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1 Cranberries, 2 Extinction, 3 Invasive Species, 4 Zika, 5 MERS, 6 Earwig Myths, 7 Plastic, 8 Variola, 9 Risk Perception, 10 Medical Anthropology, 11 Biosyndemic / Fire, 12 Swimming
1. How Juice Companies Game Science to Perpetuate the Myth That Cranberry Prevents UTIs. Conflict of interest in nutrition research is nothing new. Health food is a billion dollar business, and the more virtuous the food, the better it sells (as one can see with current marketing of natural, no GMO, organic, herbal, health foods). From walnut growers to grape juice producers, there are hundreds of examples of companies and industry groups funding so called independent studies that corroborate marketing claims about their product’s ability to improve health and fight disease (this itself as a modern legend that any taint of conflict of interest invalidates the study). The newest example is a study funded by Ocean Spray, the world's leading producer of cranberry juices. It concludes that "cranberries can be a nutritional approach to reducing symptomatic urinary tract infections". This article is the latest of several reports that the science behind this study is questionable, a current snapshot. It misses the larger context, the various angles of a movie. First off people default when ill is more likely to use OTCs and home cures to avoid medical expenses, the time involved seeing a doctor, and expensive prescriptions Attitudes and Beliefs About the Use of Over the Counter Medicines: A Dose of Reality. The fruit use as a treatment by Native Americans was reported by the Cape Cod Bay colonist around 1620 (who also named it cranberry), giving it a far longer acceptance as a traditional treatment, an a priori belief that made it easier to confirm by science and personal experience or anecdotes Cranberry for Prevention of Urinary Tract Infections. The cranberry also has a long history as a cure promoted by those with questionable motives Cranberry, the Alt- Med Zombie. Presumably if there is an epidemic of a new STD, or UTI, Cranberry may figure in the parademic of cures, or inversely is may turn out to have an ingredient that can actually inhibit or cure but is not accepted because it was proved to be a scam.
1.1. Will Medicine Survive the Anthropocene. Up to ten percent of major drugs contain plant ingredients, but a warming world could put those at risk. ¶ You’ll find them all over: Botánicas, retail stores that are common in Latino communities with Caribbean ties. These are no mere bodegas. They’re packed with ritual ready statues, candles, incense and amulets. But the real star of the show is the herbs. botanicas are filled with, well, botanicals—plants that have been used as medicine by the Caribbean’s indigenous peoples for centuries. ¶ Folk medicine is more than pseudoscience. Traditional ethnobotanical knowledge from indigenous cultures is responsible for many present day pharmaceuticals. The parademic issue here is not about traditional cures, but the ethics of allowing parents to allow a child to die, a person choosing to die, whole communities dying (and threatening other communities). This could be an illustration of potential problems between a culture and global civilization. Indigenous Knowledge and Health Sovereignty. First Nations Health Authority Calls for Cultural Safety in B.C. An Aboriginal Girl Dies of Leukemia: Parental “Rights” Versus the Right of a Child to Medical Care.
2. First Mammal Goes Extinct From Global Warming. The Bramble Cay melomys, a rodent native to a single tiny landmass near Papua New Guinea, is the first mammal species proven to have gone extinct from rising sea levels caused by global climate change. What do you think: “Thank goodness Australia is so far away”. “This is the kind of harsh reality we’ll just have to learn to ignore from now on”. “I guess I need to think of a different birthday present for my kid now”, This Is the First Mammal to Go Extinct Because of Manmade Climate Change. Humor is a characteristic of parademic as social commentary, ludicrous juxtapositions, expressions of hate and fear, satire, irony. Humor does not mean the same as funny.
3. The Global Price of Invasive Species. The U.S. and China pose the greatest threat as exporters of invasive species, but other countries have more to lose. Invasive species are a global problem, but given its slow pace before it is noticed these are well established before much can be done. Often time the pace of the invasion is so slow that people don’t realize they are not native to the area. 10 of the World's Worst Invasive Species. Invasive but Not Always Unwanted.
