This may be nitpickery, but -
- it really disinclines me to reading further when an article begins with a historical comparison at which I go 'well, no' and 'what about...':
the Aids pandemic, which has perhaps caused more shock and anguish than any other infectious disease since the black death
and 'you really haven't thought through the history of epidemics, have you?'
As in, I could immediately go 'Spanish flu pandemic, 1918-19' and 'C19th cholera pandemic' and 'have you considered the late C15th-C16th arrival of the previously unknown disease known as the Italian/French/etc Pox?'
There are probably others.
My own sense is that a lot of the 'shock and anguish' about AIDS was the product of a rude awakening from a short halcyon period of triumphal medical science combined with the payoff of a rather longer period of public health interventions.
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