1. Unseen Enemy, 2. Gender in Medicine, 3. Your 10,000 Mile Vaccination is Due, ↕4. Mosquito Borne, 5. Managed Retreat, 6. NeoLithic Mice, 7. EPA vs EPA, 8. ASPR Exchange, 9. Yucca Mountain, 10. Science of Call Out, 11. Anthrax.
-1. For calendars this coming week. CNN to Debut ‘Unseen Enemy’ Special on Pandemics about the potential looming crisis of disease pandemics, for a World Health Day presentation Friday, April 7. For a limited time starting on April 8 will be on http://www.takesallofus.com/. ¶ Among the unseen are reservoirs for disease, usually impoverished and homeless, Does Your Mandatory Evacuation Order Ignore the Pre Disaster Homeless. In any case it appears that all are at a greater risk, Irish Led Pandemic Research Shows We’re at Greatest Ever Risk of Outbreak.
-2. The Extraordinary Secret Life of Dr. James Barry. Was a prominent physician who performed the first successful cesarean section and lobbied for social reforms to improve hygiene standards and patient care, even working alongside luminaries of the field like Florence Nightingale. But Barry’s death in 1865 revealed a shocking secret – he had actually been born a she, and had passed as the opposite sex for almost six decades. Cross Dressing and the Law. The history of medicine does not specifically indicate it was illegal for women to be physicians, just that it was socially unacceptable Women in Medicine. However there were other women who were in medicine at the time, some as physicians. Unsure why the motivation to conceal one’s sex. Perhaps Barry was very ambitious and wanted to avoid the stigma of being a woman to interfere with the reach to the top ranks of medicine.
-2.1. Did Victorians Really Get Brain Fever. Just because descriptions of illness may seem old fashioned and inexact today doesn’t mean they were entirely made up. Fever didn’t necessarily mean a high temperature to Victorians. Rather, people of the era saw it as a suite of symptoms seated in the brain. Brain fever came to mean an inflamed brain – one characterized by headache, flushed skin, delirium, and sensitivity to light and sound. Both physicians and laymen believed that emotional shock or excessive intellectual activity could produce a severe and prolonged fever. Overexerted women were thought to be particularly susceptible to brain fever, which was treated by wrapping patients in wet sheets and putting them into hot and cold baths. Women’s hair was often cut off during their illnesses both to lower the patient’s temperature and prevent pesky maintenance issues. This gave female fever victims an unmistakeable appearance in an era that prized long locks. Fevers were used by authors as literary devices that allowed characters to mature or realize their true feelings.
-3. A Little Nudge May Provide a Big Boost to Flu Vaccination Rates. Currently, only 44 percent of adults in the United States receive an annual flu vaccination. A new study suggests that a simple behavioral economics technique may be able to help. Researchers programmed electronic health records (EHR) to alert care providers when a patient was eligible, and prompt them to choose to 'accept' or 'decline' a flu vaccination order. Results showed a 37 percent relative increase in vaccinations from the prior year. The technique is used by car maintenance shops to remind people to come in to have tune ups and other work done. It is also common practice for medical offices to remind people about appointments so this would not be a radical change. 'Active Choice' Intervention May Boost Flu Vaccine Rates.
-3.1. Why Do We Choose to Get Vaccinations. Since vaccines protect not only those who take them, but also the people who otherwise could have been infected, there are many plausible motives for choosing to get vaccinated. Apart from the most obvious – wanting to protect oneself or one's children from becoming ill – research shows that many also are affected by care for others. 170219-3.1↓. Maybe if the risk to others was communicated more that may motivate more altruistic behavior How Culture Induces Altruistic Behavior. Altruism may be helped by a little self interest, These Anti-Vaccine Parents Were Found Guilty in the Death of Their Toddler, Anti-Vaccer Loses Fourth Child to Vaccine Preventable Disease, Thanks God They All Avoided Autism, Anti-Vaccine Body Count, Measles Outbreak Kills 17 Unvaccinated Children in Romania, [Memorial, Meme], WHO Warns of Measles Outbreak Across Europe. ¶ There is also the repeated pattern that the educated are among the ones who resist vaccination, Polio Refusal among Pakistani Literates Baffles Officials, as opposed to the expectation of Superstition Frustrates Anti- Polio Efforts.
