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World sees an explosion in new infectious diseases (And it's all our fault!)
Mercury News ^ | May 4, 2003 | SETH BORENSTEIN

Posted on 05/04/2003 11:44:47 AM PDT by FairOpinion

Edited on 04/13/2004 3:31:06 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

WASHINGTON - Get used to SARS, West Nile, Hantavirus, Ebola, Nipah, Hendra, AIDS and other new nasty infectious diseases. Health experts say we're living in a new age of infections.

And we have mostly ourselves to blame.

The nation's top scientists say that environmental, economic, social and scientific changes have helped to trigger an unprecedented explosion of more than 35 new infectious diseases that have burst upon the world in the past 30 years. The U.S. death rate from infectious disease, which dropped in the first part of the 20th century and then stabilized, is now double what it was in 1980.


(Excerpt) Read more at bayarea.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aids; diseases; ebola; hantavirus; infectious; sars; westnile
Well, what can I say? It's all the fault of technology and industry and social inequality. Right!

It's amazing how far some of these leftists go to try to blame everything on the industrialized nations.

He ignores the millions who died of smallpox, plague, etc. throughout history, before industrialization.

1 posted on 05/04/2003 11:44:47 AM PDT by FairOpinion
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To: FairOpinion
I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks there is more poverty now than in the past is just stupid, and has nothing of interest to say on any subject.
2 posted on 05/04/2003 11:51:21 AM PDT by The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
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To: The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
I was being sarcastic.
I think the article was stupid, I just posted it as demonstration of how far some are willing to go, to even use these epidemics to further their socialist agenda.
3 posted on 05/04/2003 11:57:36 AM PDT by FairOpinion
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To: FairOpinion
I didn't mean you were stupid, I was talking about Dr. Fred Sparling, who said, "We have...more poverty and social inequalities, which clearly add to it."
4 posted on 05/04/2003 12:03:11 PM PDT by The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
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To: Thud
FYI
5 posted on 05/04/2003 1:47:18 PM PDT by Dark Wing
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To: The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks there is more poverty now than in the past is just stupid, and has nothing of interest to say on any subject.

Problem is that a lot of what we call poverty today was called wealth in the past. I'm old enough to remember when claiming to eat "three squares a day" (meaning being able to afford three real meals a day) was claiming a degree of real prosperity. Today, obesity seems to be a major problem among the poor (in this country).

6 posted on 05/04/2003 2:19:57 PM PDT by templar
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To: FairOpinion
If we throw money at the diseases, they will go away. Let's give Africa MORE money.

(/sarcasm off)
7 posted on 05/04/2003 2:37:00 PM PDT by nonliberal (That makes sense. Not to me, but it makes sense.)
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To: FairOpinion
Those 13 factors are microbial adaptation and change;...

Should have stopped right there. Have these guys ever heard of Hospital staph?

Also, resumption of the controlled use of DDT would eliminate a lot of the insect carriers.

8 posted on 05/04/2003 2:46:49 PM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
So true, one wonders too if any of these "experts" ever had first hand experience in the levels of sanitation existing in third world countries or the improvements in sanitation in the last fifty years of so? And, I guess our fore fathers never came into contact with wild creatures while expanding across the continent.
9 posted on 05/04/2003 2:54:14 PM PDT by DugwayDuke
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To: FairOpinion
I'm reading a book on American Indian history. They got hit with influenza, smallpox, measles etc.when the Spanish arrived.

At the same time, Europe got hit with syphillis,either from the Americas or from Africa, brought back by sailors.

Bubonic plague spread down the silk road, partly spread by Gehngas khan's armies, but also spread thanks to the increased trade in Europe and between europe and asia.

Ancient Rome got hit by importing Malaria from north Africa, and then plagues from their battles with Persia.

Much of the AIDS Ebola etc in Africa are spread thanks to the trans African road and the movement of tribal peoples into cities.

Maybe we now have more germs going around in a shorter time, thanks to airplanes and increasing travel by even common people.

So maybe we should go back to the good old days, when everything you ate or produced was used locally, where to travel 6 miles by foot to town to go to a fiesta was a big trip, and where local illnesses wiped out the villages but didn't travel to the next village thanks to isolation.

10 posted on 05/04/2003 3:25:36 PM PDT by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: FairOpinion
Well, what can I say? It's all the fault of technology and industry and social inequality...

Yeah, and that we've got a Republican administration! By Jupiter, we never had these kinds of problems when Bill Clinton (or even Jimmy Carter) was in power. (sarcasm)

11 posted on 05/04/2003 5:10:08 PM PDT by yankeedame ("Born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.")
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To: FairOpinion
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
- T. S. Eliot

12 posted on 05/04/2003 5:28:14 PM PDT by green team 1999
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To: LadyDoc
Some autopsies showed that some Europeans had symptoms of syphillis 2 centuries before the discovery of the Americas. It may well have been Europeans who spread it since it wasn't a disease that lent itself to openess.
13 posted on 05/04/2003 9:02:07 PM PDT by pragmatic_asian
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To: FairOpinion
Those 13 factors are microbial adaptation and change; human susceptibility to infection; climate and weather; changing ecosystems; human demographics and behavior; economic development and land use; international travel and commerce; technology and industry; breakdown of public health measures; poverty and social inequality; war and famine; lack of political will; and bioterrorism.

I was paying attention to this article until this list!! Really crazy!! How the he!! does "lack of political will" cause disease? What is political will? I love "social inequality" too!

14 posted on 05/04/2003 9:38:09 PM PDT by First Amendment
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To: FairOpinion
Gee, I don't know, I'm not afraid of gettin' HIV, Hep-C, Ebola, Hunta, Polio, TB, Small Pox, SARS, West Nile, Malaria, etc....

But then again I don't have sex with other men or shoot up heroine so my immunity isn't as low as most democrats.

15 posted on 05/04/2003 9:41:56 PM PDT by Porterville (Screw the grammar, full posting ahead.)
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To: FairOpinion
It seems to me that most modern day disease is due to VICE not political will.
16 posted on 05/04/2003 9:45:27 PM PDT by Porterville (Screw the grammar, full posting ahead.)
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To: pram
"Those 13 factors are microbial adaptation and change; human susceptibility to infection; climate and weather; changing ecosystems; human demographics and behavior; economic development and land use; international travel and commerce; technology and industry; breakdown of public health measures; poverty and social inequality; war and famine; lack of political will; and bioterrorism. "

The article would have been a lot better had he expounded on the factors. Of the 13 factors, I only see 4 that have changed, that put us more at risk. The others have either not changed, or have put us at less risk.

Factors listed which haven't changed.


17 posted on 05/06/2003 11:36:06 AM PDT by DannyTN (Note left on my door by a pack of neighborhood dogs.)
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To: FairOpinion
"Our" fault? Who do they mean? Republicans? Greedy Capitalists? NFL fans? Gearheads?

What'd I do now?

18 posted on 05/06/2003 11:37:17 AM PDT by Petronski (I'm not always cranky.)
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