1. World War I was followed by an influenza pandemic responsible for even more deaths. Some medical experts do not rule out the possibility that it could happen again. How does that plague compare to the ones Giblin describes?

2. HIV is a retrovirut,. Why is this microbe so scary?

3. Is the emergence of such diseases as AIDS and ebola the result, as some maintain, of the destruction of tropical forests? Is this an oversimplification?

4. In the wake of the AIDS pandemic in the 1990s, another incurable disease began to get the public's attention. Why are spongiform diseases so frightening? How does mad cow disease compare to AIDS?

5. Understandably proud of their accomplishments, scientists in the 1950s and 1960s sometimes announced that their victory over many diseases was won.

Why was this attitude premature?