#(160710-)
1 Yellow Fever - Vaccination, 2 Disaster Fraud, 3 Quacks, 4 Zika - Biopolitics, 5 Biosafety, 6 Decisions - Uncertainty, 7 Global Isolation, 8 SARS - Narrative, 9 Avian Flu - Protest, 10 Cooperation - Hope
1. Yellow Fever Cases Drop in Angola. Reports of drops in cases from any biodisaster should always be taken that one hopes so, but there are too many factors to state that it will be a continuing declining trend. Typically if it is reported by government, especially outside of public health, it is likely to only be a temporary dip between waves of an outbreak. Often times this type of announcement will be accompanied with saying that some government effort is responsible for the decline. In this case there should be more skepticism as the vaccination is under the recommended dose (160626-4.2*↓) so it may only confer temporary immunity, or if not followed up by a “booster” (not usually required for yellow fever vaccine)s could possibly be a selective pressure that make yellow fever more resistant to the vaccine. There could also be another flare up due to incubation (3 to 16 days for yellow fever) or complacency (yellow fever vaccine takes 10 days to be effective. Claiming a decline due to one week of data is not reasonable Note also that except for being picked up by other news media there is no other organization making this announcement, though for the conspiracy minded this may indicate that organizations want to perpetuate yellow fever to depopulate the Congo, or to keep funds coming in [Chart]. Shortage of Syringes Hampers Congo's Fight Against Yellow Fever. ¶ Criteria for Declaring the End of the Ebola Outbreak in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone. It is understandable to give reassurance, but at the same time to have the reassurance found to be false can create distrust in control measures and future announcements of decline. Even announcing the last case and the outbreak is over can be risky Liberia Suffers New Ebola Death, Months after Outbreak Declared Over. After Ebola, the disease has left a terrible legacy and another outbreak is likely. 160612-6↓.
1.1. 1↑ could also be explained by people’s tendency to want to return to normal, how things were, the way things ought obe be. How We Explain Things Influences What We Think Is Right. New research focuses on a fundamental human habit: When trying to explain something (why people give roses for Valentine's Day, for example), we often focus on the traits* of the thing itself (roses are pretty) and not its context* (advertisers promote roses). In a new study, researchers found that people who tend to focus on 'inherent traits' and ignore context also are more likely to assume that the patterns they see around them are good, or more precisely agree with how they believe the world to be.
* This internal-external type of dichotomy is encountered frequently in parademic. It ranges from medical care of a patient-public health, form-function, design-purpose, us-them, measure of performance-measures of effectiveness, sick-health, emic-etic, before-after, brain-mind, beginning-end, elements-systems, structuralism-functionalism, individual-culture. This concept is found in a variety of topics and fields that are relevant to parademic: anthropology, architecture (Why Architects Should Let the Microbes in), assimilation....and on through to....xenophobia, yarrow, zoonosis. This influences the style of parademic stubs** as they are descriptive-analytical, attempting to reveal patterns, voids, connections with degrees of separation [Chart]. The intent, shake insular thinking and unexamined assumptions, and give a simple version of the debris filled tsunami of information received during a parademic.
** That is inconsistent format, incomplete, links to more and conflicting data, and weak editing. This is to mimic raw information flow during the acceleration and crash phase of a severe biodisaster.
1.2. New California Child Vaccination Laws Ban Most Exemptions. With California's new vaccination laws (SB277) now in effect, some parents are opting to home school while others are moving out of the state. The new laws eliminate most vaccination exemptions for school children in an effort to protect everyone from communicable disease outbreaks. Other parents trying to avoid the new laws filed exemption paperwork before Jan 1 to give them the leverage to vaccinate their children at their own pace. There is also the possibility of fake documents 160612-6↓. The CDC provides the information and formats that one would need to create a record For Parents: Vaccines for Your Children, and a number of ways to make these records “official” Find a Vaccine Friendly Doctor Near You. Vaccine Friendly is code for anti-vax. It also does not help that some public officials don’t Vaccinate Arizona Now Has Largest Measles Outbreak in U.S. ¶ Some Malaysians' Rejection of Vaccines Fans Fears of Disease Surge. Some parents reject immunisations over concerns they may contain non-halal substances such as pig DNA.
