This is from my book "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry:

"The lowest estimate of the pandemic's worldwide death toll is twenty-one million, in a world with a population less than one-third today's. That estimate comes from a contemporary study of the disease and newspapers have often cited it since, but it is almost certainly wrong. Epidemiologists today estimate that influenza likely caused at least fifty million deaths worldwide, and possibly as many as one hundred million.

Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Plaque of the Middle Ages killed in a century; it killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years."

Think about that a minute. That's a whole lot of people. Could something like this happen again? I think its a miracle it hasn't yet. I was pretty worried when the SARS thing started happening but our experts were able to get it contained quickly. Its bad to think about but something we SHOULD think about.

Now, after scaring you half to death, I light-heartedly leave with a picture especially for Christina http://www.wherepigsfly.blogspot.com/ in honor of our new science hobby, Gothology (the study of the Goth phenomenon).