What Have been The Top Ten Diseases?

Interesting set of questions...

Paragraph 1: WW1 ended in 1918, largely before the flu epidemic. The minor overlaps between these death-dealers shouldn't be too hard to sort out.

P.2: How about the Black Plague, smallpox, HIV/AIDS, malaria, the 1918 flu in particular (plus some other influenzas), polio, syphilis, cholera, tuberculosis, measles (?),.... I'm running out of gas, but maybe schistosomiasis might go in there, as well as cardiovascular problems and sickle-cell anemia. Oops, that's 13.

P.3: Maybe, but governments are often inept.

P.4: Right on! But keep (3) in mind.

P.5: I didn't quite understand this.

Transcendian,

With "free will" man can arange anything from a picnic to a war in 20 minutes and wipe out the world population.

Our free will has nothing on mother nature. She can wipe us out and there is nothing we can do about it. Even all of the "kings horses and all of the kings men" can do anything to fix that.

Jon

Black Death = about 75 million deaths

Poliomyelitis = about 10 thousand deaths

Smallpox = about 70 million

Cholera = about 12 thousand

Ebola = about 160 thousand

Malaria = about 2.7 million per year — 2800 children per day

Bubonic plague = about 250 million or 1/3 the population of Europe

The 1918 flu pandemic = about 100 million

Influenza = 36 thousand per year

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome = 25 million since 1981

Be aware of Chagas disease

Top killer diseases in the developing world:

Mostly pneumonia and other diseases of the lungs, windpipe or bronchial tubes, including Legionnaire's disease — more than 4 million deaths a year

HIV/AIDS — 39.4 million living with HIV — 3 million died in 2004

Diarrhoea - caused by dysentery, cholera and a host of lesser-known scourges - is a symptom of infection from bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms like microscopic worms. Most diarrhoea-related deaths, particularly in children, are due to dehydration. — Kills around 2.2 million people each year. — Infection rate: 4 billion cases a year.

About 2 billion people are infected with TB and over 8 million new cases develop each year. Two million people die every year.

An estimated 530,000 measles deaths annually, mostly children. More than 30 million people are infected with the virus each year.

Whooping cough — 200,000 to 300,000 die each year. 20 million to 40 million cases annually.

Also known as lockjaw, tetanus is a potentially fatal disease of the central nervous system. 214,000 deaths a year — 500,000 cases a year.

Over a million people contract a form of meningitis every year. 174,000 deaths a year.

Syphilis is primarily spread by sexual contact, though it can be transmitted internally from an infected mother directly to her baby. 157,000 deaths a year. Around 12.2 million cases worldwide.

Did someone say Tuberculosis?

Guest,

Did someone say Tuberculosis?

Yes. In the post right before yours.

Jon

You are a cheerful lot. Lock the doors, batten the hatches...

Let's look on the bright side; all the fun we can have replacing them?

Seriously, I have already advocated paint balling to replace real wars.
Opposing sides both field a team of paint-ballers, to decide the winner.
Everyone goes home alive and well. No mutilated limbs, bodies, or pain.

Bug warfare is a killer (pun) just immunise your side, wait a few days,
and then give your opponents a good dose, aerial dispersion, whatever,
stand back; and then take over after nature has done the task for you.
Save a mint; on chemicals, explosives, wasted man-hours, and lives;
with the added bonus of having the infrastructure and everything intact.

Like the farmers, don't fight nature, work with it. (don't let them do it first!)

The real answer (IMO) is education and understanding.
Education - from childhood to be sympathetic to the other person's point of view,
and resolve to agree a mutually beneficial answer. Failing that arbitration.

Unfortunately not every person is so educated. Even those who are, are then
honed by circumstance to create the aggressive, unreasonable nature of the many.
Overlay this with the base desires of human nature and one wonders why
we are not all raving, pathological, sadistic, self serving morons. (are we?)
Even do-gooders, can create havoc; is there any hope for mankind.

If one had the persuasive power to influence the country there could be
radical changes in the education system - and - we would all be very kind,
approachable, reasonable, understanding, ..... wimps?

Whatever happened to the survival of the fittest? I give up. Next.......

jt

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV
will be fought with sticks and stones.

Dear Icarus, your post is helpful to my study, near now to a thought experiment. My Thread Start post was not concise and simple.

I have been drawn to study WWI for because it came out of the MultiPolar Power Balance now in play. As the League of Nations was created out of the ashes of WWI, and failed to prevent WWII, then leading the United Nations, which existed and did some great good during the Cold War, the Bi Polar Power Balance, and now seems to be floundering, wonder if the United Nations can in fact be ReInvented.

The role of the World Health Organization in wiping out Smallpox is no small thing, and I feel safe to say it is as profound a success if not more important and wonderful as landing on the Moon.

You have grasped the problem that is on my mind, and read between the lines.

World War I is confusing. Our time is confusing.

Jared Diamond in either Collapse, his companion to Guns Germs and Steel, makes the point that History and Political Science are the same thing.

Often the need for improved education is mentioned as required if we are to overcome the threats to our possible graduation from a Small time species, to a Big time Species.

How is it that the UN fails to take more of a role educating come from the agendas unreconciled that you have brought into the discussion. -Thanks

It's not that I didn't entertain your insinuation it's more a recognition of the plethora of TB/influenza strains being an needle in a haystack.

Some of the widely known TB/AIDS, influenza SARS, Swine flu etc. for which are no known cure.

Is it that you think our food production has been disrupted in a manner which overall nutrition deficiency may again contribute to a pandemic?

