#(160605-)
1 Vaccination, 2 Anthropocene, 3 Emergent, 4 Zika, 5 Theory of knowledge, 6 Ebola, 7 Stealth Biodisaster, 8 Narrative, 9 Quarantine
1. Of Natural Bodies and Antibodies: Parents' Vaccine Refusal and the Dichotomies of Natural and Artificial. Despite eliminating incidences of many diseases in the United States, parents are increasingly rejecting vaccines for their children. This article examines the reasons parents offer for doing so. It argues that parents construct a dichotomy between the natural and the artificial, in which vaccines come to be seen as unnecessary, ineffective, and potentially dangerous. Using qualitative data from interviews and observations, this article shows first, how parents view their children's bodies, particularly from experiences of birth and with infants, as naturally perfect and in need of protection. Second, parents see vaccines as an artificial intervention that enters the body unnaturally, through injection. Third, parents perceive immunity occurring from illness to be natural and superior and immunity derived from vaccines as inferior and potentially dangerous. Finally, parents highlight the ways their own natural living serves to enhance their children's immunity rendering vaccines unnecessary. Taken together, this dichotomy allows parents to justify rejection of vaccines as a form of protecting children's health. These findings expose perceptions of science, technology, health, and the meanings of the body in ways that can inform public health efforts. Could not find anything about positive or negative correlations of antivax, and extraordinary measures to save life. Suspect that there would be a paradox that “artificial” measures to prevent disease in children, would correlate with demand for artificialmeans to preserve life in the elderly. This may be similar to anti-abortion (prolife) has a statistical correlation with favoring the death penalty, or pro-abortion and anti-death penalty, Can You Be Pro-Life and Pro-Death Penalty, Pro-Life, Anti-Death Penalty.
1.1. The above contradictions and paradoxes to behavior could be explained by To Strengthen an Opinion, Simply Say it Is Based on Morality. Simply telling people that their opinions are based on morality will make them stronger and more resistant to counterarguments.
1.2. Google Searches for 'Chickenpox' Reveal Big Impact of Vaccinations. Countries that implement government mandated vaccinations for chickenpox see a sharp drop in the number of Google searches for the common childhood disease afterward, demonstrating that immunization significantly reduces seasonal outbreaks. Unsure this is a cause and effect demonstration. It is a correlation, but there may be other factors that cut down search, such a worry that the government may not approve of searching for the term. The Invisible Ways Facebook Is Affecting Our Choices. Whether it’s using Facebook or Google, our choices are subtly nudged by the human biases acting behind the scene. The Secret Rules of the Internet. A Toxic Web: What the Victorians Can Teach Us about Online Abuse.
1.3. Reported Data on Vaccines May Not Build Public Trust or Adherence. Researchers suggest media should be careful when propagating stories about vaccine risks. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a national vaccine safety reporting system that collects information about possible side effects that may occur after inoculation. Recently, researchers proposed that open communication about VAERS could improve public trust that vaccines are safe, thereby increasing vaccine acceptance. Findings from the study suggest that data and stories may not increase the public's acceptance of vaccines. My speculation is that most people don’t have a deep understanding of statistics, probability or risk (The Median Isn't the Message), and that those who provide such objective, value free, factual information are naive that just the facts is sufficient to persuade people to behave in rational, logical ways. The Anxiety Lens: How Context Changes Meaningn . [Meme]
1.4. Genetically Modified (GM) Mosquito Use to Reduce Mosquito Transmitted Disease in the US: A Community Opinion Survey. A majority of survey respondents did not support use of GM mosquitoes as a mosquito control method. Reasons for opposition included general fears about possible harmful impacts of this intervention, specific worries about human and animal health impacts from the GM mosquitoes, and environmental concerns about potential negative effects on the ecosystem. Residents were more likely to oppose GM mosquito use if they had a low perception of the potential risks posed by diseases like dengue and chikungunya, if they were female, and if they were less concerned about the need to control mosquitoes in general. These findings suggest a need for new approaches to risk communication, including educational efforts surrounding mosquito control and reciprocal dialogue between residents and public health officials. Public Perception of GM Mosquitoes in Florida. Mosquito Experts Warn of Possible Local Zika Transmission This Summer. Doctors Detail Story of Devastated Mom of Zika Affected Baby Born in N.Y. Area. Urban legends are already circulating about Zika. The recent birth defect is confused between New York and New Jersey, and if a boy or girl. GMO’s causing Mosquito Blight. “Real/True” Americans are immune to Zika. The GMO urban legend has similarities with Alligators in the Sewers as the legend is based or credible (sharpened) reasons that it could be true, the are multiple variations (self confirmation), ignores some facts about alligators (leveling), and in general sewers have all sort of dangerous stuff like rats, teenage ninja turtles, diseases, all sorts of wastes and chemicals (that cause mutations), and unsavory people (assimilation), Alligators in the Sewers: Manhattan’s Oldest Urban Legend Comes to Life.