↕4. Zone of Abandonment are areas that have been deserted in a city for environmental and economic or reasons. These zones are common in Brazil Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment, which adds to the potential spread and reservoirs of Zika and other mosquito borne diseases. Because they are outside official purview one can have a major epidemic and have it go unnoticed for months. ¶ Zones of Abandonment differ from depopulated areas where people have fled and/or died off. These zones can be places of Cordon Sanitaire, Using a Tactic Unseen in a Century, Countries Cordon Off Ebola Racked Areas. The tactic works, assuming there is no vector, airborne, or water spread. It also assumes one can keep all the sick in (to include burrowing animals and birds) and the cordon is large enough to get everyone, which means a wide buffer zone, confining those who are not exposed to the area. This would be very problematic as there is the possibility of fomites, and asymtomatic individual who can carry the disease between where they work and live, or thousands of miles away by air travel, long before the biodisaster is noticed. 5 Biggest Slums in the World. Mapped: How the Country's Population Changes During a Work Day 150809-16, 140223-Appendix1, 130505-13.1 & Appendix↓. How Many Homeless People Are There in America. If homeless people are not seen, it is difficult to tackle the problems they face. If you don’t have an accurate read of the problem, you can’t accurately identify solutions 131013-62↓. [Photo]
4.1. While Latin America Panics over Zika, Haiti Faces Epidemic with a Shrug. When Zika became a full blown epidemic this year and global health officials began to anticipate its spread across the Americas, their worst fears settled on the place that looked most vulnerable: Haiti. After several bio and geodisasters, as well as corrupt government, even a shrug is more than expected. Would not be surprised if there is a Haitian creole word for this that roughly means “there is nothing we can do so why stress” Haiti - When there is No Trouble in Haiti, Everyone is Stressed. #Book Review Cholera in Haiti: A True Crime Medical Thriller. Senate Report Slams Red Cross for Lack of Accountability in Haiti Quake Response. It’s OK to Be Worried About Zika.
4.2. In Zika Struck Puerto Rico, Trouble Delivering Donated Contraceptives. Only a small fraction of contraceptives donated in Puerto Rico to prevent Zika related birth defects are expected to get to the women who need them this month, public health officials told Reuters. The donations - tens of thousands of intrauterine devices and birth control pill packs - came from major healthcare companies as the virus spreads rapidly through the island. Distribution of supplies*, especially medical ones, can become problematic during parademic. Usually though there are distribution problems before that can be identified and known as a potential problem before it becomes worse during a biodisaster when added pressures cause the system to break down.
*. Distribution is always a problem in disasters. Getting what is needed, to where it is needed, by the time it is needed, in a useable and acceptable form is a multi part logistics problem. Sometimes what is needed is in insufficient supply Lower Doses of Yellow Fever Vaccine Could Be Used in Emergencies, Why We're Giving People 20 Percent Doses of the Yellow Fever Vaccine, or is not manufactured yet 'No Market': Scientists Struggle to Make Ebola Vaccines, Treatments. Delivery may be hampered by lack of a transportation system to the area, often times a remote one that is outside medical surveillance and more likely to crash into a unidentified reservoir or contamination Drones Could Be Cheaper Alternative to Delivering Vaccines in Developing World. There could be problem of a surge of need in multiple locations when Just in Time (JIT) is unable to meet unexpected demand, leading to accusations that some areas are getting needs meet before other areas which have a more desperate need U.S. Military Launches Logistics Response to Ebola Crisis. Often times there may be a need for cold chain for some supplies The Cold Chain and its Logistics. There is also the likely possibility of lack of personnel to use or apply the supply, a need for training and education, a need to change the bulk supply into individual doses. One can also run into cultural resistence Rumors Cause Resistance to Vaccines in Nigeria. There will also be the possibility corruption, theft, hijacking, interference with delivery for political or military reasons, corruption, adulteration before delivery, diversion to different locations, extortion, raising prices or charging for what was delivered for free, hoarding, black market, medical scams, export and tariff regulations, bribes, imposed storage and transportation fees, protection rackets. All of these will likely exist before the surge in need and can be anticipated and planned for. Last medical waste, disposal of contaminates and reversing ecological damage are additional logistics problems. Last it is not always easy to identify crucial parts of infrastructure and distribution, such as laundry to clean hospital sheets does not seem a critical need It's Not Easy Running a Hospital Without Running Water. Hospital life in Sierra Leone after Ebola.
