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C00002 00002	To the Editors of the Scientific American
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To the Editors of the Scientific American

Sirs:

	I  was puzzled  by  the following  statement  from the  World
Health Organization quoted on page 56 of your January issue:

"%2If traffic accidents are tackled by methods  similar to those used
against  the great  killing diseases,  the  present epidemic  of road
deaths could be made  to disappear just  as plague and smallpox  have
now been eliminated almost everywhere in the world%1".

	Do they  propose to inoculate  new cars with  fragments from
from smashed  cars or eradicate junkyards as  sources of contagion?

	But I  read on,  and on  page 84,  the description  of how  a
smashing stomatopod evicts another stomatopod from a desirable burrow
made every thing clear.   The WHO statement  is simply an example  of
the method  nature has  evolved whereby  one bureaucracy  expands its
functions into  an area over which another bureaucracy has previously
had jurisdiction.

	The  sentence on  page  84, "%2We  do  not know  whether  the
eviction  results  from a  reduction  of the  oxygen  in  the blocked
cavity, from  a  fouling of  the water  in  the cavity  by  agressive
defecation  or  from  prolonged  stress%1."  shows  the  evolutionary
advance  since  the  ancestors  of WHO  diverged  from  those  of the
stomatopods.
					Sincerely yours,


					John McCarthy