P.S. Prior to the start of the war in Iraq, I determined that the United Nations needed to claim more space in the Mental Landscape of TV Land if the war was to be prevented.

There is Fox and Al Jezzera, and C-Span. UNTV does exist on the web, and there is a direct feed of what it is apparently only available in Manhattan.

When I wrote up a 24hour proposed schedule for Time Warner, the VP of Programing at the time, was not even aware of the fact that her company actually did what little distribution of UNTV, is done.

The role of "Propaganda", and the media in both the good and the bad that we experience and do, is known.

The spread of the Spanish Flu was facilitated by troop movements across international borders while the war was being fought. In fact according to my readings on Wikipedia the H1N1 "Spanish Flu" would more properly have been called "The Kansas Flu", for apparently it originated in Kansas, but due to censorship, was only freely reported in the press of Spain.

Disease starvation and poverty are byproducts of War.

In the course of human history there have been periods when there were limits to war, if only in that armies were defeated, and the war ended.

War with diseases is constant, and can be compared to the constant conflicts fought below what is generally called "War", but continues day in and day out between the Spies.

The Pandemics, such as "Spanish Flu" are facilitated by War, as it is clear that had the US not been sending soldiers from Kansas to other parts of the world to fight, its worldwide impact may well not have been as great.

I might be able to bring some of these thought more properly and comprehensively together later, but I'm feeling sort of sick right now.

Trans et al,

How is it that the UN fails to take more of a role educating come from the agendas unreconciled that you have brought into the discussion.

The United Nations is not a government so it has no power to say what individual nations can and can not do.

Things get done when the member Nations meet together and agree on issues and make decisions and sign the documents and actually do what they say they agreed to do.

If you want to see things happen don't expect it to come from a facade with no stuff behind it to support it.

When the member nations are not there there is no United Nations.

The people of the world have to push from underneath to get their representatives to dedicate the resources to common goals and request any cool stuff that will make life better on this planet.

A lot of nations are still wincing from the attacks of the bully nations like Japan, Germany, Italy, to name a few, and their past allies. Others are under oppression from unjust leaders at many levels in their countries. Even big China wants to mess with anyone who aids the few Uighurs from their far western province that were at Gitmo because they were found doing business in Afghanistan.

Who has the balls to be the Sheriff for the UN and make his country a target of terrorism or even declared war from the next bully who throws a tantrum?

Jon

The UN is a dysfunctional body. There are many conflicting agendas. The five permanent seat members of the security council is more bi-polar than my ex. I believe that in order for it to work. Those who chair and or run comities and enforce the rules that all members singed on in order to be members of the UN, should be countries that at the very least make a transparent attempt to adhere to those rules. The blatant and flagrant disregard of the conventions and treaty's, such as the international human rights convention is violated by some members, of which are some of the loudest protesters of other nations said abuses.

As for the UN ability to enforce its self; it has been done. After Kruschev finished pounding his shoe on the table at the UN and boycotted the security council meeting the resolution was passed to aid South Korea. Ther fore the Koren War.

As I remember the last nation that made the attempt to be the Sheriff for the UN was the US. And all that got them was terrorism and scorn from other so called UN members. Did they do the right thing? I have my own opinions based upon history, and history will always be the judge.

The League of Nations failed for the same reason the UN is failing today. Self serving and inward looking National aspirations and or fears. During the cold war the two major players were held in check by MAD (mutually assured destruction). They opted to play out proxy wars instead. Still allot of people died and the UN turned a blind eye to the mess. Today the whole geo political structure has changed. Regional conflicts and nations run by government's that do not have their own peoples best interest at heart are the new norm. Tribalism, race, sect, religion, whatever. whether inside a country or against another is rearing it's ugly head. The UN has done nothing to acknowledge this or even admits that it is happening. Please note that at one time, Irac under Saddam was scheduled to head the disarmament committee, due to the rotation schedule.

Can the UN be reformed? I hope so as it the best thing we have at this time.

Last year I had the opportunity to go to Normandy France. I visited the beaches and the cemetery's. I also went to Bayeau. This exposed me to the history of Europe. Since recorded time they have been killing them selves in wars for the same excuses of today. I do hope that the European Union works out. After WW2 the the presidents of France and Germany reached out to each other sat down and agreed that killing each other for the last several hundred years had not work out well and that a new way was needed. That was the seed for the EU. That meant that they decided that their citizens were more important than national self interest or fear. It was a bold leap. This does not mean that national self interest has vanished. It took nine months of negation in the EU in order to define a banana.

Please note that I consider my self a conservative by nature. That said, I do study history and I am a realist.

"Those who do not learn the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them in the future".

Icarus,

Cool.

Jon

In my go arounds with the UN, Time Warner, C-Span, The UN Foundation, RTI, and others in my attempt to create a more effective UNTV System I came to feel more in agreement with Ambassador John Bolton, than I preferred.

While it is certain that the League of Nations failed, and the UN is failing, I am not certain that the reasons are more than best simply called "a failure to adapt".

Andre` Lewin of the French UN Association has written a practical set of point for "Reinvention" of the UN, which have so far since 2002, gained little traction.

(He did amend and add to his points for "Reinvention of the UN", my Transcendian Point concerning United Nations Television, though he did not go so far as to accept my Confederation of Culturally neutral airports to take up the "Exile Island" function as part of its duties in cooperation with the UN, and as part of the Reinvention.)

It has been said that the United States Constitution was saved in spirit by the Bill of Rights. It would appear that a "Bill of Rights" sort of event is required of the UN Charter if it is to adapt, and not fail, as did The League of Nations.