If I live in California, I will take advantage of the fact that when Governor Brown signed SB277 into law last year, he expressly stated that the medical exemption from vaccination was completely at the doctor’s discretion, and is not limited to the very narrow criteria for medical exemptions set forth by The CDC. – Marcella Piper-Terry
2. It is pretty much a given that after, or before a perceived impending disaster, there will be those who will exploit for political, financial (3↓), dumping of excess or dated items, ideological and recruitment gains. These exploitations are not always with hurtful intent, and can be beneficial. Unfortunately the exploitation of illegitimate agents tend to use the reputation and authority of legitimate agents, causing negative rumors and distrust of the legitimate ones. It is also not unknown for officials to be the corrupt (2.1↓), and unofficial to be benign. The default then becomes those one feels one knows, is most like you, is known by someone you know, seems to be a friend (celebrity), or expresses your own thoughts. FEMA Warns of Disaster Related Fraud. Press release says scammers may pose as inspectors, government officials, volunteers or contractors.
2.1. Ebola Corruption Contrast: Guinea Sentences Pair for Embezzlement' Liberia Defends Irregularities. While President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf defended that officials of her government appointed to manage Ebola funds and materials during the peak of the virus outbreak could not provide proper accountability due to the emergency nature of the situation at the time, neighbouring Guinea has sentenced two of its officials for embezzling Ebola funds.
3. Have things changed. The Strange Tale of 19th Century Quack Doctors. Supplements that aren’t what they claim. Fad diets that zoom past faster than you can say “green juice”. Bloggers who pass themselves off as medical experts. America’s current health trends sound similiar to the 19th century when quack (2↑, 160612-6↓) “doctors” outnumbered legit ones three to one. A growing interest in (not) science and a booming open market proved irresistible to business people who rushed to bring products with dubious medical claims to health starved consumers.
↕4. Illustration of biopolitics. Hawaii already has experience with tropical diseases, invasive species that impact on life in the Islands today. Hawaii is also one of the best places in the world for Whole of Society/Interagency Operations. Literally every level of government is on Oahu, all are impacted equally by disaster, and there was a preexisting 2000 year history of Polynesia assisting other island groups in disasters, as well as not waiting for assistance from higher authorities. While a Pandemic Planner for NORTHCOM I had recommended that PACOM be given the global health mission as they had a larger existing staff, more experience and expertise, and had a more global mindset that other theater level commands. Ads on Radio and TV Will Target Zika Virus in Hawaii. Governor held a news conference that included top health, education and tourism officials, and mayors from all of the counties. ¶ While Hawaii moves ahead on efforts to prevent a local outbreak of the Zika virus, Congress is still fighting over a $1.1 billion federal spending bill aimed at combating the virus. Senate Democrats blocked the measure this week, arguing that Republicans had inserted unacceptable provisions into the bill, such as cuts to Planned Parenthood Services, “We didn’t wait for the federal dollars” (which is probably the right thing to do, except now if there are federal dollars in the future Hawaii may not get any). Planned Parenthood Showdown Threatens Zika Funding, The Importance of Contraception to the Zika Fight, Sex May Spread Zika Virus More Often than Researchers Suspected, Abortion Politics in the Age of Zika, How Abortion Restrictions Could Collide with Zika in the U.S. this Summer. U.S. Health Agency Monitoring 320 U.S. Pregnant Women with Zika. CDC Awards Funds for States and Territories to Prepare for Zika. ¶ [Poster] The Fight the Bite (2008) campaign started well before this, possibly with West Nile Virus. It may have begun with the CDC, or the CDC may have borrowed the idea from Hawaii or another state, but the tendency among health agencies is to share successful methods (and sometimes costs), and not be as worried about who gets the credit, though that does sometimes becomes an issue, especially in the guise of who is in charge, who is responsible and who to blame.
