1. Preventable Flu Deaths, 2. Eating Seed Corn, 3. Ebola Response, ↕4. Mosquito Borne (and Missile Attacks), 5. GMO Beliefs, 6. Foreign Autism, 7. Climate Movie, 8. Surviving a Pandemic, 9. Genetic Disease, 10. War on Disease, 11. Repeating PseudoScience, ↕C. Communications, 2.4A + 4.1 + 10 + 11 = Hidden Connections.
-1. Most Kids Who Died of Flu Weren't Vaccinated. Three quarters of kids who died from influenza between 2010 and 2014 had not been vaccinated in the months before they got sick. Of 291 deaths; 75 (26 percent) received vaccine before illness onset. The current vaccine is not perfect, but it is substantially better than not getting vaccinated. Overall, the flu vaccine lowered the risk of death in children by 65 percent, but only by 51 percent in high risk kids (asthma, developmental disorders, other medical conditions). The CDC counts flu deaths in children but estimates deaths in adults because there are so many. Between 4,000 and 50,000 people die from flu each year, depending on flu strain. When I was a pandemic planner eight years ago I was surprised by the number of people in Emergency Management who did not get the flu shot. The reasons given was because it would make them sick, or that they never got the flu. My approach at the time is that as the people who respond to communities that have experienced a disaster that those people may be immune suppressed due to the disaster. The flu shot was not to protect the person receiving it, but the people who they were helping 8↓. Having the then current examples of Cholera in Haiti and Whooping Cough in California helped illustrate the point. However I don’t believe behavior changed as the 2009 pandemic flu at the time was believed to be a false alarm. Maternal Pertussis Vaccination Reduces Risk for Newborns by More Than 90Percent. Make Measles Great Again. Our Michigan Legislature Is Doing its Best to Bring Back Epidemics of Vaccine Preventable Diseases. Don't Discount Bird Flu Risks, Warns Expert.
-2. This observation has been made before. In conflict, famine, drought, economic down turn, pandemic and other detrimental environments humans illness not only increase, but their practices that harm the environment and survival increase. When Human Illness Rises, the Environment Suffers, Too. A toxic environment is known to create health problems for people, but sick people can also create health problems for the environment. Around Kenya's Lake Victoria, a fishing community where locals battle high rates of disease and a depleted fish stock, scientists found that human illness exacerbates unsustainable fishing practices. To Eat the Seed Corn.
-2.1. I would argue that it is not just when humans are unhealthy that they harm the environment. Garrett on Global Health. H5N1 Comment this a tour d'horizon, ranging from Trump's proposed cuts to the plastic piling up on the floor of the Marianas Trench. It's a crash tutorial on the state of global health, with excellent links to her sources. Seven Reasons We're at More Risk than Ever of a Global Pandemic. #Document Public Health Preparedness and Response National Snapshot 2017. Why Is it So Hard to Eradicate Infectious Diseases. The Perpetual Challenge: Managing the Threa t Infectious Diseases Pose to Our Community. Absolutely, something is going to happen. Interconnected World: Global Epidemics Just a Flight Away.
-2.2. #BioTrumpism. One of the behaviors that occurs in parademic is that of perseveration, persistence of a repetitious behavior. Except for noting how long this continues, its return after a period of dormancy (wave), or a dramatic change in the behavior there usually is no value to noting the same behavior, except that it continues to persist. Unless there is a significant change in the behavior Parademic notes will not be noting the ACA repeal, replace, rout, rephrase, rally, regress, recuperate, raise, rectify, reverse, revival, retreat, revise, refine, ruin, and then repeat. Unsure if this is an analogue for a disease reservoir, mutation to a new stain, an ability to go dormant until conditions improve, or optimistic thinking that a temporary trend downward in cases indicates the outbreak in over. Overall this behavior is characteristic of Trumpism. White House Woos GOP Lawmakers with Revised Health Care Bill. Ryan Tamps down Expectations for New ObamaCare Repeal Bill. Trump Aides, Lawmakers Hold Talks to Revive Healthcare Bill. Trump’s Effort to Lure Consumers to Exchanges Could Bring Skimpier Plans. 170402-7.1*↓. [Cartoon]. Affordable Care Act Gains Majority Approval for First Time. For Better or Worse, Trump and GOP Now Own Health Care, GOP Has No Choice but to Keep Pushing Health Care Rock up The Hill. GOP Leader Suggests House Could Be Called Back from Recess to Vote on Health Bill 4↓. ObamaCare Markets Stabilizing Absent Drastic Changes to Law but could be upended by disruptive actions from Washington.
