Jazz, i wish it was increased exposure to clean water and basic medicine (and clean water is much more important of the 2) that will cause the population to level.

As societies get clean water- infant deaths drop, and families (women, especialy) realize that they don't don't have to have 10 or more children just to even the odds that 3 or 4 will survive to adulthood. Birth rate closely follow infant survial rates, which closely follow clean water.

But i am frightened at the prospect of two major diseases, HIV/Aids and BSE/nvCJD. Both diseases are ravaging the world. Millions in Africa are infected with HIV, and while drugs will allow you to change HIV into a chronic infection, rather then a deadly disease, the drugs are not available at an affordable price.

and then there is BSE/nvCJD. Cases in Brittan are increasing exponentialy-- and the MBM(meat and bone meal) that is one of the sourses of transmission, was exported for years to third world countries. though labeled as "not for use as feed for Cattle", and only for pigs and fowl, i suspect that a good deal of it ended up as cattle food. Non literate societies are not going to be too fussy when looking for a cheap sourse of animal feed to make sure it only get feed to some of the animals. MBM was exported and sold for animal feed for 10 years, after England banned its use at "home".

just as US drug manufactures sold defective baby formula in africa--(it lacked enough of one of the essential amino acids, and was banned from Canada, Europe, and other literate societies) -- so, England sold off its contaminated MBM to thirds world countries...

(i didn't want this to sound like an anti british rant-- it is really a anti "corporate" rant--and i don't see US corporations acting much better than English, and we could go on to how the French handled contaminated blood supplies-- i see it as corporate greed, that knows no national boundries.)

nvCJD is in some ways worse than HIV/Aids, since there is no cure or even treatment yet. and with up to a 20+ year incubation, we might just be seeing the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to nvCJD!

We might find effect (cheap) cures or treatments for either of these, but i suspect both with have large impacts on populations and demographics... Both diseases can be found through out the world-- borders are meaningless, and both will have major impacts.


my other obsession