4.3. Has Zika Pushed More Women Toward Illegal Abortions. When Zika started spreading through Latin America earlier this year, a number of governments issued advisories recommending that women put off getting pregnant because the virus can cause severe birth defects. At the same time these countries kept in place strict laws that would prevent a woman from getting an abortion if she were already pregnant. ¶ This is a "disconnect." On the one hand, authorities were saying Zika is such a major health threat a woman shouldn't even get pregnant. On the other, they were implying that if a woman does become pregnant Zika is not a serious enough health reason to consider an abortion. Before the outbreak, millions of women in Latin America had been getting abortions illegally each year. Has the epidemic prompted more women to do so. Pinning down abortion rates in Latin America is notoriously difficult. It's happening almost completely under the radar. So it's very hard to collect data. Two parademic issues here, the difference between the ideal (often codified in law) and the real (what people actually do. The other is that this disconnect also makes in difficult to collect data of real human behavior as officials maintain the myth of the ideal. 160522-4↓. Zika Virus Prompts Increase in Unsafe Abortions in Latin America. Baby Is Infected by Chikungunya During Pregnancy.
4.4. New Doubts on Zika as Cause of Microcephaly. Brazil's microcephaly epidemic continues to pose a mystery – if Zika is the culprit, why are there no similar epidemics in other countries also hit hard by the virus. In Brazil, the microcephaly rate soared with more than 1,500 confirmed cases. But in Colombia, a recent study of nearly 12,000 pregnant women infected with Zika found zero microcephaly cases. If Zika is to blame for microcephaly, where are the missing cases. ¶ One possibility that has been raised is the pesticide pyriproxyfen, which is applied to drinking water in some parts of Brazil to kill the larvae of the mosquitos that transmit Zika.
A. Timely example of the importance of getting background. If one searches for the organization that made the report, then New England Complex Systems Institute sounds great. In fact if its self description is true, Parademic would fit comfortably in it. However reading its section of Ending Pandemics is a mixture of previous information that has high consensus and misleading information*. For example the decrease of Ebola of cases in Liberia in mid September and Sierra Leone in mid December are both true, but ignores that these were followed by sharp increases as is usual in waves of a epidemic. One would think they were correlating a trough in the outbreak to their efforts, and ignoring other actions in both countries that would temporarily suppress numbers. One can also do searches for opinions and evaluation of the organization, such as this one from Glassdoor. ¶ One will also note that it recommends “travel restrictions” but not what the recommendation was based on. The period of West Africa Ebola is insufficient for such a complex analysis. There are other reports that monitoring at airports is ineffective because an infected person may be still asymptomatic Health Experts Question Effectiveness of Airport Ebola Screening, Why Sealing off Ebola Stricken Countries Is Not the Answer. ¶ Currently the consensus is that Zika Virus and Birth Defects — Reviewing the Evidence for Causality, How Autism Research and Mini Brains Helped Prove Zika Causes Microcephaly, recognizing that scientific consensus can change with more evidence. It may just be a coincidence that the logos of and titles of the New England Journal of Medicine and New England Complex Systems Institute are complementary, possibly implying an association, especially as the study was published in the journal that gives it legitimacy; reminiscent of The Lancet Retracts Andrew Wakefield’s Article. ¶ The pyriproxyfen correlation has already been debunked, Monsanto Stung by a Zika Virus Conspiracy Theory, as well as the one about GMO mosquitoes, A Shocking One Third of Americans Believe this Zika Conspiracy Theory. Health Journalism Has a Serious Evidence Problem. Here’s a Plan to Save It. [Meme, Meme, Meme]
* Yes stub 4.4↑ uses Rhetorical Devices and Logical Fallacies in the same way as Conspiracy Theorists. ¶ Conspiracy theory, medical scams, political squabbling, science disagreements are all indicators that a biodisaster is now adding parademic to the bioˍsyndemic. Parademic is not about testable facts, but social reality and behavior. The question about a possible connection with a pesticide is legitimate, though there are a slew of other reasons why the statistics don’t match expectations – under reporting; hiding evidence; a different strain of Zika; environmental or genetic circumstances that cause more deleterious affects of Zika Dengue Virus Exposure May Amplify Zika Infection or mitigate them; abortions or infanticide of deformed babies; manipulation of statistics; different definitions of microcephalic. At this point there is no evaluation of the report, there is the possibility that the authoring part of the organization has been hijacked or is making a priori conclusions, or it may be raising a valid observation. Unfortunately this will be used by others to advance their own, possibly nefarious, agendas. EU Officials to Decide on Roundup Herbicide after Political Impasse. Brexit Spells Upheaval for EU and UK Drug Regulation.
