Outbreak Essay

The virologists determined the identity of the virus causing the disease by taking blood samples from the people who were sick or who were getting sick, the n they put them under the microscope and studied them. They tracked the epidemic down by following where people were getting sick; the virologists finally followed the virus back to the ship that was carrying all the animals and the monkey. They conquered the virus by taking the serum from the host after they caught it and injecting it into all of the sick patients.

The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on this planet is the virus. ” ~Joshua Lederberg I do and I don’t agree with this quote. I agree with it because, at any time an epidemic like the one in the movie could break out and someone may not be able to find the host or create a medicine for it, so that would lead to a great population of the earth dying.

I don’t agree with this quote because anything could happen in this world, like a natural disaster that wipes a lot of the earth’s population out also, so there are a lot of different possible outcomes.

There was lots of evidence in the movie that supports Lederberg’s view on this. When people first started getting sick and dying, it spread so fast people didn’t know what to do or how to handle the virus. The virologists also didn’t discover that the virus was airborne until at the hospital were the doctors isolated the infected patients with the virus from the other patients and a man in a completely different part of the hospital got infected with the virus from a vent in the ceiling.

I think that Lederberg’s statement is significant because if we started using bioterrorism the virus would become the single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet. If viruses get the upper hand in the future I feel that the human dominance on earth; well there wouldn’t really be any. Most people would more than likely be dead or dying.