One of the best things about being a kid is birthday parties. And what is a birthday party without a cake? Even for an adult a surprise birthday party or a dinner out with family or friends can be highlighted by the tradition of singing Happy Birthday and blowing out all the candles on the cake. Such memories. But did anyone ever get a birthday cake with candles but no icing on the cake? Highly doubtful. Who would ever forget to ice the cake? No one. If it is not obvious yet, we live in the Age of Pandemics. This dawned forty years ago when AIDS suddenly appeared, approximately twenty years after vaccines had almost vanquished polio. Pandemics have ravaged humanity since before the Black Plague of 16th Century Europe. Smallpox, polio, tuberculosis, and influenza cut swaths through populations leaving families, cities, and nations poorer. Some pandemics arrive, last a year or so and vanish, not to return for another century or two. Others like influenza continue circling the glob...