The Next Pandemic May Come From Meat Farms

 Almost all the meat we eat today comes from industrialized factory farms, AKA Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs. Globally, 90 percent of the world’s meat supply comes from CAFOs, and in the US, it’s close to 99 percent. CAFOs may be tough on farm animals, but they’re ideal for breeding virus and bacteria mutations new to human immune systems. A Vox video.

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Disease Tracing in 1854

Using data analysis and interviews, Dr. John Snow figured out how a cholera outbreak was speading in mid-nineteenth century London. A Vox video by Phil Edwards.

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Spanish Flu Wasn’t Spanish

The 1918 influenza pandemic did not start in Spain. Europe’s WWI censors forbade discussion of the widespread disease, but neutral Spain’s press reported freely, so the illness became known as the Spanish Flu. A 2018 Cambridge University video

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New Diseases Come In From the Wild

COVID-19 was bound to happen. A Vox video.

Related:

“From Bats to Human Lungs, the Evolution of a Coronavirus,” Carolyn Kormann, The New Yorker

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Florida Spring Breakers May Have Spread COVID-19 Nationwide

Despite Coronavirus concerns and social distancing advice, thousands of kids packed Florida beaches during Spring Break in early March. See where they went after that in this video by Tectonix GEO.

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Prevent COVID-19. It’s in your hands.

Wash your hands, often. Stay home. When you must go out, maintain social distance.

That’s it. There is no vaccine, no magic cure.

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Larry Kudlow Leads Trump Administration Coronavirus Fight

The Trump Administration’s rapid response to the Coronavirus threat was led by National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, who announced on Tuesday that the COVID-19 epidemic has been “contained” in the United States. “We have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty close to airtight,” he diagnosed on CNBC. Mr. Kudlow’s concern, like that of his master, Donald Trump, was with one major disease symptom, a severe decline in the Dow Jones Index.

Larry Kudlow, while not a physician, is as qualified to advise on the disease epidemic as he is to be National Economic Council Director. He isn’t an economist either, and his financial prognoses are consistently wrong. In the case of the COVID-19 epidemic, epidemiologists at the CDC warn that its spread in the US is imminent. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness,”said National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Dr. Nancy Messonnier.

Homeopathic Snake Oil Fuels the Measles Crisis

Kate Birch, a homeopath based in Minnesota, is a leading quack in the lunatic anti-vaxxer campaign behind the raging measles epidemic plaguing America’s children. Homeopathic products are essentially small vials of very expensive water or alcohol masquerading as preventatives and cures for diseases and ailments. Substances they contain are so diluted that the products are essentially placebos.

Why, you may ask, doesn’t the FDA regulate this kind of bunkum? An original Senate sponsor of the 1938 “Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act” was a dean at a Homeopathic Medical College, and made sure the act identified all homeopathic swill as drugs. Existing FDA regs are, appropriately, watered-down. Since umpteen-hundred scientific studies show that homeopathic medicine doesn’t work, even the woo-woo department of NIH, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, points out that homeopathy is bunk.

More:

“US homeopaths claim ‘therapies’ prevent measles and ‘cure’ autism,” Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

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The Donald’s Diagnosis

In a three-page, 881 word statement Monday afternoon, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump clarified statements he made on June 16th. Mexican immigrants, he claimed, are not just drug dealers, killers, and rapists; they’re responsible for “tremendous infectious disease … pouring across the border.”

There would be good reason to fear immigrant-borne epidemics if vaccination rates in Mexico and Central America were not among the highest in the world. The measles vaccination rate in those countries, in fact, is higher than that of the US. “If anything,” points out Peter Weber, “those countries should be concerned about Americans coming down to visit.”

Of course, it’s not like Mr. Trump believes in vaccination … or climate change or Barack Obama’s Hawaiian birth, come to think of it.

So Donald Trump is no physician. Neither is Maria Konnikova, but she offers a very convincing diagnosis of  Donald Trump: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Related:

“Donald Trump’s most delusional statement yet: ‘I’ll win the Latino vote,’” Sophia Tesfaye, Salon

“Donald Trump: The Democrats’ Best Campaign Asset,” Bill Humphrey and Stephan Richter, The Globalist

“Donald Trump is the ultimate opportunist: Why his racist theatrics—and surging popularity—explain everything about the modern GOP,” Heather Digby Parton, Salon

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In the USA, the Real Plague Is Fear-Mongering.

The Ebola virus is deadly for those who catch it; i.e., most of them die. But it’s transmitted by contact with bodily fluids, so it’s not very contagious and spreads slowly. You’re very much more likely to catch and die from the Flu. Unlike the Flu, Ebola isn’t transmitted through the air, but that doesn’t stop American fear-mongers from poisoning the political and media atmosphere with Ebola panic:

“‘Fear-bola’ hits epidemic proportions,” Mel Robbins, CNN

‘Ebola Is Bringing Out The Worst In Cable News,” Joaquim Moreira Salles, Think Progress

“PBS science reporter: Fox’s Ebola coverage is ‘a level of ignorance we should not allow,'” David Edwards, Raw Story

“CBS Medical Correspondent Shuts Down Fear-Mongering On The Transmission Of Ebola,” Media Matters

“You’re more likely to die of a shark attack or bee sting than contract Ebola in the US,” German Lopez, Vox

“Some Fear Ebola Outbreak Could Make Nation Turn to Science,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker