Some Like It Hot! A Century-Old Disease on Our Southern Shores

By MIKE MAGEE Naomi Orestes PhD, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard, didn’t mince words  as she placed our predicament in context when she said, “If you know your Greek tragedies you know power, hubris, and tragedy go hand in hand. If we don’t address the harmful aspects of human activities, most obviously disruptive climate change, we are headed for tragedy.” At the time, as a member of the Anthropocene Workgroup, she and a group of international climate scientists were focused on defining and measuring nine “planetary boundaries,” environmental indicators of planetary health. At the top of the list was Climate Change because, one way or another, it negatively impacts the other eight measures. Not the least of these “human perturbations” is the effect of global warming on access to clean, safe water, and the impact of violent weather cycles and rising sea levels on concentrated urban populations along coastal waters. A less recognized, but historically well documented threat, is exposure to migrating vectors of disease as they contact unprepared human populations beyond their traditional camping grounds. The threat of avian flu among migratory birds has been well covered. Equally, over the past decade, North America has seen a range of novel infections, especially along our southern borders, from dengue, to chikungunya, to Zika. The southern United States and its coastal populations are firmly in the cross-hairs. Their ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Policy Avian Flu Climate Change Pandemic Sea level change Yellow Fever Source Type: blogs