The Monday Mix (22/03/2021)
Hello friends,
Another Monday means another email! Today I want to look back at one of the greatest achievements in human history, the eradication of smallpox.
It’s hard to believe 40 years ago humanity managed to eliminate smallpox from the face of the earth. The only remaining strains of smallpox are held in laboratories in the United States and Russia.
With Covid still causing issues almost a year after most countries went into lockdown and the vaccine rollout continuing, it’s interesting to look back at what we can achieve if there is collective action to reach a goal which benefits us all.
The coast of eradicating smallpox
Upon reading more about smallpox, I was astonished to discover it cost $300 million to eradicate smallpox. Pound for pound, this is arguably the greatest investment in human history.
It’s hard for many of us to contemplate just how deadly smallpox was. In 1967, 15 million cases were recorded. During the last century of its existence, smallpox killed around 500 million people.
A staggering number.
For $300 million we were able to eradicate a disease which caused untold misery for millions of people around the world. From a moral standpoint, this is a huge achievement for humanity.
It goes to show what we can achieve when we focus our minds and endeavour to reduce suffering. An important question we have to ask ourselves is, why haven’t we eradicated more diseases in the 40 years since 1980?
How smallpox claimed its final victim
The story of the last person to die from smallpox is a remarkable story.
The last known case of smallpox to be caught naturally was in Somalia in 1977. A year later, Janet Parker, a medical photographer, caught the virus in Birmingham, England.
She contracted smallpox while working in the anatomy department at Birmingham Medical School. What followed was a tragic tale and a harrowing reminder of the damage smallpox could inflict.
Reading the above article is an important reminder of how dangerous smallpox was and how lucky we are it no longer circulates among us.
This image highlights that perfectly.
This article is fascinating and terrifying in equal measure. After smallpox was eradicated, a group of Canadian researchers managed to recreate a similar virus at a cost of $100,000 in 2011.
On the one hand, this is an incredible achievement and on the other, it presents plenty of ethical and political consequences.
What if a rogue government decides to recreate another extinct virus? What if one of these viruses accidentally escapes the lab and starts circulating? Should we recreate viruses that have been extinct for thousands of years?
These questions make me think back to a scene in Jurassic Park, where Jeff Goldblum’s character, Ian Malcolm, opines on the efforts of the geneticists who brought dinosaurs back from the dead.
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Book I’m currently reading - Fake Law
I just finished this book today. It’s an interesting look at some of the common legal stories in the British media and how they are often taken out of context.
What I learned most from this book is how little, those of us living in the UK, know about the legal system. It’s a shocking state of affairs.
If you’re living in the UK or interested in the UK’s legal system, I highly recommend reading this book.
Quote I’m pondering
I came across this quote courtesy of Tim Ferriss’ newsletter. It’s too good not to share, so here it is!
“Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others.” - Pablo Picasso
That’s all for this week. I’ll continue to send the remainder of the essays I wrote for Ship30for30 during the week.
Until next time,
Tom