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Our relationship to infectious pathogens is part of an evolutionary drama (1). Here we are; here are the bugs. They are looking for food; we are their meat. How do we compete? They reproduce so quickly, and there are so many of them. They tolerate vast fluctuations of population size as part of their natural history; a fluctuation of 1% in our population size is a major catastrophe. Microbes have enormous potential mechanisms of genetic diversity. We are different from them in every respect. Their numbers, rapid fluctuations, and amenability to genetic change give them tools for adaptation that far outpace what we can generate on any short-term basis.

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