Gordon ‘Domestos’ Brown

wants to kill 99% of all known bugs. Dead. In his Castroesque speech (one hour, Thor help us if ever actually gets elected) to the Labour Party conference yesterday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged the Labour government to conquer - if I remember aright - malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, MRSA and the lastest superbug du jour Clostridium difficile.

Laudable stuff, duly clapped by the applause chimps. By way of a reality check, we’ve been trying for sixty years and can’t yet cure the common cold, a virus with few of the tricks of HIV. My friends in white coats are frantic about the underfunding and utterly insecure ‘career’ path available to scientists in the UK.

MRSA and c. diff are domestic problems, to a lesser extent HIV and TB (there’s a lovely extreme drug resistant TB on its way for Gordon to grapple). Malaria will once again become a problem in the UK soon. The UK will not conquer any of these diseases.  Some of our labs and universities may make a breakthrough or do some of the handle-turning, but to pretend otherwise the Prime Minister was just farting through trumpets.

If I were an hookworm or a biharzia I’d be very upset: not a mention in Bournemouth. Just how damn worldwide disease does a worm have to get before a Prime Minister notices you and pledges a pogrom? Did Gordon’s spinners tell him ‘we don’t do helminths’.

(Did this post make you itchy?)