"Human excrement is a weapon of mass destruction"

Rose George has an interesting, mind stretching, read in today's New York Times. Ms. George talks about how "human excrement is a weapon of mass destruction. A gram of human feces can contain up to 10 million viruses."

Her article is apropos given the disasters in Myanmar and China. While the people of these countries need water and food, they also need toilets. Given the geography and type of disaster, Myanmar needs more help than China in this respect. Yet, I think what Ms. George is saying is that toilets are not getting the type of support they deserve when a disaster happens. We continue to see celebrities promoting clean water, but never sanitation.

While agencies can make sure people are feed and have ample water, if we end up poisoning them with excrement, all the food and water in the world are rendered useless.