Local action, global impacts
SARS, avian influenza, and malaria demonstrate how local communities are increasingly vulnerable to events that occur thousands of miles away. Advances in transportation allow humans, products, and pathogens to spread disease farther and faster than ever before. This creates a dangerous convergence within a global marketplace anxious to meet consumer demand for food at cheap prices in any season from around the world. The growing marketplace also brings a loss of product identity, and opportunities for counterfeiters and illegal goods.