5. MERS continues, as well as speculation of why it keeps appearing, and why there has not been stronger measures taken. A Closer Reading of WHO's MERS Update. WHO Says Saudi Misdiagnosis Caused MERS Outbreak. As pointed out before the cultural context is not well understood of why containment and control of nosocomial infection has yet to succeed. To me concepts of Low and High Context, Haram, Inshallah, Bedouin, arkān al-Islām, madinat dulir, Islamic medicine, Imperialism of the Levant, al-Wahhābiya, guilt vs shame and ādim al- aramayn aš-Šarīfayn, are all part of this inability to solve the problem. At the same time though it appear that the problem has not yet been identified. We know the causative agent, the consequences, that standard infectious disease controls are not being applied or failing, but the reason for the recurrence is unknown. Impossible to develop a campaign of solutions if one is not solving the correct problem(s). In fact it may be in part that Western criticism is part of the problem, similar to attacks on the ideation of anti-vaccinationist tend to make them more intransigent. MoH Rejects WHO Charges of MERS Negligence.
5.1. Vaccine Resistances Reconsidered: Vaccine Skeptics and the Jenny McCarthy Effect. Recent data and increased vaccine preventable disease outbreaks suggest that a growing number of US parents choose not to vaccinate their children. Popular media have responded to this phenomenon by emphasizing refusers' moral failings and irrational fears. This article explores vaccine skeptics’ objections and argues that their critics miss fundamental reasons for resistances. Drawing on ethnographic research with a community of vaccine skeptics in southern California, and an analysis of Jenny McCarthy’s condemnation of current vaccine practices, this research considers why even parents who have accepted some vaccines, but not all, distrust vaccines and their proponents. The voices of parents who choose to opt out of or to alter the normal vaccine schedule reveal important expressions of biomedical resistance. Rethinking the Antivaccine Movement Concept: a Case Study of Public Criticism of the Swine Flu Vaccine’s Safety in France. [Meme, Meme, Meme, Meme, Meme, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon]
6. Example of a folk belief that could make similar sounding myths sound credible, or as cautionary tales for things that could or have happened. Do Earwigs Crawl in People's Ears and Eat Their Brains. Earwigs are so named because they crawl into sleeping people's ears and eat their brains, causing madness and/or death. While there is some dispute over the linguistic origin of the name "earwig", there's no disagreement among entomologists as to the insect's fabled fondness for entering the human ear and boring into the brain, supposedly causing insanity and/or death — it's balderdash. Do Earwigs Really Lay Eggs in Your Ears, Insects on the Brain. 7 Living Things Found Inside the Ear Canal That Will Make You Squirm, Cautionary Tales: Authentic Case Histories from Medical Practice. [Photo]
7. Plastic Debris and Policy. The world was introduced to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the mid 1990s. Since then, there has been increasing interest from scientists, the public and policy makers regarding plastic debris. A new article now outlines the current research, identifies research gaps on plastic debris and reviews some of the weight of evidence regarding contamination, fate and effects of the material. This touches on a biodisaster that breaks the threshold of awareness in part because people memories can recall a time when a beach was clear of plastic detritus, and one could look down twenty feet of clear water and not see beer cans. Being able to visualize a problem is instrumental of perceiving it as a problem [Photo, Photo, Photo]. In this case the problem is readily accepted as there is no ambiguity about it. The problem is more what to do about it, how much it will cost, and who should pay. One of the solutions that created a bigger problem (albeit a microscopic one) was biodegradable products and have created micro plastic beads as they break down, or are use to improve the effectiveness of some products The New Microbead Ban Won’t Solve the Microplastic Pollution Problem, Edible Six Pack Rings Replace Plastic for Florida Microbrewery. [Meme The Graduate 1967]
