Source:

The Independent

January 11, 2005 Herpes struck the horses of Michigan.
Source:

San Jose Mercury News

December 30, 2004The World Health Organization warned that outbreaks of cholera and dysentery resulting from a lack of clean drinking water could easily double the number of people killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Source:

Reuters

December 21, 2004A study found that the terminally ill do not, as is commonly believed, hold on to life until major events, like birthdays or holidays, transpire. Rather, they simply die.
Source:

Reuters

November 17, 2004 Cholera killed 42 in Nigeria.
Source:

Reuters

October 30, 2004The World Health Organization announced that avian flu probably has not mutated into a form that can pass from human to human.
Source:

New York Times

October 25, 2004A 14-year-old Thai girl died of avian flu.
Source:

Agence France-Presse

October 20, 2004Twenty-three tigers died in a Thai zoo after they were fed infected chickens.
Source:

Associated Press

October 18, 2004Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said that the flu vaccine debacle is "not a health crisis,"
Source:

CNN

October 15, 2004A study found that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by toxic chemicals.
Source:

New York Times

October 15, 2004An Australian doctor claimed that one of his patients had a sleep disorder that caused her to sneak out of her house at night and have sex with strangers.
Source:

Associated Press

October 15, 2004Scientists announced a relatively successful trial of a new malaria vaccine.
Source:

Forbes

October 7, 2004Public health experts have long warned that it is insane for the United States to depend on two companies for the country's flu vaccine.
Source:

New York Times

October 6, 2004 Britain suspended the license of the factory in Liverpool that was supposed to manufacture almost half the American supply of this year's flu vaccine.
Source:

New York Times

October 2, 2004Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, began notifying more than 500 patients that they might have been exposed to sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease because of inadequate sterilization procedures.
Source:

Associated Press

October 1, 2004Cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) were on the rise.
Source:

Reuters

October 1, 2004A new study suggested that vitamin supplements could increase the risk of dying from cancer.
Source:

Guardian

September 30, 2004 Thai health officials confirmed that avian flu has probably begun to spread from person to person. Influenza experts were begging drug companies to begin manufacturing enough vaccine to prevent a pandemic but the companies were complaining that production is too expensive and that they will lose money if a pandemic does not occur. Patent issues were also cited.
Source:

New York Times

September 14, 2004Efforts to control the global spread of tuberculosis were failing.
Source:

New Scientist

September 14, 2004A new study found that Legionella bacteria, the cause of Legionnaire's disease, lurks in a quarter of all hot tubs.
Source:

New Scientist

September 8, 2004British psychologists warned that people who keep diaries are more likely to suffer from headaches, insomnia, digestive complaints, and social problems.
Source:

New Scientist

September 6, 2004 Malaysia announced another outbreak of bird flu.
Source:

Associated Press

September 3, 2004 New Jersey man died of Lassa fever.
Source:

Associated Press

August 31, 2004It was discovered that full-body CT scans expose patients to the same level of radiation that people a few miles from Hiroshima received in World War II, and that the scans increase one's risk of developing cancer.
Source:

New Scientist

August 27, 2004The World Health Organization said that hepatitis E cases have tripled in the last month in Darfur.
Source:

New Scientist

August 26, 2004The United States for the first time issued an outline for a plan for possible actions that might be taken to prepare to respond to an influenza pandemic.
Source:

New York Times

August 25, 2004A study found that women who drink more than one soft drink per day are more likely to develop diabetes.
Source:

Associated Press

August 25, 2004 Polio continued to spread in Africa.
Source:

New York Times

August 15, 2004A new report concluded that deaths from brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and motor neurone disease have tripled in the last 20 years.
Source:

Guardian

August 14, 2004A Texas dentist died after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria called vibrio vulnificus ,
Source:

Health Talk

August 13, 2004a crow in Oregon tested positive for West Nile virus,
Source:

Associated Press

August 13, 2004People born in January and February, a study found, are at greatest risk of getting brain cancer, while those born in July and August are least likely to develop it.
Source:

Reuters

August 12, 2004and three Vietnamese died of bird flu.
Source:

Associated Press

July 23, 2004 West Nile encephalitis killed a man in California, and
Source:

Reuters

July 17, 2004The United Nations continued to issue warnings about the ongoing genocide in Sudan, where Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, have been slaughtering and raping black farmers in Darfur; more than one million people have fled their homes and hundreds of thousands of refugees could soon die of cholera and other diseases.
Source:

Reuters, Associated Press

July 9, 2004Four organ-transplant recipients died from rabies; all four received tissue from the same infected donor.
Source:

New York Times

July 7, 2004Avian flu reappeared in Thailand and China and Vietnam.
Source:

Associated Press

June 25, 2004Experts warned that witches' broom disease and frosty pod disease could devastate chocolate supplies in coming years, and
Source:

News.scotsman.com

June 23, 2004Health experts warned of a possible polio epidemic in western and central Africa.
Source:

New Scientist

June 18, 2004New strains of Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria were found in eight countries; Vancomycin is considered the antibiotic of last resort.
Source:

New Scientist

June 1, 2004An Israeli study found that 48 percent of doctors' neckties carry at least one infectious disease.
Source:

Associated Press

May 29, 2004Authorities in Texas killed 24,000 chickens after avian flu was found on a farm near Sulphur Springs.
Source:

New York Times

May 29, 2004Thirteen million pounds of raw almonds were recalled because of salmonella contamination.
Source:

New York Times

May 28, 2004The first U.S. case of West Nile virus in 2004 was reported in New Mexico.
Source:

New Scientist

May 27, 2004A researcher at the University of Michigan found evidence that the large increase in asthma and allergies over the last twenty years has been caused by antibiotics.
Source:

New Scientist

May 25, 2004A Russian scientist died of Ebola fever.
Source:

New York Times

April 16, 2004 Researchers at Harvard University found that drinking alcohol can double a man's chances of getting gout.
Source:

Associated Press

April 8, 2004 British researchers discovered a previously unknown prion disease among sheep.
Source:

New Scientist

April 8, 2004Aventis Pasteur recalled its Imovax rabies vaccine because a live strain of the virus was found in one batch.
Source:

Associated Press

April 6, 2004 Canada ordered the slaughter of 19 million chickens, turkeys, and ducks to stop the spread of bird flu.
Source:

New York Times

April 6, 2004Scientists discovered that regular consumption of pig whipworm eggs can cure inflammatory bowel disease.
Source:

New Scientist

March 30, 2004It was reported that the U.S. government's main laboratory for mad-cow testing, which is located in an Iowa strip mall, is not secure enough to store dangerous pathogens.
Source:

Reuters

March 25, 2004Researchers announced that circumcised men are six to eight times less likely to contract the HIV virus.
Source:

Reuters

March 18, 2004 Ape hunters in Africa have contracted simian foamy virus, a study found.
Source:

MSNBC

March 13, 2004Hundreds of elk in Wyoming were dying of a strange disease.
Source:

New York Times

March 10, 2004A study found that teenagers who vow to remain virgins were almost as likely to catch a venereal disease as normal teens.
Source:

Guardian

March 8, 2004 Avian flu was found on two more U.S. farms.
Source:

Associated Press

February 26, 2004 Ivory Coast confirmed a new case of polio; tests confirmed that the polio originated in Nigeria, which has resisted vaccination programs for religious reasons.
Source:

Reuters

February 25, 2004The European Union banned live poultry and eggs from the United States because of the bird-flu outbreak, and the United States banned all French meat and poultry.
Source:

New York Times

February 25, 2004French researchers concluded that oral sex can lead to oral cancer.
Source:

New Scientist

February 17, 2004 Italian scientists discovered a new form of mad cow disease that could be the cause of some cases of "sporadic" Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
Source:

New York Times

February 16, 2004 Bird flu continued to spread in Asia; some Thai fighting cocks were found to be infected, and a clouded leopard died of the disease in a zoo near Bangkok.
Source:

Reuters

February 16, 2004Several farms in Delaware and Maryland were under quarantine because of a bird-flu outbreak.
Source:

Associated Press

February 16, 2004A different strain of the bird fluvirus showed up in Pennsylvania.
Source:

Forbes

February 11, 2004The British Medical Association reported that smoking increases the risk of impotence, infertility, cervical cancer, miscarriage, stillbirth, sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, placental complications, and cleft palate.
Source:

New Scientist

February 7, 2004 Bird flu jumped the species barrier to pigs.
Source:

Independent

February 2, 2004The World Health Organization reported a possible case of human-to-human transmission of the avian flu that has killed millions of birds across Asia and at least 12 people.
Source:

