Are there any diseases that could ravage the world if released?

[D.B. Cooper]

Like, the human population would be almost completely wiped out. Or is that all stuff reserved for the likes of "I am Legend" and "Resident Evil"?

[Kiljan Arslan]

Ebola kills like over half of all infected.

[DimondLight]

Probably if the Bubonic Plague cropped up again, I think I read that we don't know how to stop that either.

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Forget Ebola or the bubonic plauge. A huge threat is smallpox. Erradicated now but there would be millions dead if it were ever to surface again.

Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC.[2] The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs), and was responsible for a third of all blindness.[3] Between 20 and 60% of all those infected—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease.[6]

During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths.[7][8] As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year.[9] After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in 1979.[9] To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated from nature.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox

[Osceola]

Ebola is our bane pretty much.

[LSJ]

But ebola is so cuddly!

[Oswald von Wolkenstein]

neo-conservatism.

[Bernem]

just to throw in some fear: BEWARE OF BATS

Genné D.

Service de médecine interne, Hôpital de la ville, 2300 La Chaux-de-Fonds.

For many centuries, man is fascinated by bats, the only flying mammals. Probably because of their particular immune system, bats can be considered an important reservoir for new emerging viral diseases like SARS-Coronavirus, Marburg fever, Ebola fever and Nipah virus encephalitis. During closer contact, they can transmit rabies and probably other nonviral infectious diseases. Bats get closer to man due to ecological modifications like deforestation, so that transmission of new infectious agents might provoke dramatic epidemics.

[Chaigidel]

http://www.zkea.com/archives/archive02001.html

cccp made a weaponized version that could survive for 4-6 years in the enviroment, and had amazing kill rates, two samples still exist one in the ukraine one in the CDC in atlanta

[paokmam]

Like, the human population would be almost completely wiped out. Or is that all stuff reserved for the likes of "I am Legend" and "Resident Evil"?

Don't panic but ... yes!

[Ummagumma]

Yeah, Ebola is very nasty, SARS shows a tremendous resilience and mutability, I guess smallpox, If it spread widely enough, could mutate and make vaccinations ineffective. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a few unencountered bugs still left in some uncharted remote areas.
*puts tinfoil hat on*
I guess there could be a few man made things that put all these natural ones to shame that we will (hopefully) never even know about
*removes tinfoil hat*

[Chaigidel]

Weaponized diseases produced by the Soviet Union include anthrax, smallpox, plague, tularemia, glanders, brucellosis, Marburg virus, Q fever, typhus, Ebola, Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis, foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever. Total stockpiles of biological pathogens are unknown, but an American team that visited Stepnogorsk in 1995 estimated that it could produce 300 tons of anthrax spores in less than one year.

from a website on bioweapons.

but honestly fellas it doesnt take much at all, I could probably tell you how to grow half of these things in your bathtub :O, rather the info is out there, and its relatively simple to cultivate some of these diseases; I would expect it to be used as a terrorist device at some time, its just too damn effective not too ( some of them) but alot of disease is just barely effective enough to waste time growing.

A particularly scary thought is that this was done before the time of the genetics revolution, now we could have diseases that function similar to malaria, that can exist and reproduce in the enviroment and remain active for centuries if we so designed, we could mix ebola and small pox, and the flu; In fact a small group of people properly equipped with less than 100k could probably make something so nasty we might not ever even learn its name. Genetics is a very dangerous science we just has of yet not seen the Trinity Test so to speak, but I think we will in good time.

[boofhead]

It's going to happen. Forget nuclear warfare, asteroids or what have you.

Gaia will purge herself of plague levels of humanity at some point, and so the cycle will continue. And it'll probably be some dimwit scientists trying to make biological weapons who accidentally release it.

[Gaidin]

Are we assuming here that given the sheer isolation each continent has from the others travel wise(oceans limit movement), that all governments would be so incompetent as to not be able to set up quarantine procedures?

[boofhead]

Are we assuming here that given the sheer isolation each continent has from the others travel wise(oceans limit movement), that all governments would be so incompetent as to not be able to set up quarantine procedures?

What if it lies dormant before symptoms appear? A couple of weeks could infect every continent, and then it's too late....

[Gaidin]

What if it lies dormant before symptoms appear? A couple of weeks could infect every continent, and then it's too late....

Which diseases mentioned here have a dormancy of weeks?

[Chaigidel]

yeah you could fashion a disease that perhaps lays dormant for years , but starts and inevitable cascade reaction in all who catch it, you are aware of the many chemical cascades that occur in certain circumstances? these reactions could be induced by the proper program. but much simpler is just taking something that exists and tweaking it, its scary easy, scary scary easy.

the great thing is that with genetics the catastrophe will likely not even occur as the result of a typical pathogen, some product we injest could have something similar to what causes prion disease, whereby our protiens would begin misprogramming themselves and taking the wrong shapes for the jobs.
the side effects could be endless they dont even understand all the systemic uses of the codes they are slinging around, they are just slapping things together trying to make money, sometimes only understanding one parameter --- another thing is you should all attain the rights to your own genetic codes because they are mapping everything from here to there and calling it owned -- im pretty sure Dow chemical owns the patents on all the primates already(seriously look up what Dow owns, you may be suprised)

but yeah + fan = mess ; and it will hit, and it will be because of our inappropriate manner when dealing with this new science, I call it new because right now it is really taking off.

@gaidin influenza has a 2 week incubation period. where your spreading it as well. 1918 how easy was it to quarintine the world when we just had damn boats going across the ponds? there is no stopping the big one when it hits.

[Gaidin]

@gaidin influenza has a 2 week incubation period. where your spreading it as well. 1918 how easy was it to quarintine the world when we just had damn boats going across the ponds? there is no stopping the big one when it hits.

The difference is we already have defenses in place against influenza by default. If you want to introduce a strain you need to be backing up how its been genetically modified so as its not only not caught by current defenses, but is even more communicable than it is now, but also still has its full two week dormancy period.

You're dealing with a severely unpredictable situation and introducing so many questions that the point you bring up is largely useless.

[Valentin the II]

the great thing is that with genetics the catastrophe will likely not even occur as the result of a typical pathogen, some product we injest could have something similar to what causes prion disease, whereby our protiens would begin misprogramming themselves and taking the wrong shapes for the jobs.
the side effects could be endless they dont even understand all the systemic uses of the codes they are slinging around, they are just slapping things together trying to make money, sometimes only understanding one parameter.

As a biotech student I can confurm this statment.
We barely understand what we are doing, as long as it gets the job done efficiently its A OK.

[Chaigidel]

what defenses do you think we have my good man? you do realize they have to manufacture the flu vaccine every year because it mutates without fail every year? flu follows parameters that are well studied it always begins in china, it is unavoidable that eventually we will get another outbreak similar to the spanish flu but this time it will be thousands upon thousands of times worse just because our populations are so much higher and we are so much more compacted into cities.