"Spanish Flu" is far from a footnote in history for scientists trying to protect us from future flu epidemics.

BBC: Flu virus victims list from 1918

When he was manager of the Vicks VapoRub brand in India, flu epidemics posed absurd dilemmas: should he boost production beyond licensed limits (a punishable offence) or leave market demand unsatisfied?

ECONOMIST: India��s choices

It is this continual process of genetic drift gives rise to the seasonal epidemics of flu and norovirus.

BBC: Winter bugs: A yearly battle for dominance

Fortunately, such a doomsday scenario is unlikely: none of the other recent outbreaks of avian flu resulted in human epidemics.

ECONOMIST: Averting a global plague | The

Vaccines are developed for polio, TB, AIDS, bird-flu and mad-cow type epidemics and pandemics that periodically threaten to envelop the world, with the feared trends actually resulting not in annihilation of the human species, but in an improvement in life expectancies.

FORBES: Long-Term Forecasts Are Mostly Worthless