Apocalypse maybe?

I can't remember the guy's name and I can't figure out a way to use your favorite on-line search engine to track it down, but many suns ago -- 20 years or so -- he was a highly controversial microbiologist who claimed it was a certainty -- not if but when -- that the global human population would be decimated by a global pandemic, or maybe several, of emerging infectious diseases.The controversy was not so much over whether this was true -- a lot of people in the public health field, of various disciplines, tended to think so. The controversy was because he gave the impression he thought this would be a good thing. The human population is already unsustainable and becoming more so. Either we have megadeath by microbe, or by ecosystem collapse, and the former seemed preferable.I'm not rooting for either eventuality, but I do think we need to stop having so many babies, and fast. Actually the global fertility rate has declined sharply in recent decades but not enough. Nine billion people -- the consensus number expected by demographers -- by 2050 -- all aspiring to the current levels of consumption of Europeans and North Americans -- are not a thing that can possibly work.But what about doom by emerging infectious disease? CDC certainly worries about it and publishes an open access journal on the subject. HIV is an example of an EID that would indeed have done what the anonymous prophet predicted if it were more easily transmitted. Fortunately it's hard to catch, but it has eve...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs