Interesting article that changed my way of thinking

When searching on a list of several epidemics on Wikipedia, I came across an article on SARS. I found something interesting in it stating that "There is some evidence that some of the more serious damage in SARS is due to the body's own immune system overreacting to the virus....Research is continuing in this area. "
I found this very interesting when I initially thought that epidemics were merely diseases that were easily spread and that killed people. I never thought that it could be a possibility that as humans, we have created the epidemic that kills so many of us.
Also in this article, I learned that SARS initially can be mistaken as the flu as its initial symptoms are reminiscent of the flu.
Though there was only one major outbreak to date, it killed 774 people out of the 8,096 identified cases (according to Wikipedia). Though on a world scale this isn't an outrageous number, it was quite appealing and it interested me.
The website was 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS' if anyone wants to take a look.

I also looked up some information on SARS on WebMD so that I could get a possible medical look at it. The website defined SARS as "a recently identified respiratory illness that first infected people in parts of Asia, North America, and Europe in late 2002 and early 2003. " I learned that the outbreaks can be seasonal and are caused by the coronavirus that causes it to be mistaken as the common cold. One of the weirdest things that I learned from this was that it is believed by some that it originated in "civets" which are "cat-like wild animals" and other animals that people have eaten. This went against the possibility that the virus originates in humans and I found this interesting. The website for this article was 'http://www.webmd.com/hw/infection/uf6068.asp'. My Diigo wasn't working for me to tag this but I plan to tag it when I can.

At this point, I have taken a particular interest in SARS because it has been absent lately from the news and I have yet to hear very much about it. It doesn't seem to compare to AIDS and Bird Flu in our modern day society, but I feel that it is very important and I hope to learn more about it.
~Jenelle