The great outbreak of plagues and viral weapons released during the final days of the Pacific War were a horror which no country or society was prepared to handle. After the televisions had their fill of body counts in the millions and pictures of horrible new strains, the general public became much more cautious, some would say paranoid, about health care and contamination. Sanitation procedures in schools and daycares were the first to become extra-rigorous, with hourly scrub-baths, constant air filtration, and routine daily testing for symptoms. Following the implementation of the draconian Osaka Biosafety Protocols the rest of society started the same treatment. Thousands of new 'vaccine' and 'purification' products came on the market almost overnight. People in the rich world spent vast sums on health care because when one's health is in danger, nothing else matters as much. The poor had to do with government- distributed vaccines that became obsolete within days. Even this was often unavailable in the devastated third world, where even hardened war-journalists would no longer venture.

Among the new diseases where such mild versions as the 'scabbies', a form of malignant body sore, all the way to 'novokrev', an airborne filo virus which causes massive internal hemorrhaging in all organs. The new mutation quickly brought unknown organisms into daily consciousness, as when a particularly noxious type of strand-worm ruptured famous news-anchor Gary Stelman's esophagus during a live webcast.

Among the countless varieties of worms, beetles, spiders, ants and other critters, the most noxious are probably the Eudonthrae ('good teeth') and Little Colonecrile, parasites so vicious in their appetite that they've captured the imagination of nearly everyone across the globe.

The main consequence of the New Mutation has been an erosion of trust and freedom in most societies, where letting a stranger into your home could now be more fatal than at any other time in history. The mass death caused by the new diseases has also lead to a global revival in spirituality, mostly of which is unfortunately of the 'save-my-pathetic-life' or 'destroy-us-for-our-sins' kinds.

This mass religious revival has greatly increased the political power of the Roman Catholic Church, the Council of Churches, the Party of Purity, and the Christian Coalition (represented by the Heartlanders). In 2025 the Vatican released a new encyclical entitled The Perfect Hells, a vast Boschian work describing in minute detail the suffering inflicted on sinners who strayed from the righteous path of purity - a work which was to supposedly help third-world Christians in understanding the new plagues. Radical Islamic groups such as the Flame of Allah brutally kill anyone suspected of infection, while many communities - such as Switzerland - desperately attempted to seal themselves off completely. In the end the societies which suffered the least where those which accepted the New Mutation and quickly developed counter-procedures and biosafety protocols, not those which imposed isolation.

Nevertheless, people have stoically adapted to the new mutation and have learned to live with the stringent daily procedures much as we have learned to drink our tapwater from filters, something which would have seemed paranoid to someone living in the 'ignorant' 1950s. When HIV mutated into a sweat-propagation vector, people quickly began wearing transparent full-body undersuits to protect themselves. Personal space has increased, and so has 'invisible' hourly testing of cast-off cells to spot infection. Great Minds monitor and contain the spread of infection down to the last rat.

A final consequence of the Dirty War and the resulting spread of nasty organisms is that many technological (especially genetic) devices are strictly forbidden by the Research Control Regime. This is a Protocol-maintained global body which monitors and prohibits certain lines of research which are deemed threatening to the existence of human beings. This might include anything from grafting extra appendages or even nanotech signal carriers. The regime has restricted many promising lines of inquiry which may have benefited mankind, but it has undoubtedly prevented some unpleasant technologies from arising as well. Needless to say, many pariah countries (such as Persia and Vietnam) choose to research anyway, while certain Free Zones such as Shanghai have a reputation as being excellent places to get prohibited black market devices such as Poison Maidens and Dissemblers.