Many population systems, such as epidemics, lasers, and mass  action chemistry, can be shown to belong to a very general class of  perturbed Hamiltonian models. In particular, there is an excellent correspondence between laser  models and epidemic models. In this talk, I will explore some of the ramifications of how noise induces chaos-like bursting in such models, and how it might be controlled. Experimental considerartions will be discussed, time permiting.