It probably just mysteriously popped up. New mutations of old illnesses appear every year, because of evolution, and often they are immune to our antibiotics because only those are able to spread (natural selection)
This quote reminds me of the Showtime special on Evolution versus Creation. It was amazing how many people considered the false evidence of creation as scientific. I'll start a thread on it, but the above quote can't be more right.
Horde King brings out a point with the "(thanks to us) a resistence to the antibiotics" info. We throw antibiotics at anything that causes respitory infections without even testing. If it's viral, the antibiotics do nothing. I am a consultant for pharmaceutical researchers and had been approached many times to do preliminary studies (by physicians looking to make a quick buck) to bring antibiotic (off-patent to save money and gain rights) products to the public in over-the-counter forms. This is absurd, as physicians haven't even been disciplined enough in their approach to usage, let alone the likes of the public without any knowledge of the consequences. We are creating our own problems by being so cheap and lazy. And yes, The Stand comes to mind when issues like this pop up.
On another front, many hospitals this Monday reacted to the issue by having meetings about the problem. It seems that most cases are throughout Asian areas including the Phillipines and Japan, with some cases in Canada of late. Most of the people affected have been hospital/health care workers (approximately 90% according to the reports) and most cases are first diagnosed as pneumonia and or the flu and treated as such. Protocol has been instituted at many hospitals to treat all respitory illness with extreme caution especially in ER visits (gloves and isolation masks). Time will tell the full story.
<img src="http://members.aol.com/dxixrxt/spoon2.jpg">
Nothing...i have nothing!