4.1. Zika Is Moving Fast. But Congress, Not So Much 160703-4↓ One of the problems with delays in containment and control of a pathogen is that it can become endemic, a permanent problem, and there is time for various strains to develop, to include resistant ones Increasing Genetic Diversity of Zika Virus in the Latin American Outbreak, New Zika Record: 11 Cases in Florida Identified in One Day, Chagas Disease in America: Undiagnosed, Unappreciated, Zika Outbreak Risk Rises with the Temperature for 50 U.S. Cities, Salt Lake County Resident Infected with Zika First in Continental U.S. to Die. ¶ There is the historical example of the third bubonic plague at the turn of the 20th century. Hawaii acted swiftly and perhaps a bit overly decisive \fs24fldinst HYPERLINK "http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/5080433/the-black-plague-of-1900" The Black Plague of 1900, while the control in San Francisco was delayed by political concerns and has since become endemic in the Western US Mo’ Farms, Mo’ (Plague) Problems. Most people are unaware that this plague was from 1855 to 1959, with continuing local outbreaks to the present day Visual Representations of the Third Plague Pandemic. 151018-16 & 16.1, 150816-47, 150705-4, 141102-E.2.7.B.1, 130908-1 & Appendix 1.
4.2. Athletes Starting to Pull out of Rio Olympics over Zika Fears is a fully expected behavior, along with protective measures The US Rowing Team’s Antimicrobial Suit Can’t Defeat Rio’s Polluted Water, reassurances Risk of Zika’s Spread by Olympics Is Very Low, and more threats being found 'Super Bacteria' Discovered in Rio's Waters as Olympics near (which again is old news Drug Resistant ‘Superbug’ Found in Rio De Janeiro Olympic Waters. However; this behavior to use the event as a natural lab is unexpected. Rio Olympics to Be Petri Dish for Study of Zika Virus. The U.S. Olympic Committee is seeking volunteers from its athletes and staff to submit fluid samples and to be tracked. NIH Funds Zika Virus Study Involving U.S. Olympic Team. An Open Letter to Olympic Athletes about Zika.
4.3. One source of information that I have not been able to exploit because not much is being collected, is graffiti about Zika. Graffiti often times appear before there are more blatant expressions in other behavior such as riots, or resisting health measures. Let Them Eat Football: Rio de Janeiro's Anti-World Cup Street Art. [Photo “all have the right to life” presumably anti-abortion; Photo Sika, maybe a variation of Zika that has more meaning, what do the tags, cross outs mean; Photo does the maltese cross mean anything in association with Photo Rio (Olympics logo) Olympic City; Photo decriminalization of abortion already; Photo what could Jet Wash Olympics mean]. Likely such street art will be painted over by the Olympics How Olympics Host Cities Hide Their Homeless 140209-42.1↓. ¶ Had a similar lack of information during Ebola, where I only got a couple of Chalk Board news. Daily tracking would have been useful, Liberia's Daily Talk: All the News That Fits on a Blackboard [Photo]. Possibly someday Parademic will have a sufficient network where someone on the ground *160717-1↑ can inform what is happening in the hot zone and receive advice on what to look for or be provided background research.
5. #Document. National Biosafety Systems. This document summarizes the governmental policies and regulations for biosafety in research laboratories in the nations of Brazil, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Kenya, Russia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In previous research, we found that there is a lack of international norms governing biosafety precautions for dangerous or especially contagious; by describing a variety of biosafety governance approaches in these nations, we hoped to find areas of commonality which could be further developed into international norms. Interesting read for those who focus on international health. The document provides insights into differences in perception of bioagents, the gaps in standards that could lead to major disconnects in protection and response, while also pointing out areas that should remain different to meet different needs to implement in different locations.
5.1. Threats Evolving Faster Than Preparedness. With the current amount of discussion and media coverage regarding the spreading Zika virus and the mounting concerns over antibiotic drug resistance, public health remains a critical homeland security and emergency preparedness priority. Unfortunately, it is often a fluctuating priority that does not receive consistent attention, action, and funding to prepare for future known and unknown public health threats. Appropriations Committee Releases the Fiscal Year 2017 Labor, Health and Human Services Funding Bill. Blurring of National Security Interests, Global Health Agendas Are an Unavoidable Reality. Society must align the overlapping priorities and often clashing interests of medical intelligence, national security agendas and the global health community, with the blurring of the boundaries between medical intelligence, the securitisation* of health threats such as Ebola and SARS and foreign policy action Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: The “Epidemic” that Duped the Nazis, How the 2003 Iraq Invasion Devastated the Country’s Health Service. Clash between security and health has been a frequent topic in parademic, as well as blurring between fields that were considered completely separate, where the action in one does not influence the other.