I have said in the past that the perfect resolution to the end of the Cold War, would have been Statehood for Russia, since they would have gotten from that a tradition of contract law, and the BiPolar Power Balance that worked would have been recreated in relation to China.

As it has turned out we have the more dangerous situation as presaged WWI, and it is more and more likely weapons of mass destruction will be used again.

At least during the Cold War, and the Proxy wars you mention, Apocalyptic Riot, and the use of Thermonuclear devices did not happen.

Unless Weapons of Mass destruction are made universally illegal, we can expect that sooner or later, they will be used.

The US, by itself, will not be able to prevent this. Unless there is an institution that has force independent of even the US to even take away such weapons from even the US, they will be used.

BWire made a fine and perfect list of ten powerful diseases, nearly twice for he then listed new diseases.

Still in neither case has he listed insanity, which is a disease we all seem to share as a common part of our humanity.

Doubtless I've got my share and aint to proud to admit it, or challenge anyone to prove they don't have a kernel in them too.

The League of Nations, and the United Nations both vowed to end war, and then well, okay, prevent illegal war...

How really can we expect or imagine that to be possible if they have no real army, or armed secret forces charged and empowered to kill to make that happen?

Alliances are contemplated and made with the Taliban who abrogate every conceivable human right given by the UN Human Rights Laws, (conventions). Hell, I hear since they are not to have the company of women they dress young boys up as girls and use them like girls to get around theological edicts.

Sounds pretty sick to me. You could call me whatever politically incorrect names you wanted for having severe objections to such religiously motivated practices.

At least in the US they of late have gotten around to hauling the Catholic Church into Court and taking money from them for condoning similar corruptions of the spirit.

To stay on topic I suppose I am bound to demand that insanity be put first on the list of human disease, from which all others are maintained and allowed to flourish, or created.

P.S. One reason to work towards "Reinvention of the UN" is the success of the World Health Organization in ending the daily threat of Smallpox, another is to enable it to continue to work to make clean drinking water available to mankind.

I don't consider insanity a disease, it has been termed mental illness to escape the stigma of insanity but it's more akin to a condition such as blindness. Though either maybe caused or contributed to by a disease neither can be classed as disease.

Hi bwire,

I would not consider insanity to be ease unless it is an early retirement plan for having someone take care of you every need.

Would it be a malady, infirmidty, affliction, or mental illness.

It seems that insanity is generally characterized by a chaotic nature of the afflicted person. No ease there.

These are all under the heading of dis-ease.

I would think that Mental Illness is a label for a condition that is not chaotic. Depression fits that.

Blindness is not "crazy eyes". (Can't find an emoticon for crazy eyes.)

Jon

And there are increasing numbers of people who think that immunization is more dangerous than the diseases that it is meant to prevent.

My baby brother almost died in 1956 because friends of the family were early members of the non-immunizer community. My brother caught whooping cough and even though he was hospitalized he had to be flown to a bigger city, several weeks later when my mother brought him home the doctor said that he had expected to send my brother home in a box. The non-immunizers also had a son with a very badly club foot who could have used the services of an orthopaedic surgeon, Price was not a concern because the city we lived in was the first in Saskatchewan that had a form of Medicare. Kids under a certain age even got free dental care.

I am sorry for babbling, but this touches a raw nerve with me. Kids also deserve the best that medicine can offer, one of my three sons had a crooked foot and he was in braces before he could crawl and surgery wasn't required

Where kids require special orthopaedic care and the parents can't afford it, thats what the good men from the Shriner's and other similar hospitals are for, no one should have to go through life with unnecessary handicaps that could have been fixed. I can't imagine a God, no matter how you define Him that would not punish parents who submitted their children to unnecessary pain and suffering or handicaps.

I have to agree with you on this. some parents do not immunize their children either for religious reasons or misplaced fears of vaccinations. Their reasons are based upon either junk science or anecdotal statements. The facts and the mathematics are real. Due you tack a vaccine that my have a .01% chance of causing a serious side effect or take a 50% chance of getting the disease that my kill or maim you.

The latest flavor of the year is that vaccinations cause autism. Autism has been around as long as we have existed. During this time it has been labeled and relabeled. There for there is no true empirical evidence to support this claim.

There is a concern of Mercury being present in vaccinations and also that a particular battery of vaccinations were begun upon infants that many believe may correspond with an increased incident rate of autism during the same time frame.

Is the content of Mercury in a vaccination of an amount greater than an infant can metabolize?

Google Thimerisol, as it is the main preservative of some vaccine's. The more you read, the more conflicting it gets.

Mercury is a debilitating poisonous substance, the body doesn't metabolize it an so it is a IQ limiting procedure to subject children to, simple.

I'm not taking it

Actually Bwire, if you are born after 1955, you probably don't need it anyway.

However if you were born after 1955, the vaccine is recommended regardless of whatever Mercury may be in it. We can tolerate certain amounts of poisons which actually are not poisons all the time, depending on the dosage.

I myself am a bit less likely to eat Tuna, due to the reports of its Mercury levels, but imagine whatever Mercury to be part of HINI vaccines of less threat, and greater benefit, since it may hold off a deadly disease.

It has not been that long that Smallpox has not been killing us. Witch doctors have succeeded in keeping Polio around to kill or maim us.

If you don't want to get a vaccine, it is your right not to do so.

Take it to another level though. What if the threat was E Boli, and there was a little Mercury in the Vaccine?

I hear that what they do with E Boli patients is put them in a straw hut, and shove food on a plate to a slot, and then when the patient stops taking the plate, they burn the hut down.

"Sorry about that Mom."

