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Re: Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award (was Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy)



On 4 Dec 1996 19:30:18 GMT, joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) wrote:
>>Uhm, actually, infectious diseases aren't going down - not everywhere.

David Lloyd-Jones <dlj@pobox.com> wrote: 
>Infectious disease has gone down sharply, which is why we have a
>one-time leap in population from a billion to ten billion.

Huh?  Could you please explain this further - I'm not quite getting what
you mean.  Infectious disease has not gone down sharply and if you check
with the CDC and WHO you can see for yourself.  Some infectious diseases
have gone down and yes, compared to a hundred years ago the incidence is
lower in many places HOWEVER, the incidence has been going up in the past
twenty-thirty years.  

>>Malaria is spreading -

>Uh, just exactly what do you mean here?  

Exactly what I said.  It's the most important infectious disease in the
world today.  Check with the World Health Organization if you don't
believe me.

>Some white guy caught it, so
>it's a disease now?  

Well, actually, quite a few "white" guys have caught it.  As a matter of
fact there are cases of locally aquired malaria in Florida.  It used to be
endemic in the US, in North Carolina until 1941 or so.  Mosquito
erradication programs are what did it and continue to do it (still very
important as there are other mosquito transmitted diseases).  

>About fity million people a year catch malaria,
>and about twenty million die from it.  The figure is flat, and the
>geographic areas affected are shrinking.  More people are exposed to
>it, in bad urban water and sewage supplies, but more are protected by
>reasonable diet.

Actually, the number of people affected is larger.  Like I said, if you
don't believe me you can check with the WHO yourself.  They even have a
www page.  As for the means to protect oneself from malaria - at the
moment there are a couple of prophylactics available though most drugs
used to combat the malaria parasite are ineffective due to resistance on
the part of the protozoa.  Back in the 1960s, flushed with the success of
smallpox erradication, there was a large scale attempt to erradicate
malaria.  It didn't work.  In fact, today we have pesticide resistant
mosquitos and drug resistant parasite all over the world.  

While a reasonable diet will certainly help a person cope with the
disease, I was unaware that it had a hand in preventing it?  Does it
protect the person from being bitten by the mosquito or does it prevent
the parasite from infecting the body?  Perhaps you could explain this
further?

>The cure for malaria is known: alphalt roads, piped water and sewage,
>air conditioned houses.  If we could make malaria a serious problem
>for white people, no doubt this solution would be implemented toot
>sweet.

The cure for malaria is all that?  I think there's a little more to it
than that although the water bit is a good idea.  Remove where mosquitos
breed and you'll certainly help the situation.  As for the rest - you
might have something there although malaria causes enough economic loss in
the world and an awful lot of people are working on it... 

>>the incidence of waterborne disease in the US has
>>been on the rise since the 1970s (well over 1 million people a year become
>>ill in the US and this number is assumed to be underreported).  There are
>>many emerging diseases and many reemerging diseases (i.e. Tuberculosis).
>>You can check out the CDC web page (http://www.cdc.gov) for more
>>information.  Of course, then there's the influenza pandemic....

>These are all true, but the population of the US is only about 5% of
>the whole, so it doesn't matter much.  All of these problems are
>attributable to the late medieval policies of the government there,
>and will be cured in about eight years flat if they ever pull
>themselvs into the twentieth century.

Exactly how will this be done?  You do know about the problem with drug
resistant TB et al?  I have the feeling you don't have a lot of training or
know a lot about infectious diseases in the world let alone in the US.

>>Some things are getting better and some things are getting worse but the
>>bottom line is that some things need to change - or else. 

>Help me get a fix on things: is that a tautology or a redundundancy?

Listen, if you can't be bothered to argue in an intelligent and thoughtful
fashion - why the hell should anyone even consider your viewpoint?  

[snipped nonsense]
 
>Hey, Joan, you're really good at that stuff.  Have you considered a
>career with Proctor and Gamble?

Address the issues at hand.  If all you have to argue with are lame
personal attacks, why bother? 



joan




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