-A. Other topics that are likewise becoming repetitive are Dems Blast Trump FDA Pick as 'Dangerous' Choice, Obama vs. Trump: Early Report Card on How Health and Science Are Changing. At Trump’s EPA, Less Science and More Industry. EPA Unveils Plan to Add 500 Million Squirts of Lemon to U.S. Water Supply. It may be worthwhile to note damage done and the unintended consequences that were unforseen – or could have been anticipated if the decisions were made with evidence based information Why President Trump Needs to Finally Name a Science Advisor. ¶ U.S. Land Agency Website Drops Hiking Photo to Give Coal Top Billing, BLM Replaces Mountain Landscape Photo with Coal Seam on Home Page; Coal Fueled Power Plants Linked to Lower Birth Weights in Tennessee Valley, 170326-4.2A↓. There will also be long term sequella and chronic condition. ¶ New York, Other States Challenge Trump over Climate Change Regulation. 'Seems like It’s Going to Be about His Corporate Cronies': Environmental Groups Fret over Trump's Infrastructure Plan. To Speed Up Infrastructure Projects, Trump Revisits Environmental Regs [Meme]. 170402-7.1↓. What the Optimists Get Wrong about Trump’s Climate Policies, The Trump Era of Climate Policy Will Bring a Few Huge Surprises. Let’s Try to Predict Them. This topic of damage done may also become repetitive and uninformative Day 74: Climate Change: Myth Vs. Fact. ¶ The pattern is usually associated with conspiracy theory, self serving agendas, misinformation and hasty decisions for an immediate but temporary gain United States to Cut Funding to UN Population Fund Over Claims UN Calls Erroneous, Trump Cuts Off Funding for U.N. Agency That Supports Contraception, U.S. Defunds U.N. Population Fund, Cutting Health Services to 9 Million People. When the iatrogenic error becomes obvious the tendency is to remain tenacious about the policy / belief, blame others, or claim that the consequences could not be predicted. ¶ Plan to Cut Funding for Biomedical Research Hits Opposition in Congress. A proposal by President Trump to cut federal spending for biomedical research by 18 percent – just months after Congress approved bipartisan legislation to increase such spending – has run into a buzz saw on Capitol Hill, with Republicans and Democrats calling it misguided. NIH Budget Cuts Will Jeopardize America’s Leadership in Medical Research. ¿Is the Sky Blue? Depends on What Donald Trump Says.
-2.3. Fortunately in regards to building maga infrastructures there is a record of unanticipated environmental impact. Unfortunately these records are written the archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence of the old infrastructure and environmental consequences. This will take time to uncover and interpret. Legends of the Lost Reservoirs. Investigators dig into the past to inspire modern water management strategies that can save time and money and may avoid negative effects on our climate. An interdisciplinary team of anthropology, geography and geology have climbed through rainforests, dug deep under arid deserts and collaborated with scientists around the world to look at how ancient humans manipulated their environment to manage water.
-2.4. This would be in preparation of a bad, worse, catastrophic, extinction level scenario. A global biodisaster/mass extinction would qualify. When the Apocalypse Comes, World’s Works Could Be Safe in a Remote Doomsday Vault. After the apocalypse, assuming anyone survives, people won’t be worried about reading immediately. But eventually they’ll want to dive back into humanity’s history of literary works—for distraction, perhaps, or in an effort to understand why it all went to hell. One new library is built to last any sort of disaster to provide just this service to survivors. It’s taking deposits now. There is a similar vault for seeds in Norway: Inside the ‘Doomsday’ Vault. Unfortunately protecting such vaults can come at a high price The Men Who Starved to Death to Save the World's Seeds. Infrastructure tend to not fare well if the aftermath of catastrophic events that are long term. For example Roman forts, walls, roads were unnecessary in a world where each isolated area were defending themselves from outsiders. The stones for these were used to build walls and castles in areas needed. Roads, which at one time sped commerce and military forces, became a threat and were either allowed to be grown over and lost, or torn up for the material on the needed infrastructure. Hadrian's Wall: Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire (last paragraph).
