Apathy in Dealing with Infectious Diseases
Apathy in Dealing with Infectious Diseases
By Todd Strandberg
The heads of several tech companies have recently pledged money to combat diseases. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has funded a project that will bring together a group of scientists, engineers, doctors, and other experts in an attempt to “cure, prevent, or manage all diseases in our children’s lifetime.” Zuckerberg said he will devote 99 percent of his fortune to this cause.
Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, believes one day we will find a way to live forever. Ray Kurzweil, Google’s chief futurist, said in April, “We will reach a point around 2029 when medical technologies will add one additional year every year to your life expectancy.”
These goals of curing all disease and achieving immortality are pipe dreams. We have learned a great deal about the functions of living organisms, but our knowledge has not allowed us to master the codes of life. In reality, we are slowly losing the battle against infectious diseases. An entire series of bacterial pathogens have developed resistance to nearly every antibiotic.
The problem is so bad the United Nations has just declared antibiotic Resistance as a Crisis, putting it on par with Ebola and HIV. It is hoped that the classification will lead to the funding and research needed to combat, or even fully eradicate, the problem, which is currently responsible for more than 23,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone.
The World Health Organization has warned that gonorrhea “may soon become untreatable” because of growing resistance to the antibiotic ceftriaxone, a member of the cephalosporin class.
Head lice do not cause death, but its resistance to treatment shows the problem. In 1945, the insecticide solution to treat lice known as Nix, was the most commonly used treatment and was nearly 100 percent effective against the organism. Today, only 2 percent of head lice can be treated with NIX.
Even when virus kills large numbers of people, there is no alarm by world governments. The West African Ebola epidemic of 2013 to 2016 was the most widespread epidemic of the Ebola virus disease in history. Ebola has up to a 70 percent fatality rate. Doctors that wore heavy protective gear still managed to become infected with the virus. We still don’t have any cure or specific treatment for Ebola.
At one point in 2014, the number of cases was doubling every couple weeks. We were within a month of seeing the infections rate reach the hundreds of thousands, but then the disease just suddenly stopped in its track. It was like the virus was meant to be some type of warning.
Another indication of how unprepared we are with disease is the problem with the Zika virus. For most people, the infection is similar to a very mild form of dengue fever. The horror of Zika occurs when a pregnant woman becomes infected, the virus spreads to her fetus.
This can result in microcephaly (severe brain malformations), and other birth defects. Unlike Ebola, which erupted in Africa, Zika has reached the shores of America. Florida has asked Congress for money to help with the eradication of mosquitoes that carry the virus, and lawmakers have failed to move for several months.
I have to wonder if these bugs have invaded people’s brains, reprogramming them to be apathetic. Leprosy is a disease that was once wiped out in the Western world. Because we allow infected people to freely enter our country, leprosy has re-emerged as a risk factor. When children from immigrant families turn up at school with leprosy, the media conceals the source of the infection.
If the tech giants were able to cure infectious diseases they would also greatly discredit Bible prophecy. Since plagues and pestilences are a key element of the Tribulation hour, their removal would be a huge obstacle to several prophetic passages.
The lack of concern about infectious diseases is a direct result of the moral state of the world. We have the same level of apathy about terrorism, nuclear war, and natural disasters. Because God has already determined to use plagues and pestilences to show His wrath upon a wicked world, the ultimate threat from these dangers is 100 percent. The next time we have an epidemic, it may not stop until we have toll that fits the carnage described by prophecy.
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places” (Matthew 24:7).
“These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will” (Revelation 11:6).
“I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God” (Revelation 15:1).
–Todd