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Re: Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award (was Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy)
Mr. Lloyd-Jones - you are a lovely example of a little knowledge being a
dangerous thing. However, today you are in luck - you see, I am a
graduate student in the School of Social Ecology at the Univ. of
California at Irvine (I used to work in the Biology Dept. at the Univ. of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill, I'm still using the account there, you can, if
you would like, check and see that I have an account at UCI,
"jshields@uci.edu"). My main interest is pathogenic microbes in water.
Certain protozoa and viruses spread via an insect vector are also of
interest to me. Please excuse the references, I've been doing quite a lot
of reading lately - some of the questions you ask fall along my field of
study.
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.
[snip]
>This is so vague as to be meaningless. Which ones where. As I
>pointed out earlier, some diseases are up in some parts of the very
>badly governed US. this is purely a matter of the abdication of
>responsibility by the information-handling class, and can be easily
>cured by a few years of minimally competent government.
Let's see - there's _Giardia_ _lamblia_, _Cryptosporidia_ _parvum_,
_Shigella_ _dysentariae_, Norwalk virus, Hepatitus A (aka: infectious
hepatitus), and the new kid on the block _Cyclospora_ _cayetanensis_ -
just to name a few. As I said, well over a million people in the US are
infected and this number is strongly suspected of being underreported.
You can take a look at the EPA's Waterborne Disease Outbreaks
(EPA/600/1-90/005b September 1990) for a look at the trend from about
1970-1989. You might be interested in "Global Climate Change and Emerging
Infectious Diseases" in JAMA, January 17, 1996 - vol 275, No.3, pp217-223
and read the floowing books: _Emerging Viruses_ ed, Stephen S. Morse,
Oxford University Press, 1993. I'm sure I could come up with a few more.
>>>>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.
>As I told you earlier, malaria catches about 50 million people a year,
>and kills about twenty million. My partner (and all her family) has
>it. When we became serious she told me that she thought it might be a
>menace to me, and I should consult my doctor. I studied the subject a
>little, and I found that malaria is a big horror story. Some human
>groups, maily the Nilotics, are immune to it. Other groups, the white
>ones, live in places where the anopheles mosquito doesn't. When they
>go south they take gin and tonic with them.
Up to half a billion (500,000,000) people in Africa suffer at least one
serious malarial episode each year. In 1993 it was estimated by the World
Bank that within two years, due to loss of productive adult workers,
malaria cost African economies 1.8 billion dollars. Mortality due to
malaria in Africa was at an all time high in 1993 (The Economist, August
21, 1993: 33-34, nad the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (1991))
As for drug resistance, in some areas of Africa, virtually all malaria
cases were resistant to chloroquine by 1990. There is also resistance in
many parts of Africa, South America, and Asia to mefloquine, Fansidar,
quinine (there go your lovely gin and tonics), trimethoprim, quinidine,
and chloroquine.
You can read more about this and find a slew of other references (by
experts in the field - yes, I know, this isn't exactly fair, is it?
Apparently you missed a little with your "little reading" up on the
subject) in Laurie Garrett's book _The Coming Plague_, Penguin books,
1995. It won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction.
>The peoples in between die by the millions.
>This does not, however, support your hysterical claim that the disease
>is spreading. I stand by my earlier claim that both infection and
>fatalities are about constant, thanks to the balance between
>increasing urbanisation (more deaths) and increasing good health
>because of nutrition (fewer).
Perhaps you can cite some sources, if that isn't too much to ask. Sorry,
but I'm a scientist - not an armchair expert like you and therefore need
to do that oh so dull task of actually reading articles and books on the
subject.
>>>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).
>Quite right. I also encourage the spread of gin and tonic -- although
>I understand that US law tries to keep out tonic water made with
>genuine quinine. Bad move.
Yea, well, like I said above, quinine doesn't seem to be doing the trick
anymore (actually, it's been years and years since it did). Unless, of
course, you have references you can cite proving the efficacy of quinine
as a malria cure or prophylactic? Anything?
[snip]
>Confess, baby: I got it exactly right, spot on. A middle class
>standard of life, and there ain't gonna be any old tires int he
>backyard. Any time you build an asphalt road you also build the
>culverts to keep it above the marsh. More fish, and less swampt.
Tell that to Houston, "baby". That's how the Asian Tigar mosquito
(_Aedes_ _albopictus_) got into the US - through old tires in the
backyard, so to speak. It's quite capable of transmitting dengue, yellow
fever, Mayaro, Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, etc - and has been shown to
transmitt, in the wild, Eastern Equine Encephalitis. However, you do have
a good point in that mosquito eradication programs are helpful at reducing
the number of vectors and therefore the amount of disease. The trouble
is, these programs are generally the first to go due to cuts. Also,
people in the US are under the impression that vector borne diseases here
are non-existant. Them and those fellows slogging gin and tonics.
>A very geat deal of what human being do is good all around: we even
>get a better class of piscene neighbours for our troubles.
This is a good point. Can I assume you are involved in such a project in
your local area? Perhaps you can elaborate on this? Actually, I'm quite
sincere about this as this is something I'm very interested in.
[snip]
>>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.
>Drug resistant TB is cured the same way any TB is: good food and clean
>housing. If you have an emergency case you hit it with an antibiotic
>cocktail, plus saline, sugar, and maybe a bit of handstroking,
>monitoring, and a stimulant, in extremis a shot of adrenaline, to
>pull the human host through this huge attack.
Uhm, I think you're just a little off here. If a TB strain is drug
resistant then giving the patient an antibiotic cocktail really isn't
going to do much. Basically, what you are saying in the above it that we
treat the symptoms and pray the patient's body can do the rest. Isn't
that how TB was treated before the advent of antibiotics and other drugs?
BTW, is the treatment you are suggesting above based on anything in
particular? Can you cite a source or a reference? Actually, i guess I
could just check with my local public health agency seeing as though drug
resistant TB isn't all that rare around here and in LA.
>(Your implicit oint about drugs being used too much and accelerating
>the evolution of new beasties -- panic du jour, and reason for us to
>keep loving our drug companies -- has some truth to it, but not a lot.
>Soap is the most important drug we have. Bursts the little beasties'
>cellular shells. Something about the VanDer Waals forces of detergents
>that I used to know when I was in the coin laundry business. Maybe I'm
>the one sho should work for Proctor and Gamble.)
While soap is a very effective microbialcide in many instances,
Pseudomonas have been cultured from bars of soap - as well as from bottles
of Clorox. Actually, a friend of mine did a series of experiments along
these lines - she found that more bacteria was removed after the hands
were dried on a paper towel than simply after washing with soap.
[snip]
>>>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?
>The issue at that point was only the silliness of your rhetorical
>coda. I made fun of it. I guess I found a sensitive spot.
>Joan, you basically have good instincts, but you are woefully short on
>fact and long on conventional wisdoms.
Sad coming from a man so long on rhetoric and so short on the actual facts
of the matter. Then again, enough gin and you can rule the world, eh? :)
Like I said, either back your rantings up with some actual facts or slink
back to your gin and tonics (with real quinine) and do some reading.
joan
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