Emerging Infectious Diseases

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Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are the third leading cause of death in the United States and the first leading cause of death worldwide (3). Thus, should EID's be considered an oncoming threat to human existence or is it God's response to our unbiblical stewardship of the Earth or is it nature's practical solution to overpopulation.

Past EIDs

Since the beginning of time, human existence has been overwhelmed by threatening diseases. To begin with, leprosy and other highly contagious skin diseases affected humanity as early as in the days of the Old Testament. Due to its rapidly infectious manner and its degrading and dehumanizing results, skin-diseased victims were often ostracized and permanently confined to live in isolated caves. During the Medieval and Renaissance historical periods of Europe, one-third of its population or 25 million people were unmercifully obliterated in a mere two years by the Bubonic plague (10.a). However, the wrath of the Bubonic plague did not end in those two years, as it continued to invade the European expanse for the next two hundred years (1348-1530) as an epidemic commonly known as the "Black Death" (10.d). The next Bubonic plague outbreak occurred in south-central, southwestern, and northern India accompanied also by the Pneumonic plague in 1994 (10.c). An outbreak of Marburg disease, a type of hemorrhagic fever, was observed in laboratory workers in Marburg, Germany and Belgrade, Yugoslavia. These workers were accidentally exposed and infected with the virus resulting in 31 cases, in which 7 people died. In 1976, the Ebola virus, another type of hemorrhagic fever, imploded in Central Africa claiming some 500 victims. Until this very day, t...

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...ria Foster, Joe Pantoliano. Warner Bros., 1999 (136 mins.).

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a. Janis, E. (1999). http://ponderosa-pine.uoregon.edu/students/Janis/impact.html

b. Larson, E. (1998, Feb. 28). http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1998/dom/980223/cover1.html

c. Medical College of Wisconsin. (1994, Sept. 30). http://www.intmed.mcw.edu/ITC/Plague.html

d. Oshiem. (1999, Oct. 28). http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/osheim/plaguein.html

e . University of Wisconsin. (1999, July 14). http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/012mad_cow/mad_cow_main.html

f. Webster, R., & Granoff, A. (1995). http://www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/eov-ebola.html

11. United States Department of Health and Human Services. (1999, Oct.13). "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention". http://www.cdc.gov/aboutcdc.htm

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