Merck has donated $100m worth of vaccines against such scourges as hepatitis to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.
Virtually all immunologists agree that influenza vaccines are less effective than those used against such scourges as polio, measles, mumps and smallpox.
They also conveniently forget that end-of-life treatment for smoking or drink-related illnesses has already been purchased by the hundreds of thousands who have been fortunate enough to have escaped such scourges during their lives.
Not even the 20th century has escaped such scourges: the worldwide flu of 1918-19 is thought to have caused 25m-40m deaths, far more than the first world war; and since 1980 AIDS has killed some 12m people, so far.In pre-industrial Europe, frequent food crises also served as periodic population checks.
IN A year when rich-country leaders have said so much about the need to help Africa, and to step up the fight against such scourges as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, you might think an international body set up to do just that would be overflowing with donations.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, is on the front lines of bioterrorism prevention, but her scientists are also working to stop everyday killer diseases and fight such scourges as obesity.
911 Good Samaritan laws are designed to reduce such scourges by placing the value of human life above arrest for low-level crimes.
The document proposes an absolutist theory of monarchy, by which a king may impose new laws by royal prerogative but must also pay heed to tradition and to God, who would "stirre up such scourges as pleaseth him, for punishment of wicked kings".
And in Europe, it's been deemed such a scourge that the European Union recently passed rules to prevent it.
They were such a scourge that the Securities and Exchange Commission cited them in its so-called 21(a) report of two years ago.