Truly I applaud all the governments that have taken the H1N1 flu seriously. It's similarity to the H1N1 of 1918 is striking, and that flu is reported to have killed 5 percent of the population of 1.6 billion at the time.

Cemetaries where I have played Frisbee Golf, are very populated from the year 1918.

My current study is WWI, which has led me to study the flu.

Hence my recommendation that youths get the vaccination against it, and I point to Smallpox as a Victory, and Polio as a defeat.

Sarrs was a victory as well, even in this weird time, brave people fought it, and won. The struggle with disease really is something mankind does, worthy of honor.

Clinical Solutions

http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/1/3/574/pdf

In Canada almost all vaccines have no Mercury based preservative's. That said. You are more likely to get more mercury from a Tuna sandwich then a vaccination with a preservative.

That is sort of what I thought Icarus.

As well I am under the impression that physicians do have a minimum age for administering the vaccine.

However, Bwire does deserve a GA for his two lists of diseases.

I am still grappling with the relationship between War and Disease, and inspired to further understand the successful precedent of an end to Small pox, and then wonder why that operation in detail has not been replicated regarding Polio?

Witch Doctor opposition to vaccination as a challenge to their positions and power would seem possible to overcome, as they obviously were regarding Smallpox.

Some of the utility of the model country, Transcendia does prompt me to think as if I had a real nation to protect.

If all Transcendians are fairly educated, I ought not have to demand, or make a decree saying all must be vaccinated. Internationally I cannot expect levels of education needed to overcome the WitchDoctor effect.

Hence counter to the ideal, the reality calls for Authoritarian actions, at least within my borders.

Then to target disease threats external to the nation, I am called to look at what diseases are most common in the War Zones. For my people then first it is those diseases for which to establish consistent protocols.

My Transcendian internal policies and protocols must be good enough so as to be internationally attractive, on their own.

Only then could I turn to other nations and say, "Your diseases threaten my people, and your people will not be allowed on my airport, unless you adopt my standards for disease control."

Actually I do not really have to reinvent the wheel here, but only put together the best of what is, and what has been.

P.S. I'm having a little upset over the use of the Transcendia name. It is copyrighted. Neither the Band, or the two new companies appearing are associated with me or my country/company. -Oh and I have another question: Do you think a nation can ethically justify covert action in the goal of preventing the spread of preventable diseases?

This could be a perpetual conversation. For as long as there has been history and ideals there has been dissent as to the enforcement of the government and moral/ ethics of the day.

Vaccination is mandatory in Canada as it is a requirement for public schooling. This is where it slides of the rails. There are many faith based schools, not all, that dot not believe in vaccination. As a result we have a permanent reservoir for certain diseases that we should not have.

As for war and disease: This should be obvious. War makes a mess of things.

The first casualty of war is the truth. That is why the Spanish flu was named so. It started in the United States, but due to censorship by the allied powers of the day the only real reporting on it was the Spanish media. There fore; Spanish Flu.

The second casualty of war is the government of the people. Wheater it is the opposing military or your own, they have an objective to gain. The government's of that moment direct their military towards those goals. This usually comes at a cost to the civilian's stuck in the middle.

Case in point: My parents grew up in Nazi occupied Holland. My father knew that the war was real for him when a Panzer tank ran through his school and ended his education at grade six. As the war progressed he spent most of his time looking for food and fuel. The Nazis started to rape the country more as the war progressed. All infrastructure started to fail as the occupying power did not care for them. The government was a puppet state, run through the Nazi regime. Other than the Gestapo, exposure and starvation, the biggest fear was lack of sanitation. The Netherlanders are notorious for their cleanliness. As the war progressed , civil infrastructure that you and I take for granted broke down. Potable water and sewage systems began to fail. In history most major epidemics were water borne. you can see where this is going.

My parents considered the selves lucky as they were in the south of Holland, and liberated early by the Canadians (a more interesting story), virtually anything north of Nimegin starved to death.

"A bridge too far"

That said, there was a time not long ago the incidence of Mercury contamination was unheard of, the idea of purposely injecting any amount of Mercury into my blood stream isn't found in my Psyche.

I hazard to ask you if you have ever been vaccinated for either Smallpox, or Polio?

In my own case, I was vaccinated for Smallpox, and took the sugarcube for resistance to Polio as done to, and told too prior to any loss of innocence, and a trust in authorities and parents.

If I had the money I'd go get another shot against shingles, which come from having had measles.

Certainly nobody is really asking you or anybody else to get a shot of Mercury.

Mostly it is recommended that you do get vaccinated, if not for your own sake, but for the sake of others in relation to communicable diseases.

In relation to Aids, it is a crime to sexually communicate the disease. How far do we go?

Can we go so far as to make it illegal to go to work with a Cold?

We cannot do that unless we provide income to the person afflicted in the form of Sick Leave, either paid by the Employer, or then the Nation, now can we?

E Bola is a good candidate for all out eradication efforts by either an individual nation, or a United Nations institution such as the World Health Organization.

As a strategic move I would put Immunization Offices on every International Airport.

Every Transcendian Airport is to have an inner and outer circle replicating the Napoleanic Siege strategy which is well suited to Airport Defense.

One circle looking in, and one circle looking out, is an efficient use of manpower in a time of constant conflict.

My reason for pointing at E Bola as a good candidate for all out assault by whatever means possible, and leapfrogging Polio, is the horror of it that has limited it, while it is still a threat.

In a way I am cynically saying that because it is horrible, and horrible actions are applied in relation to control of it, that we may as well go all the way to wipe it out, as it is simply doable due to the horrors of it, that have prompted extremes we as all humans evil and good, do not want to be faced with.