8. Never Ending Stories: Narrating Frozen Evidence of Infectious Epidemics Past. In 1979, public health officials announced the eradication of smallpox. This achievement was more than just an impressive demonstration of mass vaccination. It represented the ability of nations locked in a frigid Cold War to unite against a common enemy. From this point on smallpox became a prisoner of war, held hostage in the laboratory freezer or, to be more specific: two laboratory freezers. In 1984 the World Health Organization decided that only two entities could provide sufficient security to maintain freezers filled with scabs and cells that harbored smallpox: a Siberian lab called Vector in Novosibirsk and the other at the CDC in Atlanta. This has been a long going debate between those who worry that the other side may use it as a weapon and there is no way to verify all stocks were destroyed, and those who worry about an accidental or intentional release. Both side are right about thier concerns.
9. This is one of the perception problems of biosyndemic that leads to parademic. Even with the increased frequency of reporting about biodisasters, there is still a perception that these are low risk (but high consequence), that when the 1 in a N∞ chance happens seems 100% then quickly drops back to a remote .01%. New Research Uncovers Why an Increase in Probability Feels Riskier than a Decrease. New research uncovers why an increase in probability feels riskier than a decrease. The research falls under the realm of subjective probability, also known as likelihood or risk. While past research has looked at how people interpret single estimates of the probability for a future event, the focus of this research was on how estimates change over time.
9.1. Zika, Flint, and the Uncertainties of Emergency Preparedness. Ongoing Congressional debates concerning the spreading Zika virus provide the latest reminder about our national uncertainties in preparing for and responding to large-scale health emergencies. Storms, fires, industrial accidents, and infrastructure failures like the recent Flint water crisis add to the constellation of emergencies and "near misses" that threaten health and safety somewhere in the US nearly every day. Have ADDED more about the congressional feud over Zika funding in 160612-4↓, after that listicle was published.
10. A New Reflexivity: Why Anthropology Matters in Contemporary Health Research and Practice, and How to Make It Matter More. Many of medical anthropology's leading lights are currently lamenting the undervalued place of ethnographic work in public health and medicine. Ethnographic evidence consistently dies within the dominant conceptual paradigms of global health. However anthropologists now have an unprecedented opportunity to contribute to the creation of clinical and public health structures more deeply informed by core anthropological concerns. Making the most of anthropology's particular strengths will require overcoming a series of challenges, particularly in how we as anthropologists communicate with other health professionals. Ultimately assuring that anthropology has a place at the table will require a careful examination of the biases and conventions of our discipline. Besides giving insight on the writing style used in Parademic, this recognizes that those who observe, make decisions, develop plans, provide services, are part of the biodisaster context and are also human behavior.
11. Example of biosyndemic, where the cumulative impact of biodisasters impact on other disasters. Forest Service: Staggering 66 Million Dead Trees in California. Tree dies offs of this magnitude are unprecedented and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires that put property and lives at risk. The West is Burning.
12. One of the repetitive items in the news media about this time each year is about the health danger of swimming pools, lakes, brain eating amoebas Ohio Teen Dies from Brain Eating Amoeba. Was not going to mention again this year but this year had new variations. CDC Horrified after Discovering Existence of Thousands of Public Pools. How Much of the Ocean Is Whale Pee (and Worse). Inventing the Beach: The Unnatural History of a Natural Place, the seashore used to be a scary place, then it became a place of respite and vacation.
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