As reported in The Guardian, "Britain's most senior medical adviser has warned MPs [Members of Parliament] that the rise in drug-resistant diseases could trigger a national emergency comparable to a catastrophic terrorist attack . . . Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said the threat from infections that are resistant to frontline antibiotics was so serious that the issue should be added to the government's national risk register of civil emergencies" ("Antibiotic-Resistant Diseases Pose 'Apocalyptic' Threat, Top Expert Says," Jan. 23, 2013). According to the same news story, "drug resistance is emerging in diseases across the board. Davies said 80% of [the sexually transmitted disease] gonorrhea was now resistant to the frontline antibiotic tetracycline, and infections were rising in young and middle-aged people. Multi-drug resistant TB [tuberculosis] was also a major threat, she said."

Recall that severe disease epidemics are depicted as the pale horse, the fourth of the biblically prophesied Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Our reprint article series "The Horsemen of Revelation" is available online. (Source: The Guardian.)