* This more commonly has a financial definition. From the context this form of Securitization is from international relations, the process of state actors transforming subjects into matters of 'security': an extreme version of politicization** that enables extraordinary means to be used in the name of security. I disagree with the general idea of limiting blurring, blending, cross pollination. This tends to limiting information sharing, adoption of methods from other fields, insular attitudes, eliminating risks (by killing off Exploring Ways to 'Coexist with Wildlife' 140209-42↓), turf battles, and actual illegal acts Blood & Fog: The Military’s Germ Warfare Tests in San Francisco 150705-10↓. One example is where bioterror has taken precedence over public health, though the original idea was because funding was more likely for bioterror and that would benefit public health Funding the Public Health Response to Terrorism, Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. Unfortunately departments of security and departments of health do not coordinate, much less collaborate. Millions were spent on ultimately wasteful programs, where the funding could have been applied elsewhere with beneficial results, Despite Health Law’s Bow to Prevention, U.S. Public Health Funding Is Declining, “Deeply Troubled” DHS System Blows Millions, Feds Want Extra $1 Bil, Biodefence since 9/11: The Price of Protection, Take it Easy on S&T – Cancelled Biodetection Program Isn’t a Big Deal, How Syphilis Came Roaring Back. CIA Organised Fake Vaccination Drive to Get Osama Bin Laden's Family DNA 150301-24, 141109-13, 140817-70 & C, 140815DISINT-4.2*1, 140525-21, 140202-19, 131020-64.1, 130915-66, 130908-27.1, 130616-7 et al, 130224-43, 130203-9.2↓.
** There is also the term Medicalization (or medicalisation) is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions, and thus become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. Medicalization can be driven by new evidence or hypotheses about conditions; by changing social attitudes or economic considerations; or by the development of new medications or treatments. It is also a device of social control, such as Soviet Union putting dissidents in mental health treatment Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union and in China, Psikhushka, or the US having circumcision as a means to control masturbation Circumcision and “Moral Hygiene”, and making homosexuality both a crime and medical (therefore preventable) condition When Homosexuality Stopped Being a Mental Disorder, A Herald of the AIDS Epidemic. ¶ There are correlations between politics and beliefs about health and medicine, factually this is not one of them, but socially is; Mad Out Disease. A map purportedly showing that areas affected by mad cow disease in 1992 ended up voting "leave" in 2016 is satire 160626-4.4*↓.
5.2. Why Important Innovations Stall. The history of opposition to innovations ranging from tractors to coffee and margarine – and its underlying reasons. Disruptive, transformative technologies are being introduced at an accelerating pace, fuelling opposition that impedes forms of innovation needed to meet profound challenges such as climate change, poverty and world hunger. These have happened with many medical innovations, such as washing hands. On the other hand this may assure preventing what seems like a good thing from being widely accepted and turning out not to be a good thing.
6. As has been demonstrated over and over again parademic require decision making because outcome is uncertain, not choices where certainty which is the correct one is provided.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304541341_ Proving Cause and Effect for Decisions. Everyday decisions in the real world are unique, poorly defined messes that reflect the astonishing nuances in ordinary human behavior. For these one of a kind situations, evidence based decision making requires proof of cause and effect in a sample size of one. That is not as hard as it sounds. It's like planning a party. How to Make Decisions An intelligence question is a question about something that is important to your success or failure but is outside your control. An operational questions is about something that is important to your success or failure but is under your control. You analyze these two kinds of questions differently. Things that are under your control are much easier to analyze. You usually know the data or you know where to get it. You have some understanding of how much uncertainty exists in the data and how much of it you can weed out with statistics or whatever methods you use. With things that are out of your control you have to use a different set of tools and skills to understand these kinds of questions. There is much more uncertainty here and it is much more difficult tonarrow it. In addition, there is likely some degree of deliberate deception (misinformation, rumor, perception filters) going on. ∩ Looking Through Different Filters. Culture and Bureaucracy in the Aftermath of Disaster.