BBC

February 1, 2004 China reported a new SARS case after the patient had already recovered.
Source:

Associated Press

January 28, 2004 Dutch researchers found that some migraines are caused by brain disease.
Source:

Reuters

January 28, 2004A polio case was confirmed in the Central African Republic, which had been free of the disease since 2000.
Source:

New York Times

January 28, 2004Scientists discovered a new neurodegenerative disease that affects older men called fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome.
Source:

Globe and Mail

January 26, 2004Avian influenza was spreading across Asia; the World Health Organization said it was the largest outbreak in history.
Source:

New Scientist

January 26, 2004 Indonesia said that millions of chickens had died of the flu in recent weeks, and workers in Thailand were bagging live chickens and burying them in pits.
Source:

New York Times

January 19, 2004 Polio was spreading from Nigeria to other countries in Africa.
Source:

AllAfrica.com

January 18, 2004The United States placed an import embargo on civet cats, which apparently carry SARS.
Source:

New York Times

January 16, 2004Scientists found that the Ebola virus can spread from dead animals such as gorillas to human beings, and genetic analysis suggested that the five recent outbreaks of the disease were caused by five distinct strains of the virus, which is among the most contagious known, rather than one strain that had mutated. "If Ebola is popping up randomly," said one scientist, "then things are pretty hopeless."
Source:

Nature.com

January 14, 2004Disease experts warned that the bird flu infecting humans in Vietnam could combine with the human influenza virus and start a global pandemic.
Source:

Reuters

January 8, 2004A second case of SARS was reported in China, in a waitress who works in a restaurant that serves civet; the first SARS patient, who has apparently recovered, has had no known contact with civets, but there were reports that he had recently thrown a mouse out his window using chopsticks.
Source:

New Scientist, New York Times

January 7, 2004 Chinese authorities were drowning civet cats in chemicals, electrocuting them, and burning them in hopes of preventing further SARS cases; rats, raccoon dogs, and hog badgers are also being exterminated.
Source:

New York Times, Associated Press

January 4, 2004One government expert pointed out that Americans are much more likely to die of E. coli, listeria, or salmonella than from mad cow disease; in fact, since the mad Holstein was discovered in Washington, more than 1 million Americans were poisoned by their food, 6,000 were hospitalized, and 100 died.
Source:

Seattle Times

December 27, 2003 China reported a new SARS case.
Source:

Reuters

December 17, 2003 Taiwan reported a new SARS case, but said that the patient was a researcher who was exposed in a lab.
Source:

New York Times

December 16, 2003 Scientists were planning to use giant pouched rats to sniff out tuberculosis.
Source:

New Scientist

November 28, 2003Infectious-disease experts suggested that Alexander the Great died of West Nile fever.
Source:

Nature.com

November 17, 2003Researchers at MIT and Harvard found that cancer tumors follow a universal law of growth,
Source:

New Scientist

November 14, 2003People were still dying of Ebola fever in the Congo.
Source:

Associated Press

November 10, 2003One in seven American schoolchildren was found to be at risk of heart disease.
Source:

New Scientist

November 7, 2003 Ebola fever was killing people in the Congo.
Source:

Reuters

October 29, 2003American scientists deliberately engineered a new extra-deadly form of mousepox; much the same thing has been done with cowpox and rabbitpox.
Source:

New Scientist

October 25, 2003Facial tumors were killing off Tasmanian devils,
Source:

New Scientist

September 18, 2003British authorities were worried about the recent popularity of "dogging," or meeting strangers in public for unprotected sex, and they said that sexually transmitted diseases were on the rise.
Source:

BBC

July 31, 2003To dispel fears of SARS, the Canadian government sponsored a rock concert, popularly known as "SARSstock," for 430,000 attendees.
Source:

New York Times

July 29, 2003The number of AIDS cases in the U.S. was shown to be rising for the first time in ten years.
Source:

Washington Post

July 29, 2003China reportedly had developed an android "robo-nurse" to care for patients during future SARS outbreaks.
Source:

Ananova

July 21, 2003 Scientists in Rome concluded that pizza prevents cancer.
Source:

Reuters

July 20, 2003The Bush Administration was lobbying to amend a provision of the Kyoto Protocol that would phase out methyl bromide, the single most ozone-destructive chemical still used in industrialized nations. Scientists estimate that the ban would prevent 2 million cases of cancer in the United States and Europe alone; the administration's proposed amendment would increase the chemical's use threefold.
Source:

