A review of THE COMING PLAGUE: NEWLY EMERGING DISEASES IN A WORLD OUT OF BALANCE by Laurie Garrett, published in 1994. CHAPTER 16: NATURE AND HOMO SAPIENS
Large numbers of dead seals
In 1987, Siberian fishermen and hunters working around Lake Baikal noticed large numbers of dead seals washing up along the shores of the huge Central Asia lake. Because the Soviet government had long used the country’s lakes as waste dumps, it was first assumed that the seals were victims of some toxic chemicals. With the spring thaw of 1988 came an apparent epidemic of miscarriages among female harbor seals in the North Sea along the coasts of Sweden and Denmark. By August dead seals were even found on the beaches of northern Ireland. Scientists determined that two different viruses were responsible for what seemed to be separate seal epidemics in Lake Baikal and the North Sea. The extraordinary death rates among harbor seals indicated that their immune systems had never previously encountered such a virus. While the seal experts worked on that puzzle, veterinarians in Spain were examining dolphins that were beaching themselves along the Mediterranean coast of Catalonia. – dubbed “dolphin AIDS”. Dutch scientists determined that at least four newly discovered viruses were attacking Europe’s and Central Asia’s marine mammals.
The probability of genetic exchange is very great
Algae, the oldest living family of creatures on earth, can, in times of environmental stress or food shortages, encyst themselves in a protective coating, go dormant, and drop into hiding for extended periods. Rita Colwell of the University of Maryland had devoted years to the study of microorganisms in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, where she discovered that viruses were seasonal, increasing as the bay warmed to a billion viruses per milliliter, outnumbering algae and bacteria. Colwell saw viral intrusion occurring, as human and animal waste washed into the bay, carrying with it a variety of pathogens, with the probability of genetic exchange very great. Hepatitis, Norwalk virus, polio, and a host of other microbes were turning up in shell fish in the world’s coastal waters, particularly around dump sites. Strange microbes appeared that burned through the shells of mollusks, killed off salmon, and made lobsters lose their sense of direction. A single gram of typical feces contains one billion viruses. Ocean pollution due to raw sewage, fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemical waste was increasing steadily, producing tremendous changes in coastal marine ecospheres.
Only viruses remained to keep blooms in check
Algae blooms increased in frequency and size worldwide throughout the four post-World War II decades, growing so rapidly that they blocked all oxygen and sunlight for the creatures swimming below, suffocating fish, marine plants, and mollusks. There was evidence that the additional load of ultraviolet light making its way through the ozone layer was driving a higher mutation rate in sea surface organisms, favoring microorganisms. Jan Post, a marine biologist at the World Bank, when announcing the release of the Bank’s 1993 report on the condition of the seas, stated: “The ocean today has become an overexploited resource and mankind’s ultimate cesspool, the last destination for all pollution.” The overall diversity of the marine ecosphere was declining at a rapid rate. A feedback loop of oceanic imbalance was in place. As the populations of plankton/algae eaters declined, only viruses remained to keep blooms in check.