- However it does not require a disaster for infrastructure to be torn down, turned to other purposes, superstructure to be altered, history and knowledge changed or suppressed. All that is needed is a perceived threat Censored in Israel, Praised by Merkel: the Novelist Who Is a ‘Threat to Jewish Identity’. These perceived, or invented, threats become the basis for self isolation / segregation, cutting ties to other areas, increased security, protection, diversion of resources from other needs that are now seen as no longer critical or need to be tightly controlled (education, health, research, arts) . If this were in the context of a biodisater the behavior would be parademic, in the contexts of a perceived biodisaster (social disruption → collapse) like threat it is still parademic but one may need to look for clues in areas that are not considered to be directly connected, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' Prepared Remarks to the Brookings Institution, Teacher Resignation Letters Paint Bleak Picture of US Education, DeVos vs. the Faculty, Betsy DeVos’ Security Detail Cost Taxpayers $8M over Eight Months, Betsy DeVos Guarded by U.S. Marshals After Threats, One Arrest as Protesters Block Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from Entering D.C. Public School. To DeVos, a Voucher like Program Shows the School Choice Path, Despite Little Evidence of Benefits. 4.1, 10, 11↓.
-3. Sierra Leone’s Response to the Ebola Outbreak: Management Strategies and Key Responder Experiences. Drawing on interviews with key Sierra Leonean and international responders, this paper helps shed light on the challenges that affected Sierra Leone's response to the Ebola outbreak. • The exceptional magnitude and duration of the emergency meant that the response was honed over time, presenting a rare opportunity to study the management of the response as it matured over a 22 month period. Likewise Parademic studied this as a natural experiment of behavior to test if the parademic concept was valid. • The initial response to the outbreak was characterized by confusion, chaos and denial. While a country can be overwhelmed by a serious outbreak, a situation in which WHO fails to mobilize the assistance needed to help a national government take control of an epidemic is unusual. The rest of the international community was, meanwhile, slow to rally. The window of opportunity to contain the outbreak through conventional control approaches closed, and the outbreak became a humanitarian crisis. • A number of international actors poured resources and expertise into the response. The UK, through a joint civilian military operation, took a leading role among Sierra Leone’s international partners. • This sheds light on the challenges that, to varying degrees and at various times, affected the response. Among issues highlighted were political manoeuvring and probity, inadequate financial agility, lack of coordination, partner ambivalence towards response structures, and tensions in the key relationships. • Decentralization of the response appeared to be important for the level of agility and tailoring necessary. As in most humanitarian operations, personalities and personal relationships appeared to be key to the functioning of the response. • The establishment of a civilian led, military supported operation appeared to work well. However, what took shape in Sierra Leone in response to the Ebola outbreak reflected a rare convergence of factors that is unlikely to be replicated, and care should be taken not to generalize the applicability of the approach taken in this instance to future health crises. #Document Sierra Leone’s Response to the Ebola Outbreak: Management Strategies and Key Responder Experiences. Lawsuit Dismissed over Ebola Quarantines in Connecticut.
-3.1. Contesting a Pandemic: The WHO and the Council of Europe. Contemporary risks are often understood as fundamentally uncertain. This uncertain status can be mobilized within political debates surrounding risks. Such a challenge serves to destabilize scientific claims 170402-7.1B↓. The WHOs management of the 2009/10 spread of the H1N1 virus became a site of one such contestation. Debate within the Council of Europe particularly served to criticize the action of the WHO. This resulted in a definitional and policy contestation between the two institutions. The WHO accounted for its actions through allusions to (seemingly stable) scientific facts, using epidemiological evidence of influenza and its management based on normal science. In contrast, in criticizing public expenditure and panic, the Council of Europe critics problematized the stability of the science employed by the WHO. This included fundamental aspects of scientific knowledge such as the measurability of morbidity and mortality caused by H1N1 and the effect of vaccination against influenza viruses. This criticism relied upon the ability to destabilize the WHO’s scientific knowledge, a process made possible through understandings of the uncertain nature of the science of risk (post normal science). The case study illustrates that potential for previous established and seemingly stable scientific facts to become destabilized and problematized during contestations of risk management. ¶ Myopic Political Bubbles Apply to Science Books, Too. Like it or not, science is politics. And despite one party’s attempt to brand itself as the voice for all science, the reality is fans from either side of the ideological spectrum kneel before the altar of data. Or rather, their respective altars. Because Liberals and Conservatives tend to prefer to read about different types of science.
Liberals and Conservatives Read Totally Different Books About Science. How Ayn Rand's 'Elitism' Lives on in the Trump Administration. 4*↓.
-3.2. Ukraine's Underground AIDS Treatment Railroad. On a rainy day last fall, longtime AIDS activist Olga Palamarchuk took me back to her new home in Odessa, Ukraine. To call it a home might be too generous; it was a chilly basement room in a halfway house for recovering drug users. Underground sources of medicine and medical care is usually classified as illegal, and immoral, but what if it is the only way to get help. We again see the creation of an underground and exploitation of needs associated with the repeats of the enabling conditions of: poverty, war, famine, contaminants, drought, political and economic inequity, populations densities, moral panic, denial and parademics.
-3.3. Psychological Memory: the Key to Effective Incident Recovery. ‘Psychological memory’ and ‘muscle memory’ in fitness training are concepts are important in effective incident response. There is a school of thought that an incident is simply an exercise that’s real. There is another school of thought that incidents and exercises are different animals, by their very natures. ¶ Proponents of the first school will set out that rehearsal of key processes and actions provides familiarity and corporate memory that enables a much smoother process when plans are invoked for real. Followers of the second school believe that incidents are very individual in type, scale and content and thus will be very distinct activities, albeit guided by plan activities/actions in determining the right result. ¶ As ever, the ‘truth’ often lies somewhere in-between. It is true that we cannot plan for every eventuality and indeed, many organisations focus, understandably, on key impact areas rather than causes. Loss of buildings, IT and people are all core operational disablers. But the reality is that ‘incident’ can be something of a catch all term for a myriad of events. Loss of specific systems. Loss of some operational elements. Loss of key people. Loss of maintenance, supply, information, third parties, resources. And different combinations of some and/or all of these.
↕4. Health Officials Brace for Return of Zika. Florida officials and federal public health experts are keeping a careful eye on the mosquito population in Miami ahead of what they fear will be a breakout year for Zika, a virus that has already infected more than 5,100 people in the US. The political contentiousness that was encountered with last years Zika may be even more problematic with the trends of further cut backs on funding for health, related research Biden Decries ‘Draconian Cuts’ to NIH in Trump’s Proposed Budget, and leadership that has beliefs more akin to ancient Greek Natural Philosophers than more recent names of Pasteur, Salk, Jenner, Snow, Lister*. Mosquitoes and Ticks Are Going to Eat Us All Alive this Summer. Miami’s Building Boom Brings Zika Worries: Construction Sites Breed Mosquitoes. Possible Zika Virus Infections in 44 US States: What Can Healthcare Providers Do to Help Protect Pregnant Women and Their Babies. 51 Babies Born with Zika Related Birth Defects in the U.S. Last Year. Zika’s Not Just ‘Last Year’s Problem’: Sobering Report Details Virus’s Effects On U.S. Women. In fact it appears that we are having a repeat of congressional behavior again from last year, exacerbated with the continued distraction of House Will Not Reach Healthcare Deal Before Two Week Break 170220-5P, 170219-4.1↓. Easter spring break is a traditional break for congress, but a break provides breather space and well as opportunities for increased disruption of process, add complications, take action before a counter can be made, diversion of attention and uncertainty 2.2↑. The resulting obscuring however is not limited to the opposite actors, but all the actors, where no one has a complete picture of the situation. Any control of the situation can be easily completely lost without those who thought they were in control recognizing they are in fact not, while those who believe they have a complete picture do not realize the amount of chaos that is happening that they are unaware of. That makes for an ideal condition for a disaster to happen and be unable to respond, or biodisaster to remain hidden as it grows. Letter sent by a bipartisan group of 47 lawmakers urged President Trump to promptly distribute Zika funding that Congress allocated last year. ¶ This is not the only invasive species entering the US When Globalization Brings Brain Invading Worms. If one only at, mosquitoes, Zika, flu, ticks, etc as separate events none of these are much of a threat. Collectively however these are the cumulative doses of invasive species, and that is an insidious threat. Unnoticed because it is so small and in so many forms, harming so few. Then one day the acceleration of the growth curve occurs.