Independent

July 13, 2003Legionnaires' disease was on the rise.
Source:

Associated Press

July 12, 2003Eleven people in Texas were quarantined with SARS-like symptoms.
Source:

New York Times

July 11, 2003 Eastern equine encephalitis, a mosquito-borne disease which mainly affects horses, was said to be "unusually active" this year.
Source:

New Scientist

June 9, 2003Pet prairie dogs were spreading monkeypox in the American Midwest.
Source:

Independent

February 19, 2002A new study suggested that Alzheimer's disease could be caused by eating too much meat.
December 18, 2001 Ebola fever was spreading “rapidly and unpredictably” in Gabon.
November 27, 2001 Scientists at Oxford University said up to 1,500 British sheep could have been infected with the disease.
November 13, 2001The government of Uttar Pradesh, India, was encouraging people to use cow's urine to cure diabetes and heart disease.
October 23, 2001It was revealed that in 1944 Britain manufactured 5 million anthrax cattle cakes that were to be airdropped (in “Operation Vegetarian”) over Germany; the expectation was that the disease would kill all the cattle and then kill all the Germans.
October 9, 2001New research suggested that the Black death might have been an Ebola-like hemorrhagic virus.
October 9, 2001Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a tick-borne virus similar to Ebola, was killing Afghan refugees and health workers.
September 11, 2001Sudden oak death, a mysterious disease that causes its victims to weep sap, was killing trees in California.
August 28, 2001An Oregon car dealer was fined $120,000 for selling seven cars in one month to a 78-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease.
August 28, 2001In Zimbabwe, militants occupying white-owned farms freed from quarantine livestock infected with foot-and-mouth disease.
August 21, 2001Constipation was linked to Parkinson's disease.
July 10, 2001 Britain claimed that the burning of slaughtered animals infected with foot-and-mouth disease, which released dioxins into the atmosphere, posed no health risk.
July 3, 2001The United Nations General Assembly defined AIDS as a political, human rights, and economic issue; formerly AIDS was a venereal disease.
June 19, 2001 Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.” Bozo the Clown finally went off the air.
June 12, 2001 Australia was vaccinating sheep and cattle to prevent farting, which emits methane, a potent gas that contributes to global warming.
May 29, 2001There were new cases of foot-and-mouth disease in England.
May 29, 2001 Japan apologized to its lepers for keeping them confined in colonies for decades after the disease was cured.
May 1, 2001The Food and Drug Administration warned people not to eat Autumn Monkshood, a poisonous plant that nurseries in Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia had been selling with a label reading “tasty in soup.” Three Britons were thought to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease, including a “slaughterman” who, according to a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair, caught the disease while he “was moving a decomposing carcass of a cow, when that carcass exploded, and the fluid went into his mouth”; the slaughterman was later found to have a different virus.
April 24, 2001 United States officials admitted that a domestic outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was very likely.
April 17, 2001The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that gun deaths dropped by 26 percent during the 1990s.
April 17, 2001 Farmers in the Dutch town Kootwijkerbroek protested the slaughter of their cattle by authorities worried about foot-and-mouth disease; police used water cannons and bulldozers to clear roadblocks set up by the protesters.
April 3, 2001 Britain was burying hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle that have been killed in an attempt to control the spread of foot-and-mouth disease; scientists were trying to figure out whether the disease can be transmitted via the smoke of burning animals.
March 27, 2001Foot-and-mouth disease spread to the Netherlands and Ireland. Britain was planning to destroy over 500,000 cows. American researchers suggested using napalm.
March 27, 2001After months of dithering, United States agriculture agents seized a flock of sheep from Skunk Hollow Farm in Vermont that are suspected of having a form of mad-cow disease. Twenty-one cattle in Texas will be destroyed because of similar concerns.
March 20, 2001Epidemiologists think the current hoof-and-mouth epidemic in England may have started with contaminated swill fed to pigs in Heddon-on-the-Wall; leftover airline food from a country affected by the disease might have been in the swill.
March 6, 2001 British and French governments were slaughtering tens of thousands of sheep and cattle in an increasingly futile attempt to control the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, a virus that is about as severe as the common cold.
March 6, 2001 British authorities cancelled all horse races because of the disease; Ireland called off St. Patrick's Day celebrations.
February 27, 2001 Britain banned all exports of live animals, milk, and meat, after foot and mouth disease was discovered among some pigs and cattle; Britons were asked to stay away from the countryside; Ireland stationed extra troops along its border to keep out wayward British cows.
February 13, 2001Spanish bullrings, which traditionally have defrayed costs by selling the meat from bulls killed in bullfights, were going broke after the practice was banned due to mad-cow concerns.
January 30, 2001 Australian researchers, who were trying to use genetic engineering to sterilize mice, accidentally created a deadly, immune-system-destroying strain of the mousepox virus, a cousin of the human smallpox virus.
January 30, 2001Uganda's most recent outbreak of Ebola fever seemed to be over.
January 16, 2001It was not known whether any bizarre, hitherto uncreated viruses or prion diseases were produced from the unnatural act.
January 9, 2001 Animal researchers at Texas A&M University unveiled a bull calf named Bull 86 Squared, a clone of Bull 86, a naturally disease-resistant bull that died in 1997; they say the calf is 100 times more resistant to brucellosis, tuberculosis, and salmonellosis, all of which can be transmitted to humans through beef or milk.
0, 2000 Swine flu, renamed under pork-lobby pressure to “influenza A (H1N1) virus, human,” and referred to as “killer Mexican flu” by anti-immigration activists, had infected 985 people, or 0.0000145 percent of the world's population. Twenty countries reported infections; one death from the flu was confirmed in the United States; and 25 people had died in Mexico, where a cute five-year-old boy named Edgar Hernandez was presented to the media as “patient zero.”
Source 1:

