The Future Foretold/A Plagued Planet
From The Endtime
| The Future Foretold | ||
| Mommy I'm Hungry | A Plagued Planet | The Big Shake-up |
"And there will be pestilences..."
As with war and famine, the severity and frequency with which "pestilences" (plagues) continue to strike is alarming.
Last century, the medical profession prematurely claimed victory over a wide array of bacterial and viral killers. In 1969, U.S. Surgeon General William Stewart declared, "We can close the books on infectious diseases."[1]
As recently as 1983, a medical textbook declared infectious diseases "more easily prevented and more easily cured" than any other major group of disorders.[1]
But instead of fading, the cases of infectious diseases have skyrocketed throughout the '90s. Dr. Sherwin Nuland, in his bestselling book, How We Die,[1] laments, "Medicine's purported triumph over infectious disease has become an illusion."[1] Doctors now warn that the current resurgence of drug-resistant bacteria strains could prove to be more deadly than AIDS. Brad Evenson writes:
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria kill more than 40,000 North Americans a year, and the numbers will soar unless the so-called supergerms are brought under control, a new book warns.
The book, The Killers Within, charts the acceleration of resistant infections that began with a few cases in the late 1980s and are now spiraling out of control. The germs, once killed easily with standard antibiotics, can disintegrate skin, clog the lungs and carve golf-ball-size abscesses in flesh.
"The bad bugs are getting stronger and they're getting stronger faster," says co-author Mark Plotkin, a Smithsonian Institution ethnobotanist [quoting microbiologist Barry Kreiswirth of New York City's Public Health Research Institute].
While West Nile virus is grabbing headlines for killing about 100 people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 44,000 people in North America die annually of infections from drug-resistant germs.
Some experts believe the numbers are higher. The epidemic comes as pharmaceutical companies have all but stopped doing research on antibiotics.[1]
The Antibiotic Backfire
Why this sudden reemergence of diseases that were once considered to be waning or almost eliminated? Ironically, the experts say that it's the widespread misuse of drugs designed to eliminate them that is now responsible for the new super-strains.
Critics complain of a "B-52 approach" among some doctors who blitz their patients with a battery of broad-based antibiotics, often when they are unsure exactly what is making them sick. Experts also suspect that the wide use of antibiotics in animal feed is contributing to resistance.[1]
Viral Killers
The medical community is now warning that not only are bacterial plagues on the rise, but viral killers like AIDS and Ebola are occurring more frequently than ever. The global SARS outbreak showed us how vulnerable we are. But the threat from influenza might be the most dangerous of all.
The influenza virus has developed the ability to circumvent the human body's main defense against the disease, raising the prospect of a deadly new global outbreak, scientists have discovered.
Research into an outbreak of the illness five years ago, which killed one-third of its victims, has established that the strain responsible was able to bypass completely its victims' first and most crucial immune response to the infection.
Dr. Klaus Stohr, the leader of the World Health Organization's global influenza program, called the 1997 outbreak "the last warning from nature" that the world must prepare for a flu pandemic similar to that of 1918, when 50 million people died.
"The last pandemic was 34 years ago, while the average time between pandemics in the past has been around 28 years. We are beyond the odds now—it is a question of when."[1]The AIDS Explosion
As AIDS continues its global rampage, the statistics have become staggering. UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, in its "AIDS Epidemic Update" released in December 2002, stated that 5 million new HIV infections occurred that year. In 2002, 3.1 million people died of AIDS, bringing the total of AIDS-related deaths to nearly 25 million. As of the end of 2002, over 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.[1]
The World Health Organization (WHO) says "around the world close to 14,000 every day are infected with HIV, and the pandemic is getting worse."
Aside from the above-mentioned plagues, there is, of course, cancer, which is considered non-infectious. Scientists estimate that about 80 percent of cancers are caused by environmental factors, such as tobacco smoke (actively or passively inhaled) and the ingestion of harmful chemicals in our modern food and water supply. Over 100 different kinds of cancer now kill over 6 million people every year. A dramatic rise in the deadly skin cancer, melanoma, is attributed to the depletion of the earth's ozone layer, which blocks much of the sun's ultraviolet radiation.
Jesus said there would be an abundance of plagues and diseases marking the time of His return. Even though these things will become increasingly widespread in the days to come, the Bible also tells us that God can protect and even heal those who trust in Him: "No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling" (Psalm 91:10). "But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings" (Malachi 4:2).
Notes and References
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