-*. If you are unfamiliar with either the concepts that are from ancient Greece that have since been disproved, and who the people are that are named, this could be an illustration of 3.1↑.
-A. Note that the larger context of this is that a Syrian airbase was attacked by the US. The attack was for the chemical attack by a country that ironically has had refugees banned from the US [Meme, Tweet, Tweet] Day 72: Islam: Myth Vs. Fact. At the same time there is an official state visit from China, and further questions about Russian involvement in the US election have arisen Trump Confident U.S. Military Strike on Syria Wiped out Russian Scandal. These are not parademic but influence the form parademic will take if there is either a real or imagined acceleration of a biodisaster. If you have forgotten we are talking about Zika here, and its larger context. ¶ The tail wags the dog, Wag the Dog, [Cartoon] False Flag vs. Wag the Dog: Conspiracy Theories Emerge on Syria Missile Strike. 170402-7.1B-Quote, 8↓. Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power. Meanwhile other syndemics of conflict, famine, disease outbreak are not amenable to grand gestures, and without follow up the action taken may as well not have happened. Hunger Amplifies Infectious Diseases for Millions Fleeing the Violence of Boko Haram, U.N. Says up to 7 Million People in Critical Need of Food in Syria. BTW I do hope that someone considered the possibility that chemical weapons may be at the airbase that missiles were fired at. That could have made for accusations that the US used chemical weapons against Syria, sort of neutralized the purpose of retaliation for using chemical weapons. ¶ Trump Assures Nation That Decision for Syrian Airstrikes Came after Carefully Considering All His Passing Whims, Assad Vows Swift Retaliation on Syrian Civilians in Response to U.S. Missile Strike, Bashar Al-Assad Shares Laugh with Military Leaders over Time He Once Wanted to Be a Doctor and Help People.
-4.1. ∩ Intelligence Analysis and the Connect the Dots Metaphor. Connect the Dots is an analogy of the ability (or inability) to associate concepts, people and/or events. However there are no dots, these nonexistent dots move, change relative relationship, and if one knows about a dot (clusters, connections) then one does not know about other dots or about other aspects of the dot that may no longer be the known one [Chart], the observer effect. The analogy gets confusing beyond this point, so to provide a simple real world biodisaster example. Zika Could End up Costing Latin America and the Caribbean up to $18 Billion. This will accelerate the Caribbean Countries Warn of Impending ‘Economic Collapse’. That situation will in turn will foster the development of millions of little dots called mosquitoes. Each of these dots carry millions of little virus dots, that will dot the Carribean and spill over into the costal regions of North America Texas Expands Zika Recommendations Ahead of 2017 Mosquito Season. At the same time these dots will interact with other dots called zygotes, blastocysts, embryos. This will ultimately cost more that 18 Billion. All this happens because the creation of chaos that hinder connection of dots that are related to solving Zika. [Art, Maze, Cartoon, Chart 170305-1.1C↓]. 2.4A↑, 10, 11↓. It needs to be pointed out that connections may be false correlations, synchonicity, apophenia, conspiracy theory, context, anecdotes, coincidences, witch hunts. Connections are only indicators, context circumstantial evidence. Connections are not proof. President Trump’s Visits to Mar-a-Lago Are Hurting the Palm Beach Economy ↔ Opioid Overdose Deaths Double to Nearly 600: ‘I Don’t See Any Stop’ ↔ Zika Infection Already a Reality in 2017 ↔ 170319-4↓ ↔ 170312-4.2.2↓, suggests some areas to watch but means nothing now and may mean nothing later. Most areas that I am watching to see if it develops meaning are not included in the weekly notes, but given the discussion about connections between information, the potential for errors, logical fallacies, projection of belief and opinion, needs to be clear.