When it is your mother, or your child who has contracted a disease, and you know you will die if you touch them, would you save yourself?

Whom do we doom to such choices?

Can we stop?

I too got the small pox vaccination and the sugar-cube for polio in much the same way.

E Bola is a good candidate for all out eradication efforts by either an individual nation, or a United Nations institution such as the World Health Organization.

I completely agree with your statements concerning E Bola

It is that I think it irresponsible of the pharmaceuticals to produce vaccination containing Mercury at all, what is the reasoning? No amount of Mercury is safe.

When it is your mother, or your child who has contracted a disease, and you know you will die if you touch them, would you save yourself?

Yes...

Whom do we doom to such choices?

Choice is a human prerogative.

Ebola as horrible as it is is what is considered a firestorm disease. Like the Hanta virus is is very virulent and kills it victims quickly and then burns its self out due to lack of people to transmit it too. Unfortunatly these types of diseases have a natural non human resivoir. there fore they are with us for ever. Other diseases such as AIDS, gonorreha, syphalis, the human form of TB, etc. are only hosted in us. Only education, vacination and world wide coperation will remove them from the list of suffering.

Thank you very much Icarus.

It was good of you to correct me as far as diseases to target in light of the success with Smallpox.

Even though Transcendia is a model nation, I make attempts to make sense.

Since I started out as a Godwin Anarchist wherein only Defense, and Education are required of the government, I have now and again run up against realities.

Certainly the cross species diseases will be more difficult to get rid of.

Which one do you think now easiest to elimiante?

Polio would be the first and easiest to eradicate as there are two very effective vaccines for it. All it requires is political will and global cooperation as with eradication of small pox. The next is all sexually transmitted diseases. This will take simple education and over coming social, moral and religious barriers. Good luck with that one. The next level of eradication would be all water born diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, etc. Sanitation is the key. Europe was an absolute death factory until the governments of the day decided that throwing out your excrement on to the streets and drinking from contaminated wells was a bad idea. Note:the royalty of the day always lived up stream from the cities. Sanitation requires infrastructure. This requires basic governance in the interest of the people. There any many nations that either have either a totally failed state (Somalia, ranked number 1) or have such poor governance (Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of Africa) have led to a complete and total breakdown of infrastructure. The result has been that certain water born diseases that have not been seen for decades are now back in full force.

The number one disease that affects humanity is its self.

My reason for this is the following: When one individual or a small group of like wise individuals can impose themselves upon the majority of a nation for what ever reason (political, ideological, moral, social, religious, basic greed, etc), bad things will happen. Think death and pestilence. Or the rest of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

The western world has became what is is due to two things:

1: Separation of church and state

2: Democracy

"A poor democracy is still better than a well run dictatorship/ communist/ fascist or theocratic regime"

Is ther hope? As I stated before, Europe was once a continuous blood bath. Now they have the EU.

"Hope Springs Eternal"

Makes sense to me.

The question becomes how to cause imitation of the successes.

Are we doomed to always co-exist with the Dark Ages?

In consideration of all of the problems we have, I wonder how it is that there is ever any unemployment for the able bodied.

The balance between Government imperatives, and Private Enterprise has not been found often enough.

A success, such as eradication of Small Pox must provide lessons that are commonly understood, and emulated.

Why is it that even I don't know right now who is the final hero on a work that spanned three centuries?

Was no great artwork inspired? I've sure not seen a World Health Organization Poster with the caption "We Wiped Out Smallpox".

-Join us in wiping out Polio.

Chrisg288 ain't been around lately, but I am sure he could create a nice poster like the "Join the Army" posters so effective and iconic that have moved men to dress in uniforms during the Modern Age.

The conflict within the US over Health is pathetic in that it ought to be obvious that defense against disease is more important than strict capitalistic profit motives.

Casket makers and undertakers have an interest in death, but do not typically need to murder people. -I'll leave the sentence to stand, though I don't yet know how to convolute it to make full sense.

As far as improvements to shared infrastructure that promotes good health, I am forced to conceive of an international shadow government devoted to all that is needed to provide that universally that recognizes overt and covert imperatives, and will violate national boundaries in pursuit of a baseline of human health.

Imitation is not required, as ever situation is different. All that is required is rational thought based upon the best information of the day and the best interest of the people at the time. Communism had a great ideal. It was a total and dismal failure as it was based upon the collective ideal. Put ten people in a room, ask a single question and you will get about 14 different answers (This is about the same result with economists and policy analyzers). Worst yet, it allowed a single individual to run the system for ever.

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"

Co-exist with dark ages? NO: we have access to knowledge. Knowledge is power and power is knowledge.

As for the employment of the able bodied. That is a complete and different story. Much to the disbelief of todays socialists and chattering classes. There are a certain group of people that find work an inconvenience and as they have belief in entitlements with out responsibility. The concept of society to them is a joke. My sister, her husband of the moment and two of her children are a perfect example of this mess. All are able bodied. They only work long enough in order to qualify employment insurance.

There will never be a perceived proper balance between Government and private enterprise/ civilians until the entire planet thinks the exact same thing at the exact same time (not going to happen).

The eradication of Smallpox should be a shining beacon to the world, as is something important too all of Mankind.The most understated item is that was achieved with out any political/ military/ social/ economic/ moral/ religious, etc. agenda.

Those who conceived that program and carried it out were true hero's.

MOST OF US PALE IN COMPARISON

As a hero's work that spanned three centuries, that is open for debate. What was the work? What were the results? What is your context?

No great art work: Alas; Pandas are cuter than a virus.

