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In 2003 the SARS epidemic emerged from Guangdong Province in China and spread rapidly throughout East Asia and North America. While the epidemic resulted in much debilitation and mortality, the true costs of the epidemic resulted from the enormous levels of fear generated by the novel pathogen (a variant of coronavirus). To date the epidemic has generated considerable economic damage to the economies of Canada, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. SARS has also resulted in political casualties as key leaders in these countries failed to adequately respond to the epidemic in its early phases. This papers details the damage that SARS has wrought upon the economies of the aforementioned countries, and advocates the hypothesis that emerging infectious diseases consitute a direct threat to the political economy of affected nations. This study builds upon previous work in the realm of health security, by authors such as Andrew T Price-Smith, Yanzhong Huang, Robert Ostergard, and Stefan Elbe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]