-5. Not Just about “The Science”: Science Education and Attitudes to Genetically Modified Foods among Women in Australia. Previous studies investigating attitudes to genetically modified (GM) foods suggest a correlation between negative attitudes and low levels of science education, both of which are associated with women. In a qualitative focus group study of Australian women with diverse levels of education, we found attitudes to GM foods 6↓ were part of a complex process of making “good” food decisions, which included other factors such as locally produced, fresh/natural, healthy and nutritious, and convenient. Women involved in GM crop development and those with health science training differed in how they used evidence to categorize GM foods. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how GM food, and the role of science and technology in food production and consumption more broadly, is understood and discussed amongst diverse “publics” and across different “sciences,” and to research related to deepening public engagement at the intersection of science and values. Health Scare Prompts Man to Start Overeating Healthier. How Flawed Science Is Undermining Good Medicine.
-6. The “Western Disease”: Autism and Somali Parents' Embodied Health Movements. There is some statistical evidence indicating that Somali refugees and immigrants have high rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Somalis in North America call autism the “Western disease” because there is no word for autism in the Somali language and because many believe it does not exist in Somalia. In Toronto, Somali parents have forged an “epistemic community”, united around a coherent theory of the development of autism, its defining features, and most successful therapies. They work together with researchers to support the theory that gut bacteria is a causal factor for the development of autism. They argue that it is the diet and medical environment in North America (including the use of preservatives, genetically modified processing, and antibiotics in both health care and food production) that explains the high rates of autism within the Somali diaspora. The paper argues that race and nationality have been underexplored in theories of embodied health movements. I argue that Somali parents' organizing pushes theories of health social movements in new directions, by suggesting that experiences of forced migration and racial exclusion, as well as non-Western cultural ontologies of health, are important for understanding embodied experiences of illness and the forging of “politicized collective illness identities” that challenge mainstream scientific understandings of autism. As such, Somalis' race and nationality play key roles in their pathways to group construction, in their embodied experiences of illness, and in their resources for mobilization. This is similar to the formation of an anti-vaccine cluster, and using cures based on one’s native culture, or an exotic one. This possibly can be exploited by medical scams that are similar to the existing beliefs or wishes (magical thinking), of making a decision and then finding evidence to support the decision.
-7. To Curb Global Warming, Science Fiction May Become Fact. In Snowpiercer the delirious sci fi thriller, an attempt to engineer the climate and stop global warming goes horribly wrong. The planet freezes. Only the passengers on a train endlessly circumnavigating the globe survive. Those in first class eat sushi and quaff wine. People in steerage eat cockroach protein bars. [Photo, Poster, Poster].
-8. This the first public media that I have seen that addresses the social, or what I call the parademic aspects, of a pandemic. There are human factors that have been considered for CBRN and disaster events, and social considerations have been addressed in outbreaks such as ebola and ebolaphobia, or resistance to treatment and acceptance of pseudscience. How to Survive the Next Catastrophic Pandemic. • Preparing for the worst - Like any prepper worth their grain of salt, it’s important to have the right supplies on hand. • Plan for the unexpected - The CDC says you should plan for the possibility that usual services may be disrupted, including those provided by hospitals, banks, stores, post offices, and telephone and cell phone companies. • Anticipate societal collapse - Okay, so you’re all set for the pandemic. But what are you supposed to do when the outbreak strikes. A common characteristic of epidemics is that misinformation runs rampant during the first few days, so be wary of information you receive during this time. At the beginning of [any given] outbreak, many of the things we thought were true turn out not to be true. • Don’t be a superspreader - we also need to think about what we should do in the event we are exposed or fall ill 1↑. BTW Pardemics and Epidemics Are Not Natural. #Document Global Catastrophic Risks 2016. How the Trump Budget Undercuts Security Risks Posed by Pandemics. The Trump Administration Is Ill Prepared for a Global Pandemic. ¶ The parademic concern about BioTrumpism is that conditions for major BioDisasters will be hastened and exacerbated, while concurrently decreasing the ability to identify, contain and control the capabilities to prevent, mitigate and respond to a biodisaster. So far there has only been speculation but now there is a analogy ∩ of how Trumpism will handle a biodisaster by watching how After the Missiles, We Need Smart Diplomacy is handled or mishandled 4A↑. Adroit handling will indicate that trends that increase the risks of biodisaster will continue. Mishandling will indicate that the ability to handle a biodisaster and parademic is lacking in terms of policy, decision making will continue to be based on the moment crisis without more information to anticipate event and consequences of action, and ability to use capabilities in coordination rather than piecemeal while idling other resources that will support the goal. If this does become a self inflicted disaster the default response of doubling down on the error will further erode and divert from biodisaster response (though CBRN capabilities will increase at the cost of public health), and will enhance narratives that the US is a loose cannon of global proportions that is not to be trusted 4↑.
