Pfitzer pharmaceuticals has graciously sponsored (in collaboration with the NIH, of course) a traveling program to teach children about microbes. Awefully kind of them. Of course it is the best form of advertising they could hope for.

In addition to teaching about a wide range of bugs - "from those that sustain life on Earth to those that threaten our health and even our existence" - they learn how drug research is keeping us all "one step ahead" of the killers.

The kids interact with the microbe world through virtual reality and 3-D animation.

The education in fear continues. The indoctrination into reliance on drugs to save us continues. Other advertisers tapped into the multibillion dollar market of children long ago, so why not the drug industry? That such advertising is thinly disguised as education only makes it more repulsive.

The drug industry is much less concerned with the bugs in children's blood than with the dollars in their pockets. And to think it is all publicly endorsed, surreal indeed.