Thanks for injecting some actual peer reviewed research into this discussion. As I mentioned elsewhere, I was mostly responding to the notion that one can engineer a virus with specific properties as opposed to relying on natural pathogens. No argument that there are no shortage of naturally occurring bugs that can kick our butts.

Can you comment on the models that are used for simulating outbreaks? Do they factor in natural evolutionary pressure and change of the virus? In the case of smallpox, you have something fairly stable, but influenza is highly variable over time. I can't imagine how one does that but it would be cool to know if it's possible.