-3.2. My bias about BioTrumpism and anti-vaccination makes me cynical about this. White House to Be Lit in Blue for Autism Awareness. The president made a promise to the late wife of his friend Bob Wright that he would light up the White House in blue if he won the November election. Both Bob and Suzanne Wright were the founders of the Autism Speaks advocacy organization that has the color blue in their logo. Is this advocating a cause that I normally would be supportive of to further an anti-vax and anti-science agenda. Boycott Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks: the Results of this Research Are Clear: Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism…but Doesn’t Let That Statement Stand Alone. As a stretch it could be claimed that the lighting is favoring of one organization over others [Logo]. The more widely accepted Autism Awareness [Logo] is different. “Light it up Blue” Isn’t Autism Awareness, It’s Advertising for Autism Speaks, No Foolin': Forget about Autism Awareness and Lighting up Blue, ASAN Condemns White House Autism Proclamation. It is also likely that the rainbow colors are also a symbol of LGTB. Lighting the White House to look more like the Autism Awareness puzzle could be done with modern 3D projection lazar technology [Photo], but may be interpreted differently.
↕4. Zika Hot Spots in the US Predicted. Researchers predicted the places in the continental US where Zika is most likely to be transmitted are along the Mississippi delta and southern states extending northward along the Atlantic coast and in southern California. Bugs on the Rise Due to Rain and water suitable for breeding can last until August, September. 170326-14↓. Zika ‘Hotspots’: Highest Predicted Risk in Mississippi Counties. Since the Mississippi Delta is in the state of Louisiana [Map], where there are no counties but parishes, this means there is no Zika threat in Louisiana [Postcard]. Zika Virus Not a Worry to Americans. 90% think they are not likely to get Zika virus. Americans more concerned about getting Ebola and swine flu in past.
-4.1. Seven Months after Rio Olympics, Zika Continues to Plague Babies in Urban Slums. Many international travelers to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, openly considered skipping the games to avoid the threat of Zika. Despite the fears, not a single case of Zika or its major neurological complication, microcephaly, was reported by foreign visitors. The near paranoia – and the diversion of scarce resources to protect a low risk population – could have been avoided by heeding the lessons of previous epidemics. This parademic of diversion of attention and resources away from the larger problem for economic or political reasons is common. Overall the Rio Olympics can be considered a public health disaster for the poor in Rio, in part because there was such focus on the potential of Rio becoming a global health disaster. Zika Infections During Rio 2016 Olympic Games Could Create A "Full Blown Global Health Disaster".
-5. This is similar to social distancing in the sense of creating a buffer between oneself and a biothreat. In this case this is removing whole populations from an area with Managed Retreat. When Is it Time to Retreat from Climate Change. Stanford Researchers Seek Ways of Keeping Communities out of Harm’s Way in a Changing Climate. Based on examples from around the world, researchers chart the landscape for whether and how to implement the strategy of managed retreat – relocation or abandonment of development in the face of extreme weather risks. Managed Retreat as a Response to Natural Hazard Risk. Changing climatic hazards are already driving migration and community relocation globally, and by 2100, sea level rise alone threatens to displace 72-187 million people. Risk management approaches are needed to support the millions of people exposed to potential displacement. Accommodating such risks has limits, and structural protective measures (for example, levees) involve high maintenance costs, environmental damage, and increased development in hazardous locations. [Cartoon, Photo]. Living on the Water's Edge. Coastal Resilience Grants – States Left Holding the Sandbag. [Art]. Measuring the Unmeasurable: Comparative Assessment of Urban Vulnerability for Coastal Megacities – New York, London, Tokyo, Kolkata and Lagos.
