-1. Environment + Health ≠ Separate Categories, 2. Climate and Isolation, 3. One Health Resolution, 4. Corrupted Health, <CONT >1. ASF Outbreak Status – Exploitation, Gubergenic, Europe, Asia, Economic
Other Topics: BioPolitics, Biosphere, Disaster, Humor, Anthropocene, Anthropogenic, Communication, One Health, Environmental (Climate) Change, Human Factors, Social Dimensions, Narratives, Infectious Disease, Polemic, Vaccination, Mephetic, Unintended Consequences, Misinformation, Bioeconomics, Lyme Disease, Ticks, Secrecy Fosters Outbreaks, Tree Rings
-1. When taking a global perspective and filtering the interpretation though of the biosphere as a wholistic (w added to avoid confusion with pseudoscience holistic) system, there is a tendency for categories to blend. Take Lyme for instance (190825-Vaccine-9). One could look at it as an isolated category of disease, which would be valid and appear to be complete. However; if one considers it animal reservoir carriers, it vectors and how it interfaces with humans a different picture emerges, but one that seems incomplete. Then add other physical aspects such as expanding range/ forced migration of its carriers, changing patterns of warm and cold period that enhance the disease and its vectors, the shift of its carriers ranges, the forced interface of the invasive species vector with human populations with decrease in biomes while concurrently interfacing more frequently with anthromes, one has a larger frame, but less clarity between different aspects. Add to this then human social aspects of pseudomedicine, conspiracy theory, political agendas, fear, lack of knowledge and unwillingness to gain data to improve knowledge, refusal to acknowledge the extent of the environmental change that are exacerbating the syndemic with other pathogens, and one has nearly complete picture, but one that raising more questions.
-A. Before delving into the topic of parademic (human interface with the biosphere calamities) individuals likely believe they understand what environment and health are, how they are alike and how they are different. But with the increasing recognition that environment and health are different perspectives of the biosphere this clarity becomes more informed and less substantial on what the separations are. In simple terms health is the optimal internal biome of individual organisms, while the environment is the whole interconnects systems of bio and geospheres. But one cannot be a healthy organism in an unhealthy biosphere, while a sick individual means that the environment is sick. The concept that health and environment are strongly connected can result in beliefs that to some seems absurd$: Warming air means there will be extreme cold weather, vaccines don’t give people the disease, that frequency of diseases can increase but not necessarily become more severe, and pregnancy could become shorter because of environmental changes. Can You Pass this 9 Question Climate Change Quiz.
-B. Three of the several negative parademic consequences of blurring the meanings of health and environment are interrelated phenomena of uncertainty, despair and conflict. 1) Magical thinking and logical fallacies tend to appear in the behavior under uncertain conditions. Those who need certainty are easily exploited by those who appear to offer certainty. It is very likely that those who exploit uncertainty will also want to generate more uncertainty. 2) With loss of meaning there is a tendency toward depression, fear, increasing stress and hopelessness. Despair is likewise exploitable with offers of false hope, providing targets to blame, and invention of alternative narratives that portray opinions and subterfuge as fact. 3) Conflict is an inevitable result as different interpretations and perception filters interact, especially it one narrative is obviously true and correct, while other narratives are malfeasance. Tick Act Passed by Congress, but How Much of $150M Goes to Lyme Disease Research.
-2. In Ancient Scottish Tree Rings, a Cautionary Tale on Climate, Politics and Survival, a 1600s famine with echoes in the age of Brexit. Using old tree rings and archival documents, historians and climate scientists have detailed an extreme cold period in Scotland in the 1690s that caused immense suffering. It decimated agriculture, killed as much as 15 percent of the population and sparked a fatal attempt to establish a Scottish colony in southern Panama. The researchers say the episode – shown in their study to have been during the coldest decade of the past 750 years – was probably caused by faraway volcanic eruptions. But it was not just bad weather that brought disaster. Among other things, Scotland was politically isolated from England, its bigger, more prosperous neighbor that might have otherwise helped. Propelled in part by the catastrophe, the two nations merged in 1707 to become part of what is now the United Kingdom. Such a famine related tragedy was never repeated, despite later climate swings. Complexity in Crisis: The Volcanic Cold Pulse of the 1690s and the Consequences of Scotland's Failure to Cope.
-3. U.S. Senate passes Bipartisan 'One Health' Awareness Month Resolution designates January 2020 as “National One Health Awareness Month” in the U.S. to promote collaboration between public, animal and environmental health scientists. One Health is a relatively new term being used by health experts – including at the U.S. (and other) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – to better focus on the linkages between human, animal and environmental health and the need to develop comprehensive solutions. For instance, public health specialists are now working with physicians and veterinarians to minimize the inappropriate use of antibiotics in human and animal patients to combat antibiotic resistance. Global health problems including antibiotic resistance and the spread of infectious diseases can be more easily addressed. The health of our population is dependent on the interconnection of people, animals, and the environment,‘One Health’ and its growing collaboration is needed to make our world a healthier place. This resolution is contrary to the current administration policy but may still be signed as it is a health goal that sounds good but unlikely to result in anything.
-4. Corruption in Global Health: The Open Secret. Corruption is embedded in health systems with entrenched dishonesty and fraud. Despite being one of the most important barriers to implementing universal health coverage around the world, corruption is rarely openly discussed: the magnitude of the problem, how it started, what is happening now, fears around the topic, what is needed to address corruption. Policy makers, researchers, and funders need to think about corruption as an important area of research in the same way we think about diseases. If we are really aiming to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and ensure healthy lives for all, corruption in global health must no longer be an open secret.
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-19929-3>. Exploitation: Chinese Criminal Gangs Spreading African Swine Fever to Force Farmers to Sell Pigs Cheaply So They Can Profit. Commercial Pig Farm in China Jams Drone Signal to Combat Swine Fever Crooks.
-A. Gubergenic: Inspectors Warn Unsafe Pork Could Make its Way to Consumers under Trump Rule Change. Workers Sue over Trump Administration Rule That Speeds Inspection of Pork Products.
-B. Europe: Hungary Finds African Swine Fever in Wild Boar near Budapest. The Role of Outdoor Farms in the Spread of African Swine Fever in Europe. Urbanization and Disease Emergence: Dynamics at the Wildlife - Livestock - Human Interface. ASF Moves to Within 40km of German Border, Germany Bolsters Efforts to Stop African Swine Fever, issuing leaflets, posters and social media messages in several languages urging people not to throw away waste food in border areas.
-C. Asia: African Swine Fever Kills Nearly 30,000 Pigs in Indonesia. Philippine Farm Official Warns Hog Traders as Swine Fever Spreads. South Korea Confirms New Cases of African Swine Fever in North Korea Border Town. North Korea Seen as Weak Link as Swine Fever Spreads in Asia with South Korea is deploying snipers, installing traps and flying drones along its border as it ramps up efforts to stop wild boars from spreading swine fever.
-D. Economic: China's Hog Herd May Drop by 55% from Fatal Swine Fever: Rabobank. African Swine Fever: An Unexpected Threat to the Global Supply of Heparin. African Swine Fever Will Impact Global Protein Market for Years. As Swine Fever Fries China Vaccine Sales, Boehringer Rewrites Prescription for Recovery disease decimated sales of unrelated mainstay vaccines. China's Mutant Pigs Could Help Save Nation from Pork Apocalypse. Indonesia Confirms African Swine Fever Outbreak. Brazil's 2020 Pork, Chicken Exports Seen Growing as China Swine Fever Disruption Persists.
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