Back 'n' forth about evolution of virulence and avian flu

By Tara Smith

There’s been some interesting discussion over on SciAm Observations about the evolution of infectious diseases, and notably, influenza. It all started with editor John Rennie’s post, discussing an article on H5N1 written by Wendy Orent, here:

Part I

Wendy Orent and evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald both replied in Part II and Part III, respectively:

Part II

Part III

Both discussed Rennie’s mention of a critique of Orent’s article on the public health blog, Effect Measure. The pseudomynous Revere from that blog then replied in Part IV:

Part IV

(Continued at Aetiology…)