-9. FDA Approves 23andMe's Genetic Test for Personal Disease Risks. Agency stresses that product labeling should show test not designed to diagnose, determine treatment or say anything about user’s state of health. 23andMe(Search) has been a watch topic for Parademic since its first introduction in 2013. Public, government and medical responses to it are indicative of attitude concerning genetics in general and as a source of medical conditions, and what is done with the information are indicative of both the state of art of the science, attitude and if there will be a surge in particular preventative measures and definitive diagnosis to determine risk. As a spur to what treatments (to include medical scams) are and become available will indicate general trends of how this knowledge will be used, ignored or suppressed. One likely area of use is for those who decide to have a child [Chart]. Genapolluza [Strip]. Before You Send Your Spit to 23andMe, What You Need to Know. How 23andMe Won Back the Right to Foretell Your Diseases.
-10. #Books: A War We Should All Support — But Probably Won’t is a review of Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. How we take that bad news depends on our threat matrix. Epidemiologists define such a matrix by a disease’s impact risk and emergence risk, or by the possible severity of an outbreak and our preparedness for it. H5N1 avian flu, for example, has a horrible impact on those it infects, killing over half of them. But since 2003, it’s infected just 858 persons out of seven billion. Still, another influenza pandemic like that of 1918-19 would be extremely severe, is certain to happen, and we are critically unprepared for it The Big One Is Coming, and It's Going to Be a Flu Pandemic. ¶ Most people don’t think like that. Our usual threat matrix is emotional, not statistical. Regardless of statistics, we’re scared of flying, but not of driving. And when Ebola broke out in West Africa a couple of years ago, Americans didn’t pay much attention. Then one Liberian turned up in a Texas hospital with Ebola and infected a couple of his nurses. The whole U.S. came down with Ebolanoia 2.4A, 4.1↑, 11↓ Pandemic Response a Cycle of 'Panic and Neglect,' Says World Bank President. ¶ The threat matrix offers grounds for real alarm. There are conditions aggravating our present situation. Expanding populations crowd into wilderness, releasing new bacteria and viruses like Zika. The idiotic abuse of antibiotics to create more and cheaper meat is leading to microbial resistance that will undo a century of infection control – a slow motion worldwide pandemic that will cost us 300 million lives and $100 trillion by the 2050s. 170319-9.4, 160529-3↓. This is well written that is also well informed by the author’s ten plus years of reading about policy and health. The only point I would make from my own bias of the social dimension in the larger context is the claim of emotional over statistical fact. It is good that the book and review both recognize that people are not “rational” thinkers. However; calling the decision making emotional is a dismissal based on unexamined assumptions. More simply it is incorrect. People don’t make decisions based of risk probability but on their perception of threat. The Odds Are 11 Million to 1 That You'll Die in a Plane Crash while 1 in 5,000 odds that you will be killed in a car crash makes fear of flying irrational and something to dismissed. However flying is still exotic and rare (mass commercial traffic started about 1940) compared to mundane driving (which began before recorded history, the modern conveyance not that very different to the animal powered vehicles). Bald fact is already known not to be persuasive against an instinct of some 200,000 plus years to avoid falls, where the rare air crashes receive massive media attention that include higher numbers of injuries and death of fatalities compared to the attention paid to a single car crash that are far more frequent and kill more. Last when one can vividly imagine being in a plane going down, and 0.00000909090909091 odds mean nothing when you are the one in the plane that is approaching the ground at the wrong angle and rapid speed. Emotional Intelligence. Wikipedia Articles on Plane Crashes Show What We Remember – or Forget.