-5.1. The opposite of managed retreat are forced migrations. The problem is known before hand, nothing is done, and eventually people flee or die. 3,000 People a Day Fleeing in Cholera Stricken Somalia as Famine Looms in search of food and water due to Somalia’s worst drought in 20 years. There is impending famine with children already dying of malnutrition. More than six million Somalis, half of the population, need emergency aid, including close to one million acutely malnourished children. As Cholera Spreads, Somalia Begins Vaccination Campaign will not address the root problems of clean water, nutrition, conflict, drought. It may keep people in place making it easier for aid to reach them, if that ever happens. Lack of Clean Water Poses Extra Threat to Millions Facing Famine. War and Famine: Return of the Third Horseman. White Coats Alone Can't Combat Infectious Disease Outbreaks. ¶ There is also the problem of helping but not creating dependence A Dog's Life: Suffering Humanitarianism in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
-6. #Anthropocene. Mouse in the House Tells Tale of Human Settlement. Long before the advent of agriculture, hunter gatherers began putting down roots in the Middle East, building more permanent homes and altering the ecological balance in ways that allowed the common house mouse to flourish, new research indicates. Findings suggest the roots of animal domestication go back to human sedentism thousands of years prior to what has long been considered the dawn of agriculture. Mice Have Called Human Houses Home for 15,000 Years.
-A. This relationship makes sense if it is true that mice are kin, Found: Humanity’s Great Grand Rat, Evolutionary Evidence Suggests We Descended from Rats. Meet the Last Common Ancestor of Bats, Whales, Sloths and Humans, Face to Face with the Earliest Ancestor of All Placental Mammals. [Poster]. It goes without saying that one should not say this in front of Creationists. They have enough problems sharing a common ancestor with apes, than the idea that both are decedent of a rodent Rats: No Evolution. Though they may take comfort in the thought that yes indeed humans coexisted with dinosaurs \fs24ulMen and Dinosaurs Coexisted, except at that time we were Theriodonts. [Cartoon, Cartoon, Art, Art, Quotes]
-7. EPA's Controlled Human Exposure Studies of Air Pollution Are Warranted. Experiments in which volunteer participants agree to be intentionally exposed by inhalation to specific pollutants at restricted concentrations over short periods to obtain important information. Recommendation that they continue under two conditions: when they provide additional knowledge that informs policy decisions and regulation of pollutants that cannot be obtained by other means, and when it is reasonably predictable that the risks for study participants will not exceed biomarker or physiologic responses that are of short duration and reversible. Dirty Air from Global Trade Kills at Home and Abroad.
-7.1. #BioTrumpism. Given lack of success creating laws through Congress*, Executive Orders will probably be the preferred method, We Need to Invest in Public Health to Keep America Great. Meanwhile decision making will continue with the previous short sightedness*, pseudoscience and deregulation of controls on business interests. The Giant Trump Climate Order Is Here. Trump Reversal of Obama Carbon Cutbacks to Begin this Week. The White House Calls Climate Change Research a "Waste." Actually, it's Required by Law. Scott Pruitt Promises ‘EPA Originalism’ in Donald Trump Administration, Trump’s Talking Points on Clean Air and Energy Are Stale and Orwellian. ¶ EPA Sidestepped Decision to Tighten Standards for Lead Levels, Leaving Communities Adrift, Lead Exposure in Childhood Linked to Lower IQ, Lower Status Jobs, as Adults, A Therapy Dog Might Have Sniffed Out a Major Problem for Kids Across San Diego Unified. ¶ Donald Trump Launches an Attack on Climate Change Policy, the "Energy Independence" order won't bring energy independence, environmental protection, or jobs. [Photoshop, Meme, Meme, Cartoon, Cartoon]. Is the U.S. Energy Independent was an election issue. This is either yes or no, the technology has moved on and makes the issue moot What Trump Misses about Energy Jobs in America. For another thing the world needs to be energy interdependent and continue to develop power sources that do not damage the environment. Trump Can Scrub the Clean Power Plan, But the West Will Stay Green. Trump’s Energy Independence Order: A Boon to America and the Environment, The Standoff Between Trump and Green Groups Just Boiled into War. Can Intergenerational Cooperation Defeat Climate Change which is a form of taking advantage of Shifting Baseline Syndrome using a previous experience with what is normal to what is the current normal experience. New EPA Documents Reveal Even Deeper Proposed Cuts to Staff and Programs. ¶ The Cloud over Coal. Experts Respond to Trump’s Climate Blitzkrieg and the use of the Nazi battle strategy in the headline is in no way intended to influence what a reader may think. ∩ Coal Country Is a State of Mind. One of the characteristics of disaster is that it can raise questions about what one thinks is reality and self identity. This is seen in parademic when feeling safe from disasters that are only for lower classes is disturbed, or when livelihood and identity are threatened, Tribes That Live off Coal Hold Tight to Trump's Promises. The New York Times’ Coal Miner Interview Is Why We Won’t Stop Climate Change.