SFGate.com

Source 2:

USA Today

Source 3:

The World Health Organization

Source 4:

The Guardian

Source 5:

The New York Daily News

December 12, 2000The European Union decided to stop feeding ground-up farm animals to other farm animals for at least six months in an attempt to stop the spread of mad cow disease; all cattle over the age of thirty months must be either tested or destroyed.
December 12, 2000Dr. Matthew Lukwiya, the lead doctor in Uganda's effort to control an outbreak of Ebola fever, died after catching the virus.
November 21, 2000Evidence that Kuru, a disease spread by eating human brains, is more widespread in Papua New Guinea than previously thought, suggested that the European epidemic of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of mad cow disease, to which Kuru is related, may be more serious than government officials have been willing to admit.
November 7, 2000 Ebola fever continued to kill people in Uganda; eighty have died in the recent outbreak, which is spreading south.
November 7, 2000People in Galway, Ireland, dug up the carcass of a mad cow and placed it in the owner's farmyard; burying a cow suffering from bovine spongiform encephalapathy could contaminate ground water with the prions that apparently cause the disease.
November 7, 2000 Scientists warned again that chronic wasting disease, a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy infecting deer and elk in the American West, can probably be transmitted to humans, much like its cousin mad cow disease; up to half the deer in some areas are infected with the disease.
November 7, 2000Rotenone, a common pesticide, produced all the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in laboratory rats, according to a new study, suggesting that such poisons may cause the disease in humans.
October 24, 2000A survey of the scrotal contents of mountain bikers found that 96 percent had “pathological abnormalities,” including sperm-containing cysts, calcium deposits in the epididymis, swelling, and benign tumors.
October 24, 2000The Ebola virus was killing people in Uganda; scientists speculated that outbreaks of the virus might be linked to abnormal weather conditions, which could lead to Ebola forecasts.
September 27, 2000Officials in Peru said that collective psychosis, rather than a meteorite, was to blame for an epidemic of sickness in a Peruvian town.
Source:

Space.com via Yahoo! News

September 26, 2000A new book claimed that anthropologists working in Venezuela in the 1960s deliberately infected the Yanomami people with measles, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, in order to test theories about evolution and eugenics; the same anthropologists, who were working in association with the United States atomic energy commission, also injected Americans with radioactive plutonium without their knowledge or permission.
September 26, 2000 Israel was suffering an epidemic of West Nile disease.
September 12, 2000One hundred and forty-nine world leaders disrupted traffic in New York City; United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan warned that disease, poverty, war, hunger, and pollution were difficult problems that required cooperation among nations.
August 22, 2000 Researchers discovered that the Nipah virus, which killed 100 people last year in Singapore, originally came from fruit bats; the virus, a cousin to Ebola and HIV, is also carried by pigs, a million of which were destroyed last year.
August 15, 2000After an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease, America and Argentina called a halt to the beef trade.

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