Randolph "Dilda" Carter

Panicky sort of doomsday fare that passes for popular information today. True tales of prospective [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg] [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1213131305s/149267.jpg|1742269]-like plagues. Journalistic writing tries to pass off as scientifically based but anecdotes are the main fare here and there is precious little science. The various plagues enumerated within: Anthrax, Ebola, West Nile, Bird Flu, etc. just have not shown an ability, in the 16 years since the book was written, to jump to a form that is going to become more epidemic for humans. In the process journalists like Mr. Preston red-herring us into taking our eyes off the real, largely preventable, Third World killers: good ol' Malaria, Cholera, HIV. The total fatal cases of all the diseases enumerated in The Hot Zone in 10 years only add up to a fraction of the Malaria deaths each year.The danger in this kind of reportage is it takes our eye off the real problems of things like breast cancer, HIV, car crashes, gun violence, substance abuse, diabetes, and other various things that need work to prevent the far more numerous fatalities.