The US Health care debate: I have been following that mess. You would be better off tip toeing through the Tulips. Except these botanicals have Claymore's and "Bouncing Betty"s" attached.

Casket Makers: Death like taxes, is a given.

Well said...

The eradication of polio has resumed but what of producing a vaccine for malaria?

We may have been instrumental in stopping a form of stem cell research but baby shouldn't be a target for medical business especially the business of killing human baby's. As I understand it other methods are now recognized to harvest cells for this research.

Agreed, the condition of water is globally paramount as most informatively expressed

Here , how do you propose each facet is to be ordered to conceptualize the whole?

Hi Bwire,

"what of producing a vaccine for malaria?"

See #47.

DDT did ok until the skeeters developed immunity to it and killed a lot of things that ate them. One of the significant anti-malarial "miracle" drugs no longer works. We need to retain malaria and the sickle cell trait so we will be able to resist it as and have it in our arsenal as a potential weapon for survival.

Due to clever interference the malarial problem is now worse than when it was left alone.

Dr Frankenstein would cringe in fear at some of things we do in our ignorance of how nature works the balances.

Scientists will challenge God (or mother nature) for being able to create until God tells them to get their own dust and stop messing his up.

Jon

I read you long post and appreciate the rant

Bwire,

Thanks.

I am glad it is not a rant. It is a statement of available facts.

It would make a good rant though. I could pop some swear words in there and smack a text occasionally.

Jon

DDT has been and still is the most effective anti mosquito chemical around. They never developed resistance to it. The biggest problem with it is that it like dioxin, it does not break down in nature, and it went air borne. This resulted has been unexpected problems and disaster's. Contaminated Polar Bears in the high Arctic are one example. If you want more information, read a book called "Silent Spring". That book was considered to be the kick start to the environmental movement.

Please note that there are several African nations that are so desperate to control Malaria that they are now considering the use of DDT.

DDT used in the same area looses its effectiveness. The surviving Mosquitoes produce an immunity.

DDT can be used in areas where it has not been used until the same thing happens.

Jon

Malathion is effective too

Bwire,

And fly swatters etc etc

You should see those big skeeters in the Arctic on a warm summer day after a few cold summers. They are big! And there were CLOUDS OF THEM.

I saw a bunch of them carrying off one of the smaller Air Force dudes one day.

Jon

Aids that is the worst.

I don't know, one friend said it was like getting old real fast.

Some early work is documented AIDS being a form of TB.

HIV and TB mycobacteria are a lethal combination. Someone who is HIV-positive and infected with TB bacilli is many times more likely to become sick with TB than someone infected with TB bacilli who is HIV-negative. Most frightening is the fact that more and more cases of drug-resistant TB are appearing in HIV-infected patients, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Health Organization estimates that every second someone in the world is newly infected with TB bacteria. One-third of the world's population is infected with TB microbes. Most infected people will not develop pulmonary TB because the immune system "walls off" the TB bacilli and allows them to lie dormant for years. However, when someone's immune system is weakened, the chances of becoming sick with TB are greater. TB mycobacteria are known to be "pleomorphic," in that they can exhibit various growth forms in culture and in tissue. "Pleomorphic" forms of M. tuberculosis and other species of "non-tuberculous" and "atypical mycobacteria" have been studied for decades for their effects on human illness. Unfortunately, scientists rarely pay attention to these pleomorphic forms; and pathologists rely primarily on the demonstration of the "typical" acid-fast rod forms of mycobacteria to diagnose tuberculosis and/or mycobacterial disease (See Figure 4). This is unfortunate because the acid-fast bacteria that are demonstrable in AIDS and cancer (and certain other immunological diseases) are primarily pleomorphic and "filterable" forms, which often go unrecognized.

Mav,

There is nothing wrong with AIDS as long as you don't get or spread the cause of it.

Kind of like loaded guns. They never harmed anyone unless they were handled.

My car is the same way. it can take out a lot of people too.

Jon

How or is it your research doesn't use these sources? With deaths from famine and disease separate.

Trans et al,

Any organization that educates people to survive in a natural way is ok in my book.

Man will never eradicate disease and it's effects. Nature is better at doing this balancing act without interference.

As your sources point out, man has done wonders in many areas of medical and other sciences. However, disease is one of the things that provides for our survival as a species. It is one of the things that makes us adapt to the deadly natural progress of things that are also going through processes of defensive adaptation that may kill us or keep our population in check so they too can survive. For example, plants go through a process to protect themselves from things that feed off of them too much. The Acacia tree produces a heavier dose of Tannin when animals feed off of it too much. The enzymes that allow fermentation in the digestive tract of the animal are neutralized by the increased Tannin and the animal dies and the survival of the trees and the number of ones that feed off of them are balanced.

Man, due to his free will and high level of intelligence, is out of balance with many aspects of nature due to ignorance to the fact that to continue attempts to defeat nature will defeat us.

As an example, we have so many miracle drugs that no longer work because we have misused them and given greater strength to the diseases they were designed to combat instead of allowing the natural process in man that would allow man to adapt and maintain a survivable balance in nature. One might say that we have created a Frankenstein's monster in the process.

(There is nothing wrong with repairing physical damage to the body unless it is caused by shooting one's self in the foot or head. Darwin Awards forthcoming for them!)

Education is most necessary. For example, in the equatorial west Pacific one of my grandsons got nailed by a poison reef creature when the family was collecting food at low tide. My son always builds a fire and heats part of the water brought for cooking and drinking for such an event. The poisons of some of those creatures is so fast acting that you would never make it to the medical facility to be saved by a scientific method. Many sea creature poisons can exist as long as they are at a certain narrow range of temperature. So grabbing the boy and running up to the fire and putting the stung foot or hand in the appropriate temperature mix of hot and cold water caused the poison to be neutralized with out permanent damage to the foot or hand and extended the time for taking him to the hospital to be checked.