-A. It has been speculated that More Parents Believe Vaccines Are Unnecessary is in part because they have never experienced vaccine preventable diseases, so vaccines appear unnecessary, especially when they hear a mix of fact and rumors that they are at risk***. Betteridge's Law of Headlines, Fluoride Paranoia and Betteridge’s Law [Photo, Photo, Meme].
-*. McConnell: Obamacare 'Status Quo' Will Stay in Place Moving Forward, Top House Republicans Favor Funding Key ObamaCare Payments, Price Faces Unwanted Task of Administering ObamaCare, [Tweet, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon], Day 67: GOP Makes Good on 2009 Promise to Block President’s Healthcare Bill, 170326-1.3↓. Health Law Repeal Is Back on Agenda, Republicans Say, [Cartoon], Senate, White House Pass on House Push to Revive Health Bill, Trump Won the Health Care Battle, Trump Says He Expects a Health Care Deal Soon, AP Spin Meter: Was Trump Joking on Health Care. Obamacare Is Now Officially Part of America’s Social Safety Net. [Cartoon]. HHS Secretary Tight Lipped on Health Law Changes, but Says ‘We Have to Fix the Problem’. The next Obamacare Battleground: Subsidies for out of Pocket Costs. Is 'Obamacare' Repeal Dead – or a Legislative Zombie, Renew Our Leadership’s Commitment to Protecting Americans from Outbreaks. Trump Tweets Approval of NY Times Report on Obamacare Struggles, Trump Sends the Most Hypocritical Tweet, Shows His True Colors By Praising NY Times Article, Six Ways to Tell If Trump Is Sabotaging Obamacare, Trump Vows ‘Repeal & Replace of ObamaCare’ Is Not Dead [Tweet, Tweet], Rising from the Ashes - A Novel Bipartisan Approach to Health Care Reform, Trump Will Deal with Dems on Healthcare 'If We Don’t Get What We Want' . ¶ Trump Recruits Controversial Bush Era Global Health Official. William "Bill" Steiger, a global health official under former President George W. Bush who crossed swords with many scientists, is now advising President Donald Trump. At his Senate nomination hearing in 2007, Steiger was questioned about allegations that he suppressed a surgeon general's report because it conflicted with Bush administration policies on public health, and also imposed travel restrictions on HHS scientists that forced them to withdraw accepted presentations at an international AIDS conference. Trump Administration Budget Proposals ‘Bad for Health, Science, Environment, and America’. This Federal Agency That Aims to Make Health Care More Effective Is on the Chopping Block, Again. Tom Price Defends Proposed Cuts at NIH, Citing ‘Indirect’ Expenses, Should Taxpayers Cover the Light Bills at University Labs. Trump Kicks off a Tense Debate. After Fearmongering about Ebola, Trump Proposes Slashing the Agency Working on a Vaccine, 170220-1.9↓.
-**. Future Headlines: Barron Trump and His Half Nieces and Nephews Die from Father's Public Health and Environment Legacy. Alternative History: The Dangerous Byproduct of Fake Facts. [Flag] Allied States of America. America First: Reading “The Plot Against America” in the Age of Trump. 7.2, 170326-1.3*↓. ¶ Things to Come [Poster]. What If the Black Death Had Been Avoided.
-Quote: Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the President was fairly straightforward: We're not spending money on that any more. We consider that to be a waste of your money. – Mick Mulvaney [Cartoon], director of the Office of Management and Budget [Cartoon] 170319-*5.3Quote↓.
-***. Tomorrow, Antivaxers March on Washington, And, Boy, Are They Excited. [Poster, note the use of George Washington, who was pro variolation and “I cannot tell a lie” for chopping down a tree that did not exist in the colonies]. One does however have to admit that pseudoscience has a much easier time getting organized for a march than, Science March on Washington, Billed as Historic, Plagued by Organizational Turmoil 10↓. Dear Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Your Anti Vaccine Crusade Is a Disgrace to Science. Vaccine Skeptics, Newly Energized, Gather in D.C. to Protest — and to Lobby. For Health Community, an Unexpected Bright Spot in Trump Budget: Vaccines.
-B. This whole stub is about creating conditions of uncertainty, with a combination of hard and soft power. This is an effective method to change narratives, create confusion (and if necessary panic), increase mistrust, manipulate people into magical thinking and logical fallacies (both presented as certainties when uncertainty is created), and turn a loss into a win, 170220-6 et al↓, ∩ A New Poll on Trump’s “Wiretapping” Shows How Easily He Can Spread Misinformation, plausibility, innuendo, changing memory [Cartoon]. ¶ Redundancy is a way to avoid disaster, prevent catastrophic chain reaction and cascades of failure, increase resilience, to be prepared for the unexpected, recovery from loss and grief, to find the best solution, a buffer against difficult times, and to have checks and balances to avoid accumulation of too much power in one person or agency. It is also true that ideas, concepts, beliefs, dogma, practices, organizations tend to last longer than their function and purpose Inefficiently Delivered Services. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. ¶ Defining Leadership Options in a Disaster Response, Different leadership styles for different scenarios, Developing a paradoxical leadership approach.
-Quote: ... So it was decided that the time had come to change our methods, while maintaining our aims. A new policy was created—the “hard-soft” policy. ... We open our frontiers to a lot of newspaper men and actors and artists although we know many of them to be spies. Our leaders laugh and make jokes at receptions in Moscow. In the middle of the jokes we drop the biggest test bomb of all time. ... Comrades ... visit India and the East and blackguard the English. When they get back, they have friendly discussions with the British Ambassador about their forthcoming goodwill visit to London. And so it goes on – the stick and then the carrot, the smile and then the frown. And the West is confused. Tensions are relaxed before they have time to harden. The reactions of our enemies are clumsy, their strategy disorganized. Meanwhile the common people laugh at our jokes, cheer our football teams and slobber with delight when we release a few prisoners of war whom we wish to feed no longer. – Ian Fleming, From Russia with Love, Chapter 4. The Moguls of Death, Paragraph 32. Putin’s Hard/Soft Strategy.
-7.2. An oft touched on topic. Research is disseminated way to slowly help during a current crisis. Misinformation that is not hampered by petty concerns such as validity and consequences, can be disseminated quickly, possibly causing the crisis. The Findings of Medical Research Are Disseminated Too Slowly. On January 1st the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did something that may help to change the practice of science. It brought into force a policy, foreshadowed two years earlier, that research it supports (it is the world's biggest source of charitable money for scientific endeavours, to the tune of some $4bn a year) must, when published, be freely available to all. This is a variation of lessons unlearned, not learned(Search), He Treated the Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched the World Forget, or revised/fake history 7.1**↑.
-7.3. #Document. Blueprint for Transparency at the US Food and Drug Administration. The US FDA stands apart among the world's regulatory agencies for the depth of its expertise and analysis about medical products. However, much of this knowledge and information about the regulatory process stay within FDA's walls, as a result of policies and regulations that have for many years broadly defined what is considered "confidential". Yet another example of secrecy leading to suspicion. Rumor tends to happen in information vacuums, especially when it is not clear why something is kept a secret. If maintained long enough these become conspiracy theory.
