Drumbeat dengue

Our champions from the epidemiology unit are on the march. Marching, that is, around the city counting dead bodies. Of course, the corollary to this is that the body count rises the more inept they become. Like the priesthood, they are rich in words. Words that have no tangible results. Words like search and destroy, fogging, mapping the city, continuing calamity, this plague, consultations, meetings, task force. Too many words I'm afraid.

Finally, in a desperate public relations snow job for credibility our champions have given us the "Aedes Mascot". Like a sense of humor will keep that mosquito of death from killing our children.

The vaccine we are waiting for will not come from here. That is beyond Filipino medicine. So, what to do? Maybe its time for our champions to dust off those microscopes and start looking down the barrel. At what? Why, plants of course! It is well known that plants being stationary and cannot escape their predators have evolved powerful compounds in their leaves.

Mike Gilligan

(Ret.) San Francisco Fire Department