-10.1. Man Googling ‘Tender Lump on Neck’ about to Begin Exciting New Phase in Life. For $6,000, Medical Tourists Seek a Hepatitis C Cure — and See the Pyramids. A Seemingly Harmless Virus Might Be Triggering Disease, its not the wheat, its something that is causing an immune reaction to the gluten(Search). Cancer Charlatan Belle Gibson: Con Artist or Delusional. It’s a Strange World, after All: Orac vs. The Shat and Fake News Over…Autism Speaks. William Shatner’s Tweets Are a Classic Case of Misinformation Spread, William Shatner Attacks Doctor for Educating Him, [Meme, Meme, Meme]. I Watched Alex Jones Give His Viewers Health Advice. Here’s What I Learned, there's a fungus epidemic, and Infowars’ Jones has just the supplements to stop it. Nope, Quenepa Has No Health Benefits. Ignorance is Strength. Consumers don’t want health claims to be supported by evidence. Is this the product of a industry campaign to derail new, science based regulations. ¶ Who Are You Calling Anti-Science. Those who reject vaccines or the climate consensus often embrace other legitimate areas of research. Skepticism about Skepticism. Calling someone a "skeptic" can be a term of praise orcondemnation. Too often, it expresses approval when the target of skepticism is a claim we reject, and disapproval when the target is a claim we hold dear. I might praise skepticism towards homeopathic medicine, but disdain skepticism towards human evolution. Flat Earth Rising.
-11. How to Understand the Resurgence of Eugenics. In 1883, the English statistician and social scientist Francis Galton coined the word “eugenics” (Greek - well born). The term referred to his idea of selectively breeding people to enhance “desirable” and eliminate “undesirable” properties. Seen as following Darwin’s theory of evolution, in the 1920s and ’30s eugenics gained important backing in England and the United States. Scientists and physicians spoke and wrote in its support. It influenced U.S. immigration policy, and states like Virginia used it to justify the forcible sterilization of the intellectually disabled. Today’s growing anti-immigrant and white nationalist movements are raising concerns about a return of this long discredited dogma. [Photo, Photo]. 2.4A, 4.1, 10↑.
↕C. Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) Corner [Logo]. Newsletter Archive. Why Work with Social Media in a Crisis. Social media can support message sharing in public health emergencies that are—like technology—quick and constantly evolving. Using social media channels with more traditional communication channels can help your organization spread urgent public health messages farther and faster. Social media can: Reach people where they are. Build relationships with the public. Help disseminate information in real time.
-C.1. Clear Communication Corner. Q&A with Marcy Friedman, Emergency Risk Communication Branch. Why do you believe health literacy is such a big problem in the U.S. What communication techniques do you use to appeal to those with limited health literacy. What tips would you give to our Emergency Partners to improve their plain language techniques. CDC’s Health Literacy Action Plan. #Documents: National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, Making Health Literacy Real: The Beginnings of My Organization’s Plan for Action.
-C.2. Alan Alda's Crusade to Make Science Talk a Jargon Free Zone. He noted that scientists, on the whole, were not very good at explaining their work to the rest of the world. As the program’s interviewer, he’d seen how they’d frequently transformed the simple into the needlessly complicated, how they often spoke in jargon and how, in the quest to put a serious veneer on their work, they could make exciting discoveries seem incomprehensible. At the end of the day, this type of fuzzy communication threatened the entire scientific enterprise because it alienated potential supporters. Science is was a mostly publically funded endeavor and legislators have difficulty giving money to something they don’t understand. His prescription of communicating in plain words that are entirely accurate, won a hooting, hollering, foot stomping ovation [Meme]. How to Tell an Engaging Story of Scientific Discovery. Tips for Creating the Perfect PowerPoint Presentation. Campaigning for a Fact Based Approach to Health Journalism. So why does Parademic have so much about communicating science, but itself violates clear communication to the general public. There is not much need of good science writers, but there is need for places to find related information quickly and speed up the publication of this literature.
-C.3. Not all communication is written or verbal. A Modest Proposal for the March for Science. March for Science: for a Good Cause, but Will it Do Good.
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