You have heard, or read, the old saying "If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger."

Knowledge (education) is one of those strengths. In the old time the boy would have died within an hour for lack of this knowledge.

Knowledge allows us to handle, prepare and eat those things. Gives new meaning to undercooked foods doesn't it?

Many people in the world died from pandemics of influenza and other dressed diseases at different times in history.

I lived for a while in the western Alaska Arctic where entire villages were decimated in the early twentieth century. The old folks had tragic stories to tell of their villages dieing all around them and wondering when they would be next. It is this handful of survivors that populated those places today and passed on their immunity to the new generations.

Another example is how Sickle Cell Anemia is controlled: Sickle-cell anaemia (or drepanocytosis), is a life-long blood disorder characterized by red blood cells that assume an abnormal, rigid, sickle shape. Sickling decreases the cells' flexibility and results in a risk of various complications. The sickling occurs because of a mutation in the hemoglobin gene in response to many generations of infestation of the malaria plasmodium. The survivors passed on the trait, however life expectancy is shortened, with studies reporting an average life expectancy of 42 and 48 years for males and females, respectively. Children don't grow very well so you could have a whole group of small people like the ancient ones found in burial caves in some areas of Malaysia and the West Pacific.

Sickle-cell disease, usually presenting in childhood, occurs more commonly in people (or their descendants) from parts of tropical and sub-tropical regions where malaria is or was common. At least four independent mutational events, three in Africa and a fourth in either Saudi Arabia or central India and beyond. These independent events occurred between 3,000 and 6,000 generations ago, approximately 70-150,000 years. One-third of all indigenous inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa carry the gene, because in areas where malaria is common, there is a survival value in carrying only a single sickle-cell gene (sickle cell trait). Those with only one of the two alleles of the sickle-cell disease are more resistant to malaria, since the infestation of the malaria plasmodium is halted by the sickling of the cells which it infests.

Strict traditional dietary controls prevent people from suffering the seasonal effects of the sickle cell trait. Eating certain things at certain times prevented sickling of the red blood cells and then at certain other times those foods were forbidden to be eaten to aid in the sickling of the cells to protect them from the malaria plasmodium. If science cures this sickling trait people who would otherwise survive would die from the malaria because of the prevention of the sickling trait. Large areas of the world would then become deadly forbidden zones because of the loss of a protective genetic trait.

Distribution of malaria from 1900 to 2002

This map shows the results of the international eradication programs during the 20th century. In 1900, malaria was found as far north as Boston and Moscow. Today malaria is endemic in the tropical areas of Asia, the Americas, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Forty-four nations eradicated malaria through a cooperative multinational campaign. The campaign involved wide-area coverage with pesticides, use of anti-malarial drugs, and destruction of mosquito breeding sites. Most of the change occurred in temperate climate zones of the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The program stalled when mosquitoes started becoming resistant to the pesticide DDT. Today, malaria remains endemic and kills more people than ever before in tropical areas of Asia and the Americas, and in much of sub-Saharan Africa, which was never part of the global eradication effort.

Resistance to antimalarial drugs like chloroquine is widespread throughout much of Africa and other parts of the developing world where malaria transmission is high.

Good intentions gone wrong?

There are a bunch of people in the world that have a resistance to infection by HIV. The percentage of the population that has the resistance increases from 2 percent from the eastern Mediterranean to 15 percent across Europe to Iceland. There is a population in an area between the black Sea and Baltic Sea of Europe that has a 21 percent resistance. It is where a large diaspora of Jews settled long, long ago. Exposure from a similar or the same virus must have hit them at some time in history to provide such a pattern. The rest of the world has pretty much zero resistance to HIV infection.

There are those who pray for such immunity but would not desire to marry or be with a woman from any culture with a high resistance to HIV and have offspring to pass on the trait and ensure survival of their family lines.

A Surdopedagog from the Soviet Union explained to me how deafness in children became a greater problem when a miracle drug that stomped out a disease unrelated to the ear, nose and throat, had a side effect that damaged or destroying hearing. It was bad enough that ENT infections were causing so much deafness anyway.

This is one reason that some folks in "third world" countries cry out that our western medicines will do more harm rather than help. It is not a total lie. Of course the "witch doctors" don't want to be displaced in their cultures in favor of fly by night do-gooders. All foreign medical programs should be passed on by the trained locally trusted traditional systems so the people will be better served. Even Louis Pasteur was laughed out of town by the ignorant authoritarian "medical witch doctors" and superstitious religious leaders of his day. He was not a medical doctor but he was right about mild exposure providing defense against stronger exposure.

Mother nature will wipe us out if we interfere and there is nothing we can do about it except to learn how to duck, adapt and survive or die out and be replaced.

Sorry for the length of this.

Jon

I found it interesting and helpful, so the apology was not required. I have been known to go on at length on occasion.

So far it would appear possible and desirable to end Polio.

Clean water has been gaining as a concern, and how to increase and maintain supplies is going to be tough.

Trans,

Clean water certainly is a concern. Even in places that have the resources the water can be dangerous to people visiting from pure water societies.

The local people are more resistant to the junk in their water and also use it more wisely than the unsuspecting visitor. One group of people decided that Spaghetti was a safe bet at a rural cafe In Uzbekistan. They all got sick. The Spaghetti was safe until the cook cold-water-shocked it from the water supply instead of boiled and cooled water.

