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Not going viral
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LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 50 Hampshire St, Floor 5, Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217
Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9470 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3787 9001 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2016 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Not going viral Yet again we have been blindsided by an emerging virus ANOTHER year, another emerging tropical disease. Zika virus, which has caused thousands of severe birth defects in Brazil, is fanning out across the western hemisphere and appears capable of invading nearly all countries in the Americas (see page 7). Other continents could be next. Until recently, the mosquitoborne virus caused sporadic human cases in parts of Africa and South-East Asia (see page 9). It now joins a rogues’ gallery of obscure viruses that have shot to global notoriety, including HIV, Ebola, SARS, West Nile, MERS, dengue and chikungunya. Given how often we find ourselves in this situation – and the near-certainty that we will
find ourselves in it again – you would think that the public health response would be a well-oiled machine by now. But yet again we have been blindsided. Zika’s practice run in French Polynesia in 2013 should have been a warning. Its rampage across Brazil before spreading to a dozen other countries in the Americas has virologists frantically designing research, but there has been precious little public health response besides warnings to avoid pregnancy, mosquitoes or both. There is no sign of a crash programme to develop the most effective response of all – a vaccine. The slow response to the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa was
No art to the impossible POLITICS is often said to be the art of the possible. Complex realworld problems rarely have neat solutions. But British politicians appear to have forgotten this: the impossible is becoming law. Consider the Psychoactive Substances Bill, which attempts to ban almost everything that alters mental state. It was passed last week by mostly supine MPs after a clueless debate (see page 26).
Last week also saw publication of the draft “snooper’s charter”, which asks for some powers that are nonsensical, because they bear little relation to how digital communications actually work, and others that are draconian (14 November 2015, p 20). And it saw the release of the “evidence base” behind the drive for a seven-day National Health Service, though this provides scant justification
roundly and rightly criticised (see page 7). But the guardians of the world’s public health ultimately redeemed themselves somewhat by creating, testing and distributing a vaccine in record time – albeit still a bit too late. Zika isn’t as dangerous as Ebola, but it isn’t a virus to take lightly. Where is the effort to replicate the Ebola vaccine initiative for Zika? And looking down the line, how do we prepare for the next virus to come burbling out of an animal reservoir somewhere? Yet again, a once-obscure emerging virus has gone halfway around the world before the health authorities have got their boots on. They can, and must, do better. n
for the proposed reforms, as the medical profession has explained. Rationalists may hope these laws will prove unworkable. But with the government seemingly also bent on removing checks and balances on its power, from freedom of information requests to human rights laws, we should be concerned that it will instead be free to interpret their vagaries any way it wants, unchallenged. In a democracy, that may seem unthinkable. But it is beginning to seem worryingly possible. n 30 January 2016 | NewScientist | 5
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 50 Hampshire St, Floor 5, Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217
Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9470 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3787 9001 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2016 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Not going viral Yet again we have been blindsided by an emerging virus ANOTHER year, another emerging tropical disease. Zika virus, which has caused thousands of severe birth defects in Brazil, is fanning out across the western hemisphere and appears capable of invading nearly all countries in the Americas (see page 7). Other continents could be next. Until recently, the mosquitoborne virus caused sporadic human cases in parts of Africa and South-East Asia (see page 9). It now joins a rogues’ gallery of obscure viruses that have shot to global notoriety, including HIV, Ebola, SARS, West Nile, MERS, dengue and chikungunya. Given how often we find ourselves in this situation – and the near-certainty that we will
find ourselves in it again – you would think that the public health response would be a well-oiled machine by now. But yet again we have been blindsided. Zika’s practice run in French Polynesia in 2013 should have been a warning. Its rampage across Brazil before spreading to a dozen other countries in the Americas has virologists frantically designing research, but there has been precious little public health response besides warnings to avoid pregnancy, mosquitoes or both. There is no sign of a crash programme to develop the most effective response of all – a vaccine. The slow response to the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa was
No art to the impossible POLITICS is often said to be the art of the possible. Complex realworld problems rarely have neat solutions. But British politicians appear to have forgotten this: the impossible is becoming law. Consider the Psychoactive Substances Bill, which attempts to ban almost everything that alters mental state. It was passed last week by mostly supine MPs after a clueless debate (see page 26).
Last week also saw publication of the draft “snooper’s charter”, which asks for some powers that are nonsensical, because they bear little relation to how digital communications actually work, and others that are draconian (14 November 2015, p 20). And it saw the release of the “evidence base” behind the drive for a seven-day National Health Service, though this provides scant justification
roundly and rightly criticised (see page 7). But the guardians of the world’s public health ultimately redeemed themselves somewhat by creating, testing and distributing a vaccine in record time – albeit still a bit too late. Zika isn’t as dangerous as Ebola, but it isn’t a virus to take lightly. Where is the effort to replicate the Ebola vaccine initiative for Zika? And looking down the line, how do we prepare for the next virus to come burbling out of an animal reservoir somewhere? Yet again, a once-obscure emerging virus has gone halfway around the world before the health authorities have got their boots on. They can, and must, do better. n
for the proposed reforms, as the medical profession has explained. Rationalists may hope these laws will prove unworkable. But with the government seemingly also bent on removing checks and balances on its power, from freedom of information requests to human rights laws, we should be concerned that it will instead be free to interpret their vagaries any way it wants, unchallenged. In a democracy, that may seem unthinkable. But it is beginning to seem worryingly possible. n 30 January 2016 | NewScientist | 5