"Any fifth grader can express expletively and completely fail to either make the target of their expletives feel hurt, wrong or remorseful or whatever the goal of a fluent flame."

Yeesh, Tech-1. If I thought Tom would take seriously and personally ANY rough stuff I say on flame, then I wouldn't say it (to Tom). The wisdom of the flame board, as I have seen, is that regulars go holler at eachother for a bit, maybe call a few names and then eventually end up laughing about it. Its a vent, low-tech, don't block it or we might suffocate.

" That the Indian paper misquoted the CDC was unknown to me "

Hint: before you believe any quote from an official source (like the CDC), enter the string of the quote or a substring of the quote into google... There is a good chance you will find the original source (the CDC transcript in this case).

"As for the SARS issue - as time passes it is appearing more and more that indeed my assumptions are correct."

Don't make me laugh. There is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support you. Don't trot that laughable garbage out again without some proof.

"Time will tell, but statistics tell quite a bit of the story"
and
"in this instance the statistics are generating a lot of smoke."

Only with the most naive and uneducated interpretation. A disease breaks out in asia, is halted from spreading beyond those asian countries by proactive measures and BANG, don't you know it, most (but not all) of the victims are of asian heritage. You can conform to one of two hypothesies:
1) SARS is an exclusive 'asians only' disease despite the fact that NO OTHER VIRUS KNOWN TO MAN EXHIBITS RACE SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR and EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT GENETICS TELLS US THERE IS NO GENETIC BASIS TO RACE... OR
2) That the asian 'racial' distibution of cases comes from the fact that it broke out, in, er.. ASIA!!! Thats ALL.

What hypothesis requires fewer assumptions? Which hypothesis conforms to a substantial mass of empiricaly formed and consistent hypothesies? Which requires NO hidden assumptions or ancillary arguments? Are there ANY substantial set of phenomena explained by hypothesis ONE that can NOT be explained by hypoithesis TWO? Are there ANY WELL ESTABLISHED facts in related, reviewed and established theories that have to be THROWN OUT THE WINDOW WITH NO OTHER JUSTIFICATION if we choose hypothesis TWO? What about with ONE?

Now, what would a sane and intelligent person conclude? Eh? Just pretend for a moment, tech-1....

you don't know shit about empirical science.

"Where there's smoke there's usually fire "

In your case, false, misquoted and wholly unsubstantiated with ANY source, figure or fact that is at all conclusive or even unexpected.

When you come to the table with real data, THEN I'll back down.

Davin L.