For a visitor microflora in the tap water can cause diarhea and associated stress that makes it worse. A pot of green tea and chicken noodle soup seems to help me a lot.

Our hotel kitchen staff did not seem to take seriously that we were so delicate. Most of our group was effected. One of our group got Shigella. The CDC contacted all of us so we could deal with the possibility of having experienced associated symptoms.

Our friends and relatives there were aware of the precautions needed for our safety.

The Shigella disease can be acquired as well. Shigella infections may be acquired from eating contaminated food. Shigella infections can also be acquired by drinking or swimming in contaminated water. Water may become contaminated if sewage runs into it, or if someone with shigellosis swims in it.

Simple precautions taken while traveling to the developing world can prevent getting shigellosis. Drink only treated or boiled water, and eat only cooked hot foods or fruits you clean and peel yourself. The same precautions prevent traveler's diarrhea in general. "Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it!"

Major pollution problems include industrial effluents, rural animal wastes, and agricultural drainage waters. Problems exist also with food, such as high nitrate pollution of melons and from high fertilizer applications that boost early production. We used to depend on the huge melon market to provide safe delicious fluid intake.

Point-of-use water treatment is seen as being valuable, due to imperfect headwater treatment. Water-borne illnesses, in particular hepatitis A, seem to be very high in Tashkent, Uzbekistan where we visited again last August and September. Even so, Tashkent is seen as having the best water treatment in the country, whereas health problems are especially prevalent in the Aral Sea area. Populations in towns and villages in salinated areas around the Aral Sea have higher incidences of kidney stones and intestinal tract problems due to poor water quality. A water treatment plant is being built in the city of Khorezm to solve some of these

Polio? Nasty stuff! Infection or vaccination with one serotype of poliovirus does not provide immunity against the other serotypes, and full immunity requires exposure to each serotype.

If everyone in the world was exposed to every known disease there would be less of a problem after the dust settles.

Blah blah blah again.

Jon

I don't envy travelers anymore.

I remember traveling and relocating much of my life up and down the east coast, and up into Canada, and getting right tired of it.

I have mentioned before that touring theater and music shows stick with their own caterers and carry or buy one brand of bottled water so as to insulate the group from local supplies, they are not tolerant of.

A guy I spoke with from the local University was telling me outlooks for water were actually very bleak as the reality was that only 2 percent of world water was potable.

Trans,

Perhaps with 20 percent of Earth's fresh water in Lake Baikal we should negotiate a contract for a share of it.

Jon

as a last resort I always thought some plastic in the yard for tent condensation dew a last resort. Last drought there wasn't even dew.

I do live on some of the greatest real estate in the world.

The local politics are very interesting.

The ardent halfbrains and the elites with money and power are in alliance so as to sink in blissful irrelevance and self satisfied illusions and greed.

They even dance around sand sculptures and spout "Diversity" while making sure there is none.

Halfright the Facists of fashionable "Stop the World" piss me off, and piss on me. Saints do nothing. Only the mean make decisions.

The Great Lakes in north America have 22% of the world fresh water. Thats just the beginning. Just look at a hydrological map of Quebec Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The problem is not a shortage of fresh water, but as any real estate agent would say: location, location, location!

I was thinking of fresh water that you can drink without serious processing.

There only one significant sized city on Baikal.

Jon

I would drink strait out of Georgian Bay and most northern lakes any-day.

Man is definitely out of balance with nature and that his been for thousands of years. The fall of the Mayan an Incan empire's, were due over farming and deforestation. Specieces ere wiped out centreis agp. The Jennie is out of the bottle and ther is no going back.

Icarus,

For sure.

The imbalance is on a much larger scale today. There were few people on the planet back in those days. Today our planet is overwhelmed with human population added to the animals and the current natural climate change combined with the impact of industrialization. North America has less impact than the populations and industry of Europe, India and China.

Kuduk

Went to my site to file Policy Paper, and experienced slowdown like my harddrive was dying, or the keyboard was dying, or there was some other problem.

What I wanted to do was make a case for International and National systems that institutionally provided a basic foundation for world wide civilization at its most possible.

The individual enemy and the common enemy in town or on the planet seem impossible to force into friendship and co-operation all at one time.

In past writings I once said, "All One World Government Will Do, Is Make All Wars, Civil Wars."

Let us imagine here that we are a cabinet and have come up with a consensus decision about where to put resources to fight correctly, and pragmatically diseases.

The paper issued to the press would press for renewed secret efforts and actions insured to eradicate Polio, partly because it is doable.

Does seem that part of the reason Smallpox was successfully contained was that anonymous people just worked on it as a matter of course.

Royalty participated early on, and this does imply that aristocrats are not all bad.

Frankly I am suspect of any governmental system and only care that my class be treated fairly and will support those that give Human Rights to men and women be they Monarchy, or Democracy, or Lunacratic.

Secretly published here on CR4, I recommend that health spies be deployed to fight Polio.

Second I recommend a Supra National Water Authority empowered and funded to provide all with clean water.

Transcendian: Unless Weapons of Mass destruction are made universally illegal, we can expect that sooner or later, they will be used.

(See Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Vietnam.) We have met the enemy and it is ... ?

Us?

Did I somewhere have to say "again'.

Ex CIA guy I know tells me the Russians told him that 85 of their "Tactical Suitcase Nuclear Bombs", are not accounted for.

Some may have been left in Afghanistan, along with 42 or so Stinger Missles the US has tried to buy back.

It is reported that at least two are known to be in North Korea.

Saying is on the subject of Nuclear Weapons, "Don't worry about the people that want a hundred, worry about the people that want one."