...Just as Resistance to Increased PAX-Monitoring Was Gathering Steam

Just as various groups and individuals were awakening to the threat to liberty that more-intrusive passenger profiling (including financial and medical backgrounds) presents, a new, "mystery" illness has appeared, and government health institutions are calling for measures to protect us all from it.

The previously-unknown illness, now known as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), carries pneumonia-like symptoms. We're being told it (and not the garden-variety pneumonias) has killed ten people already, and that it is apparently being spread from China to the rest of the world on airliners. Thus, the new and immediate need for medical-history screening, worldwide.

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a weekend warning, calling this new disease a "world-wide threat." So far, they say it has been detected on three continents -- Asia, Europe, and North America.

For now, airlines are being asked to look out for people with high fevers, particularly if accompanied by respiratory problems -- conditions which, it must be presumed, no one at the airlines (or Immigration, or Customs?) was watching out for, in the first place.

Since the illness is so new, no one is willling to say for certain whether it's a bacterium-caused, or a viral, problem. All officials know is, it's communicable, and it's bad, and the airlines should stop its spread. Current suspected cases are being treated with heavy doses of both anti-viral drugs and antibiotics.

WHO says officially, "To date, almost all reported cases have occurred in health workers involved in the direct care of reported cases or in close contacts, such as family members. There is no evidence to date that the disease spreads though casual contact."

Here's what to expect, if you've got it: first, you'll get a headache, followed by a fever and a sore throat. Later, you'll start coughing, and you'll develop pneumonia. Since they don't know what's causing the problem, treatment isn't on the shelf; 'identification and containment' seems to be the best strategy.

So far, the disease, first-reported in the past couple weeks, has claimed ten lives worldwide.

All airlines not especially-charged with carrying infectious passengers, routinely deny flight to anyone with any such obvious conditions. So far, there has not been any government-mandated additional health check, anywhere in the world, that we can confirm.

FMI: www.who.int/mediacentre/notes/2003/np4/en/; www.tsa.gov