That's *better*! :)
The ending is improved enourmously by the explanation and
foreshadowing, and the science is straightened out.
The only gripe I have is that the economic catastrophe is so, well,
uninvolving. You catch the vital points and convey them well
through the News clippings, but it's not as immediately
frightening as a famine.
This weekend I thought about writing a mail to you, suggesting that
you change the catastrophe into chaos and rioting that threaten to
engulf the world. While there would be no *real* famine, few
people know that. Too many people would be afraid of starving
without meat, and begin hoarding thereby *causing* shortages (I
particularly like the passage about this happening in Russia and
think that something like this might happen even in the western
countries, if the panic was strong enough).
If you tweak it a little and emphasize the danger of spreading
riots a little more, this story would meet all of my criteria for a
good fanfic. Oh, and it would make Akari's title as "savior of the
World" more plausible. In *reality* she only saved the animal-
dependent industry, not mankind itself, but "the people in the
street" would definitely *think* that she averted a famine.
The insulin part was a great idea, but in a future where even
livestock has been genetically optimized, I'd expect almost all of
the insulin to come from bacteria. Getting it prom pigs is not
entirely risc-free, you know?
Oh, BTW, we *do* know a cure to AIDS, and have know it for years.
It is INFORMATION and RESPONSIBILITY. Alas, there is a shortage of
both in the world.
Sebastian