Pathogenic RNA viruses began to prey in earnest on humans around the time of our industrial revolution. As the human population exploded and then increased its density by a massive effort of urbanization, it also changed land use to encroach on wildlife. Such changes continue today, unabated, even accelerated, as the human population attempts to achieve its final doubling. There is currently tremendous encroachment on wild animals.
Health insurance executives themselves are at risk because they’ve put profit before public health, says Joe Lauria.
Dr. Michael Osterholm of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research at University of Minnesota warned this week that the U.S. was unprepared for a Covid-19, and that the health crisis will get much worse in the weeks ahead: “Right now, we’re approaching this like it’s the Washington, DC, blizzard — for a couple of days, we’re shut down,” Osterholm said. “This is actually a Coronavirus Winter, and we’re in the first week.”
Peter Van BUREN
Nothing is more viral than fear. Fear—fight or flight–is a terrible way to make decisions that call for time, science, and rational thinking. Want to screw up a public health crisis? Let fear drive.
Daniel LARISON
The federal government’s inadequate testing for coronavirus over the last two months has meant that the authorities have been oblivious to the full extent of the outbreak in the U.S.:
U.S. right-wing radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, to whom Donald Trump recently awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor usually bestowed upon those who have markedly improved society in some way, recently suggested that the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, was nothing more than the “common cold” that was “weaponized” by opponents of Trump to use it against him in this year’s election. Such pandering to those on the lunatic fringe who oppose modern science and medicine, including vaccinations, is not limited to the radio airwaves.
DETROIT — The first signs that something was amiss surfaced in the weeks before the 2016 election, when public-health officials began to notice one patient after another walking into a clinic, or hospital emergency room in the Detroit metropolitan area complaining of the same symptoms: nausea and vomiting, pains in their stomach and joints, fatigue, fever, loss of appetite, yellowing of the skin and eyes, dark urine, and pale-colored feces.
It didn’t take long for the medical community to hone in on the culprit: hepatitis A.
In 2001, Portugal decriminalized the use of all drugs – weed, cocaine, heroin, you name it. Portugal decided to treat possession and use of drugs as a public health issue, not a criminal one. The drugs are still illegal but getting caught with them means a small fine and maybe a referral to a treatment program – not jail time and a criminal record.
Rachel Carson is, and should be, a revered environmental icon. But her crusade against one pesticide cost millions of people their lives.
