ALTHOUGH tuberculosis is a disease that can be cured with antibiotics for less than $50, New York has suffered an epidemic throughout the Nineties. Globally, TB is a growing problem, killing millions every year. It has been estimated that it could be eradicated for less than £7 billion, and there is a similar potential to obliterate polio and many other life-threatening diseases. But this demands a globally coordinated, systematic and relentless programme. Unfortunately, a less than adequate patchwork of uncoordinated operations has given rise to a virulent strain of Multiple Drug Resilient TB (MDRTB). In Russia, TB claims more than three million lives a year, and with international travel it is only a matter of time before it becomes a universal problem. Much the same goes for other treatable illnesses. My generation is the only one to live within the confines of the antibiotic era. Before this time about 50 per cent of all people who contracted certain common diseases and infections died with no means of saving them. We are now approaching the end of the road for existing antibiotics through our profligate use of them to cure everything, appropriately or not. In a sane world, what would we be doing? First, we would institute health surveys to quantify and rank the risks of individual diseases. We would then identify the dominant threats, the carriers and those most at risk. These groups would be cured and protected, and we would then monitor the population for outbreaks and be ready to act.

But if America cannot muster the will and resources to tackle the New York epidemic, what chance the rest of the world? Not a lot, I suspect. The New York Academy of Sciences estimates that the whole of the American population could be free of TB for just $1 billion spent over five years. But if it goes unchecked, TB will become a major killer early in the 21st century and cost that nation more than $10 billion a year.

It would appear that the Americans, like most other nations, would sooner worry about potential problems that present no identifiable or confirmed threat. For them, it is British beef and Belgian chocolates; in Britain, we are more concerned about genetically modified foods and growth hormones in American meat. What an interesting species we are: do political expediency and the X-Files mentality reign over real problems, or is it something deeper?

Beyond a general appreciation of statistics that approaches zero, I suspect a primary cause is the lack of a single point of qualified and trusted reference, augmented by the plethora of pressure groups providing biased, distorted and incorrect material. All of which feeds a media hungry for the next sensationalising headline.

I can find no single source of tabulated and quantified risks or a reasoned set of arguments for or against some strategy, choice or threat. So I have decided to create a neutral website publishing the best available referenced results on all forms of risk. Towards the top of my list will be conception, smoking, drinking, birth, drugs and crossing the road. BSE, GM foods, contraception and growth hormones will most likely be towards the bottom. Any valid and referenced contributions to this database will be gratefully received by email sent to

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk