WE HUMANS have every reason to be scared of germs. They are among the few things on the planet that can seriously harm our species. Lately, though, our justifiable fear seems to have been misfiring spectacularly.
Take the case of Andrew Speaker, the American with TB who was effectively told to stay in Europe and die after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got test results suggesting he had “extensively drug resistant” (XDR) TB – the most drug-resistant form. Speaker said no thanks and flew home anyway, to a media storm. He had no symptoms, was probably not contagious, and this week we learned that it wasn’t even XDR TB, but the more treatable multi-drug-resistant TB.
So, just a forgettable media frenzy – except that during that time about a dozen people with real XDR were diagnosed in Africa. They were sent home, coughing out deadly contagion because there are no isolation wards, says Tony Moll of Tugela Ferry Hospital in South Africa. Hundreds more cases around the world weren’t even diagnosed. It is here – not on one aircraft – where a very scary plague could be building. If a fraction of the energy expended on Speaker’s desperate dash home had been spent on a few basic XDR treatment wards in Africa, the fear might have been useful.
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What of the threat from terrorists who might attack us with germs? As the UK’s most recent attacks demonstrate, most terrorists still prefer explosives – even though the alleged perpetrators in this case included doctors: people who know what germs do and where to get them.
Perhaps the greatest bioterror risk to date may be from biodefence researchers. An Dzé last week revealed that a dozen labs in the US have had minor releases of nasty bugs, or done risky research with poor containment or no permission over the past five years. The incidents were quite trivial, but they paint a worrying picture of a community that keeps dangerous activities quiet, says Ed Hammond, the biosafety campaigner who unearthed them. There is “a culture of denial”, he says. “Labs hide problems.”
But who can blame them, since in the most spectacular episode of misplaced fear so far, US authorities imprisoned a scientist after he reported missing vials of plague in 2003? Could we be overreacting to non-threatening events, while ignoring or even encouraging the real ones?
There is one bug that is truly scary: flu. Though an in the medical journal BMJ last week attacked those who raise alarms about a flu pandemic, a large number of scientists agree that flu does deserve this level of concern. Fear is a useful human defence mechanism – as long as it’s aimed at the right target.