2. Researchers Find Spatial Scale Changes Ecological Processes Driving Disease. Researchers examined how human activities drive distributions of West Nile virus, Lyme disease, and fungus causing worldwide declines of amphibian populations. Human are contributing to unprecedented rates of infectious disease emergence, climate change and biodiversity loss. Whether human ecological impacts affect disease distribution and organisms differently at local or regional scales has been a question. This multiscale analysis shows that human alterations to biodiversity impact disease at local scales while climate change impacts disease at regional scales. Once more, focusing on a single scale can lead to inaccurate estimations of human impact. The Planet's Health Is Essential to Prevent Infectious Disease.
3. If they get attention biosyndemics do constitute an emerging problem, but usually become a crisis after they have become a parademic, when the opportunity to solve the problem before it becomes a crisis is gone. Opportunities in Crisis and Catastrophe: The Issue-Attention Cycle and Political Reality. Emerging problems often surprise lawmakers and agency officials and result in rapid, reactive governance. The political attention an issue does receive may or may not be sufficient to resolve the emergent problem, and in many cases may be an overreactive auto response dictated by public opinion and issue salience. This study examines the emergence of congressional attention post crisis; demonstrates that black swans, wicked problems, and complex domestic and social issues each trigger episodic attention differently; and finally, establishes a multidimensional model of emerging crises, laying the bedrock to define new theoretical models of episodic attention in Congress.
↕4. Again economic downturns (or upturns in other areas) is one of the first indicators of a developing parademic. Puerto Rico’s Tourism Industry Feels Economic Sting of Zika. The full number of people who have canceled plans to visit or chose another destination is unknowable. But people have cited Zika in the cancellation of at least 42,000 hotel room reservations through 2018, which translates to about $28 million in lost revenue for the lodging, restaurant and tour industry. People who work in the industry say they have been seeing the financial effects of Zika for months, and it appears to be getting worse.
4.1. Arguments against immigrants, legal or otherwise, have always included “morality” issues, disease often times being one of the moral issues, Outline for the Two Lectures on the History of Public Health, Disease, Unwanted Import (1.1↑). Are Illegal Immigrants Bringing ‘Tremendous’ Disease Across the Border, as Trump Says. Unlikely. Myths and Facts About Immigrants and Immigration. We Can't 'Build a Wall' to Keep out Zika. Why Border Controls Can't Keep Out the Flu Virus. What History Tells Us about Building a Wall to Solve a Problem. The Fortress Problem. Fortresses do not usually fail well. When they rely on robustness orcomplication, positions of strength are only tolerant of stress up to a defined point or of a certain character. For a fortification that fails to adapt, centralization, even of strength, presents a surprising liability. Fortresses concentrate risk. Uncertain and unthinkable events undermine security practices that presume a greater degree of knowledge, uniformity, and control than is available. Arizona Public -Health Officials Expect Measles Outbreak to Grow. The History of Humanity’s Bloody War Against the Mosquito which is a biosyndemic vector as it spreads so many Mosquito Borne Diseases, Angola Still Has a Yellow Fever Outbreak, and the World Health Organization Is Worried. [Meme, Cartoon, GIF]
Something there is that doesn't love a wall – Robert Frost, Mending Wall
4.2. An oft repeated observation of this listicle is that saving money in the short term means greater, avoidable and longer lastiong costs in the long run. The True Cost of Zika in the US Could Be Staggering. While Congress continues to debate President Obama's proposal to spend $1.8 billion to fight the Zika virus, an unpleasant reality is beginning to surface. That figure could be insignificant compared to the total long term cost if Zika runs rampant across the country this summer. Senate Dems to Force Vote on Zika Funding 160529-4.3↓. Only a Dozen Inspectors Stand Between Zika and Miami. The Role of Cities in Preventing Crisis. A Permanent Fund That Could Help Fight Zika Exists, but It's Empty. A repeated pattern of good intentions that are forgotten.
4.3. Mother of Newborn Affected by Zika Virus Wants to Keep Further Details Private. Besides the long term and higher medical costs of the condition (not to mention suffering of the baby and family) this brings up the issue of privacy during parademic. This is complicated further with the definition of privacy changing in a terrorist sensitive world, the need of greater surveillance of disease outbreaks and other bioevents. These conflict with individual rights of privacy; nations need for sovereignty, pride and protection of economies; all during a time where concepts of guilt (conscience when only oneself knows) and shame (where others know); all in an environment of reality TV and social media of previously considered private information being shared to wide anonymous audiences, who share further. In a parademic there will be a need to balance all this over sharing, shock jocks, fear mongers, smear campaings, HIPPA, and need for some information of a medical nature to be shared widely. Mom of NJ Baby With Microcephaly Says First Doctor Told Her She Would Be 'Fine'. The Poignant Cry of Babies with Birth Defects Linked to Zika. What It’s like to Live with Microcephaly, the Birth Defect Linked to Zika ’Emergency’. A different take on this is at H5N1, while a different perspective is For Men: A Positive Zika Virus Test, What Does it Mean for me.
5. Who Will Debunk the Debunkers. In 2012, network scientist and data theorist Samuel Arbesman published a disturbing thesis: What we think of as established knowledge decays over time. According to his book The Half Life of Facts, certain kinds of propositions that may seem bulletproof today will be forgotten by next Tuesday; one’s reality can end up out of date. Take, for example, the story of Popeye and his spinach.
6. For Ebola we are still at the assigning of blame stage of the news cycle, and have yet to reach a historical peroration. Diagnosing Failure: The Post Hoc Report as an Administrative Epilogue. After the End of Disease*. The practice of the Commission of Inquiry comes into play when a collective misfortune is understood to be at least in part the result of a governmental failure—a wrong decision made or an improper action taken. The epidemic, or at least its surprisingly devastating consequences, is seen in retrospect as “a preventable tragedy.” The post hoc investigation assumes the temporal/causal framework of risk. What might have seemed to be an external source of danger, the onset and course of an epidemic, is treated instead as the product of an internal decision. The task of the Commission is to pinpoint the locus of failed action in order to target future reform measures. Global Health Security after Ebola: Four Global Commissions. Impact of the Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak on Market Chains and Trade ofAgricultural Products in West Africa. When Ebola Hit Liberia, Refugees Took Frontline Health Role.
6*. Though I approve of the idea of understanding what happens after a biodisaster, End of Disease is misleading. As long as there is life there is no clear beginning or end of biosyndemic.
7. Example of the slow, hidden nature of biosyndemic, and the repeated pattern that someone will find that a warning was sounded years, decades, before. Zika Discoverer Tells of 'Human Bait,' Draws Monkeys in Overlooked Archive. No one paid much attention to what Alexander John Haddow found in the 1940s — until the virus he studied roared to life in Latin America this year. Seveso: A Paradoxical Classic Disaster [Photo].
8. Narratives influence behavior, behavior affects health. Late Sleepers Are Tired of Being Discriminated Against, and Science Has Their Back.
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Proverb attributed to Ben Franklin, but has a far older history. In addition he apparently had a sleep disorder and could not follow his own advice, 5 Historical Figures with Sleep Disorders. In any case this narrative persists in part because, Benjamin Franklin’s Greatest I Invention: Himself, I Invented Myself (Lyrics).
8.1. 4 Reasons Disease Outbreaks Are Erupting Around the World, all of which have a basis in (parademic) behavior and are also the reasons why biosyndemics in the contemporary world are under circumstances never experienced before. Researcher Explores Role of Human Behavior in Infectious Disease Emergence, ANT 383 - Disease and Human Behavior.
1) More travel, trade, and connectivity
2) Urbanization — "an emerging humanitarian disaster"
3) Pervasive poverty means outbreaks will be worse
4) A warming climate is helping fuel more disease outbreaks
And actual increase in outbreaks increases the chances of belief in health threats that may in fact not be a threat.
8.2. This is a near repeat of America’s Ebola Panic or Phobia. WHO Forced to Reconsider Assurances over Rio Olympics as Zika Concerns Deepen. Global body had previously rejected call from more than 200 international doctors (citing authority, though MD’s are not necessarily authorities on epidemiology, What Is the Difference Between Pathology and Epidemiology and Why Is Their Salary So Different) to change timing or location of the Games. Brazil Battles to Save Rio Olympics as WHO Says it Will Look Again at Zika Risk, Should Zika Really Stop You Going to the Rio Olympics, Here Are the Facts, 4↑. ¶ Our Level of Wisdom Varies Depending on the Situation, Dunning–Kruger Effect, Ultracrepidarianism, Luc Montagnier and the Nobel Disease, The Nobel Disease. WHO could also face the same problem by assuming because they are the International Public Health agency, they are the experts. However; after the recent Ebola fiasco it is more likely they would error on the side of caution and recommend cancelling the Rio Olympics. The hesitancy and over caution of declaring Ebola as a PHEIC was the flip side of fear of a repeat of what people considered to be the fizzled 2009 H1N1 pandemic. This loss of credibility was so severe that the use of the word pandemic is still avoided, It’s Not a Fake Pandemic – but WHO’s Defense Lacks Candor. ¶ On the other hand one should not assume that someone who does not have a degree, specific training, or title does not have the experience to be an expert on a topic, Certifications: When less Is More. Face It, the Olympics Won't Be Axed. We Need to Zika Proof Them. Does the Olympics in Rio Put the World in Danger of Zika. ¶ Expertise or no, position or no, fields such as public health are filled with uncertainties and open to disagreement Health Official: Disagreements ‘Delay’ Long Term Care Plans for HIV Crisis, Public Health Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Uncertainty in Predictions of Disease Spread and Public Health Responses to Bioterrorism and Emerging Diseases, Uncertainty in Medicine.
9. It is not unusual for medical and public health terms had differing prior meaning. Quarantine – 1520s, "period of 40 days in which a widow has the right to remain in her dead husband's house." Earlier quarentyne (15c.), "desert in which Christ fasted for 40 days," from Latin quadraginta "forty," related to quattuor "four". Sense of "period a ship suspected of carrying disease is kept in isolation" is 1660s, from Italian quarantina giorni, literally "space of forty days," from quaranta "forty," from Latin quadraginta. So called from the Venetian custom of keeping ships from plague stricken countries waiting off its port for 40 days (first enforced 1377) to assure that no latent cases were aboard. The extended sense of "any period of forced isolation" is from 1670s. 'Quarantine' - Grim Reminder of the Black Death. The problem is that one can be asymptomatic and not infect others, or the opposite of no symptoms/signs but able to infect others, and even have symptoms but no longer infectious. A disease can also remain dormant in a or outside of hosts for years, a reservoir of immune hosts for decades (to include soils), and fomites for extended periods. There is also the possibility of mutation to a lethal and easily transmitted form. Quarantine, Condon Sanitaire, euthanasia (culling), banning travel and imports, are usually last ditch efforts that have serious economic and political repercussions, and may not work in the modern world 8.1↑. Livelihoods on the Edge after Bird Flu Discovery Sparks City Wide Suspension of Live Poultry Trading.
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