-8. The Exchange: Volume 2, Issue 1, March 2017, Focus: Disaster Behavioral Health and Resilience. In this issue of the ASPR TRACIE Exchange, emergency healthcare professionals share firsthand experiences, information, and resources related to disaster behavioral health (DBH) and resilience. I’ve posted a few of their items but in the main the orientation is strictly medical, while parademic is about behavior about biodisaster, to include response to the medical response and behaviors. HHS Secretary Cites Emergency Preparedness, Response as Federal Budget Priority. Probably a good move with the trend away from prevention and mitigation to disaster, this way they can be heros when a medical disaster happens
-9. What to do with nuclear waste has been swept under the rug for a long time with not in my back yard. Like many biohazards it has not gotten better with being ignored. The motivation for raising the issue is suspect, but having someone with a dismal record concerning environment may be the only one who can revive the issue without political harm as that harm is now a given. In any case nuclear waste does need to be addressed sooner than later. Decades Old War over Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump Resumes under Trump Budget Plan. An abandoned tunnel in the desolate Nevada desert, barricaded only by a chain link fence [Photo], is all that remains of the nation's tortured effort to create a permanent repository for nuclear waste 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
-10. Calling Out the ‘Callout Culture’. In times of crisis, debates over divisions should be set aside – even briefly – in favour of unity. As a battle scarred veteran of flame wars since the alt politics newsgroups of the 1990s, I have always been both grateful and surprised to find an almost total absence of conflict in the world I call Flublogia, the online community of people who worry about infectious diseases and the politics of public health. ¶ But Flublogia is learning about the callout. While a troll attacks ideological enemies through online insults, a callout artist attacks those who ought to be friends but aren’t ideologically pure enough. ¶ The callout is far older than the Internet. Religions are full of callouts, with one sect or another denounced as heretics or apostate. In some cases this leads directly to purges and executions (usually though one is ignored, faces ad hominem, is fired, does not get tenure, remains unpublished through peer review, gets no funding). ¶ The other day, Donald Trump showed genius as a callout artist, tweeting an attack on his own party’s “Freedom Caucus” (a misnomer) of congressional Republicans who opposed his American Health Care Act. ¶ If you support public health, you’re generally on the same page with your fellow supporters. So, I was startled the other night whensome of my followers announced on Twitter they would not be taking part in, or supporting, the April 22 March for Science in Washington, D.C. 7.1***↑. As a scientist, operator, analyst, and non-member of flublogia I have mixed feelings about this. Science dogma should be an area that encourages call out, (politely and in private) debate, questioning, not blindly accepting what others say is true It’s the Age of the Antibiotic Revolution, Not Apocalypse. Debate, call out, disagreement, questioning (base on better evidence), is one of the mechanisms of improvement of knowledge and understanding. At the same time there does need to be a unified face as issues are sorted out within the field. This is one reason why pseudoscience is successful, because they can claim support from scientists, and point to the many occasions when science was wrong. Disagreements should be made, but within the community. My own observation and experience of ingroup science arguments is that in comparison to pseudoscience and anti-science rants, academic and scientific ones are far more vicious, insidious, dismissive, dogmatic. ¶ A point that the author apparently is unaware of is that his experience in what he calls flublogia is not what was actually going on. This may be his first time experiencing the larger community where infighting is the norm. I first found H5N1\fs24fs24 not from Google, but from complaints about his misinformed and “nutty” blog. He was dismissed out of hand because he was a blogger of a portal, and a science fiction writer. His persistence has paid off and he is now a source of information that “scientific” sites will link to, and others will provide information to. Welcome to the larger world that H5N1 was on the periphery of. It is uncomfortable, but this is a good thing. A s a more accepted member of the community he will hopefully start getting more callouts of his own. How Has the Flu Virus Infected the Web. 2010 Influenza and Vaccine Information Available on the Internet. A Note on Call Out Culture.
-Quote: Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong. – Snoopy. Cromwell is the authoritative source for this quote in academia and science, but I prefer Schultz.
-11. A antecedent for Amerithrax(Search). In the mid 1930s, a British journalist alleged that Germany had been secretly testing biological agents in the London Underground and the Paris Metro.(1) It caused an international sensation. Given Germany’s success at developing mustard gas in the first World War and their subsequent discoveries of deadly nerve agents in the 1930s, British intelligence feared that Germany was more than capable of developing biological weapons to be used in future conflicts. In response, the British War Office tasked the chemical warfare team located at Porton Down in the 1940s to quickly assemble a new team to explore the potentials and limitations of biological weapons for the purposes of both defense and attack.(2) Anthrax, a hardy soil dwelling bacteria that can cause fatal infections, would be the test weapon of choice. April 2, 1979, Anthrax Poisoning Kills 62 in Russia. 170220-8.10, -P, 170219-C, 170205-T*B, 161204-2↓. Elyria Man Pleads Guilty in Central Ohio Anthrax Hoax.
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