7. Wishful thinking or a wise health policy. Juno Will Eventually Go Up in Flames to Protect Theoretical Alien Life. Bacteria Are So Good at Surviving in Space, NASA Needs a New Way to Kill Them. Interestingly microbes protecting us from aliens, the threat of extraterrestrial microbes have been address in Science Fiction, but not the possibility of Earth infecting other planets. Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion are in the sense the ultimate in invasive species, but is contradicted by human experience of colonizing and bringing diseases to new lands. "The Earth Strain": Could Our Space Missions Infect the Cosmos.
8. Untimely Ends and the Pandemic Imaginary. This short ethnographic vignette encapsulates what in epidemiological literature has come to be spoken of again and again as “the lesson of SARS”. Following the end of the 2003 coronavirus epidemic, the WHO, the US CDC and the newly founded China CDC hailed the success of the measures against the outbreak. Yet, at the same time, they tacitly acknowledged that whilst there was evidence to support that the former halted the pathogen’s rapid spread across the globe, no demonstrable relation could be established between this and the sudden disappearance of the pathogen amongst human populations. ¶ This narrative makes SARS the latest example of an epidemiological, epistemological and at the same biopolitical pattern that can be best described as the problem of untimely ends. This phenomena of an agreed on view that a bioevent has ended is both folklore and a social construction of reality that does not correspond with physical reality, but does provide a sense that the situation is satisfied, or at least no longer an issue of concern. The Plague of Utopias: Pestilence and the Apocalyptic Body, The Pandemic Perhaps. Dramatic Events in a Public Culture of Danger, Epidemic Events and Processes — A special section of Cambridge Anthropology.
9. Cameroon: Over 14,000 Eggs Dropped in Front of the Ministry of Livestock, to “Denounce the Destruction of the Poultry Sector”. People react badly when livelihood is threatened, in this case having to cull poultry due to avian flu Poultry Ban Hurting Cameroonian Farmers. These reactions can be more serious that just egging* a Ministry building. [Cartoon, Photo, Cartoon, Photo, Photo]. Canada Detects Low Pathogenic Type of Bird Flu on Duck Farm. d HYPERLINK "http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/us-seeks-trade-sanctions-in-india-poultry-dispute-wto/articlesho" U.S. Seeks Trade Sanctions in India Poultry Dispute.
* This is an example of a word that lost its original meaning but became associated with something else (egg definition 2). Apparently this was an old Norse word “eggja” to incite, which became the Middle English “egg”, replacing the Saxon “aie”, which already had a secondary use by throwing rotten aie (pronounced eye) at those one does not like. Many terms for disease – to include the old French desaise (dis+ease, “maladie” is current French for disease), replaced the English “adle” – have likewise changed in usage, or dropped completely from the language. Disease: Medical Terminology in Middle English. Some of the name changes are due to increased understanding of the condition, to differentiate from similar conditions, or to disassociate from the stigma attached to the condition (leprosy vs hansen’s disease). For others these name changes have sinister reasons Doctors Change Names of Diseases When Vaccines Do Not Work.
10. Cooperation is crucial for solving biodisasters. Competition against may benefit a few for a brief time, but at the cost that there will be fewer resources resulting in less chance of long term survival. Cooperation not only speeds up solution finding, but identification that a solution is not working, or that there are superior ones and changing to better ones. How Cooperation Emerges in Competing Populations. Social behavior like reaching a consensus is a matter of cooperation. However, individuals in populations often spontaneously compete and only cooperate under certain conditions. These problems are so ubiquitous that physicists have now developed models to understand the underlying logic that drives competition. A new study shows the dynamics of competing agents with an evolving tendency to collaborate that are linked through a network modeled as a disordered square lattice. ¶ The issue here however is that if this is a valid model to social system, it will be years before a way is found to apply. This is found all the time in parademic, cooperation implies hope being dangled well in advance of what can be done with certainty, while competition provides an immediate tangible result. This is part of the issue of looking for understanding and cure or acceptance of autism (or vaccination), while not losing hope and willingness to cooperate. What an Hour of Emotion Makes Visible, Hope Still Races Ahead of Evidence in Magnet Treatment for Autism, A Boy with Autism Makes Connections Through Cartoons in 'Life, Animated'.
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