Celebrating Group Achievement

From today’s Writer’s Almanac: On this date in 1979, a panel of scientists declared the smallpox virus to be eradicated. It’s the first and only disease to be driven to extinction through human efforts. The disease itself has probably been around since at least 10,000 B.C.E. Evidence of smallpox scars has been found on Egyptian mummies, and the decline of the Roman Empire coincides with a particularly bad outbreak that claimed 7 million people. It spread from northern Africa throughout Europe and Asia, and came to the New World with Spanish explorers.

First, we need to celebrate humankind’s coming together and solving a problem of this magnitude, and we should note that this wonderful achievement is particularly relevant today. If our civilization is to survive the wholesale destruction of our environment that it’s currently receiving, such victory will come only as a result of global cooperation and all that it implies: caring, making sacrifices, sharing scientific and natural resources, etc.

This event also underscores the importance of dealing with extreme poverty. In the absence of things like clean drinking water, proper nutrition, and refrigeration, expecting to eradicate, or even to control, most diseases is a pipe-dream.