"Rachel Carson is responsible for the death of millions of defenseless Africans"

Providing false or misleading information in some cases produces devastating consequences. Today millions of people around the world particularly in Africa, suffer from the painful and often deadly effects of malaria all because one person sounded a false alarm. That person is Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 bestselling book Silent Spring. Many have praised Carson including the EPA, for raising concerns some legitimate about problems associated with the overuse of chemicals. Yet her extreme rhetoric and unsubstantiated fabrication of the truth generated a culture of fear, resulting in policies that have deprived many people access to life-saving chemicals. In particular, many nations curbed the use of the pesticide DDT for malaria control all because Carson created unfounded suspicions about the chemical. Despite the fact that DDT was banned without public health justifications, many people still believe it is dangerous to public health. While Rachel Carson did not rule out some limited use of DDT, she greatly contributed to perceptions that it was dangerous, which advanced extreme approaches like government bans. Rachel Carson’s legacy is one of misinformation that has cost countless human lives and still continues to take its toll even to this day.

Malaria is often a fatal disease caused by a protozoan that is transmitted to humans via mosquito bites. According to the World Health Organization, malaria kills more than a million people a year, mostly children, and makes more than 300 million seriously ill. Ninety percent of malaria’s victims live in Africa, and most of them are children under the age of five. In Africa, one in 20 children dies from malaria, according to one estimate. Malaria greatly hinders development of Africa and exacerbates the serious problems they already endure due to poverty. However, DDT is still effectively used by some nations for malaria control. For example, Ecuador, which has increased its use of DDT since 1993, has some of the greatest reductions of malaria rates in the world. South Africa relied on DDT until 1996, but then suffered from serious malaria outbreaks after it discontinued use because of environmentalist pressure. Despite the devastating toll associated with reduced use of DDT, many government agencies and environmental activists have been reluctant to change their views due to the misleading information documented by Rachel Carson. Rachel Carson was wrong, humans have now been exposed to massive amounts of DDT without showing significant ill effect. Likewise, unlike Carson’s fables, malaria is a harsh reality today, killing more than a million people a year and making 300 million seriously ill, mostly in the developing world.

Mercury

Mercury can cause permanent damage to your brain and central nervous system, resulting in behavioral or learning problems. It is especially dangerous for young children and fetuses, whose brains are still developing. The health effects depend on how much is absorbed and for how long a person is exposed. For more information checkout the link below…

http://www.mercer.edu/enp/Hg_Knighton.pdf

A list of predominant parasites and infectious diseases of concern for each continent of the world.

Africa

Parasites:

Malaria

Hookworms

Schistosomiasis

Fasciola hepatica

Fasciola gigantica

River blindness

Infectious diseases:

 Typhoid Fever

African Trypanosomiasis 

Cholera

Hepatitis B 

Dengue fever

HIV/AIDS

Antarctica

Parasites:

Monogenea sp.

Copepoda sp.

Infectious diseases:

Parapox virus

Asia

Parasites:

Malaria

Round worm

Schistosomiasis

Chinese Liver Fluke

Diphyllobothrium latum

Fasciola gigantica

Hookworms

Infectious diseases:

HIV/AIDS

Avian Flu

Dengue fever

Japanese encephalitis

SARS virus

Australia

Parasites:

Tapeworms

Yellow Fever

Fasciola hepatica

Infectious diseases:

HIV/AIDS

Influenza

Avian Flu

Europe

Parasites:

Liver Fluke

Tapeworm

Diphyllobothrium latum

Fasciola hepatica

Infectious diseases:

HIV/AIDS

Avian Flu

Tuberculosis

Influenza

Pneumococcus

North America

Parasites:

Cryptosporidium

Hookworms

Tapeworms

Cyclospora cayetanensis

Trichinella Spiralis

Fasciola hepatica

Infectious diseases:

HIV/AIDS

Chlamydia

Gonorrhea

Influenza

Avian Flu

Swine Flu

South America

Parasites:

Yellow Fever

Schistosomiasis

Malaria

Chagas Disease

Hookworms

Trypanosoma cruzi

Diphyllobothrium latum

Fasciola hepatica

River blindness

Infectious diseases:

Dengue fever

Hepatitis A 

Influenza

Typhoid Fever

Hemorrhagic fever

Cholera

HIV/AIDS

Parasite and infectious disease of intrest

Parasite of Intrest

Cryptosporidium is a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal disease cryptosporidiosis. Both the parasite and the disease are commonly known as "Crypto." Since the first reports of human cases in 1976, Cryptosporidium has been found worldwide.  Outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis have been reported in several countries, the most remarkable being a waterborne outbreak in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) in 1993, that affected more than 400,000 people. Many species of Cryptosporidium exist that infect humans and a wide range of animals.  Although Cryptosporidium parvum and Cryptosporidium hominis (formerly known as C. parvum anthroponotic genotype or genotype 1) are the most prevalent species causing disease in humans, infections by C. felis, C. meleagridis, C. canis, and C. muris have also been reported. The parasite is protected by an outer shell that allows it to survive outside the body for long periods of time and makes it very tolerant to chlorine disinfection. While this parasite can be spread in several different ways, water (drinking water and recreational water) is the most common method of transmission. Cryptosporidium is one of the most frequent causes of waterborne disease among humans in the United States.



Cryptosporidium is spread by:  

1.)Swallowing recreational water contaminated with Crypto. Swallowing even a small amount of pool water that has been contaminated with the Crypto can make you sick. Recreational water is water from swimming pools, hot tubs, fountains, lakes, rivers, springs, ponds, or streams that can be contaminated with sewage or feces from humans or animals.

2.)Putting something in your mouth or eating food that has been exposed to the stool of a person or animal infected with Crypto.

3.)Swallowing Crypto picked up from surfaces (such as lounge chairs, picnic tables, bathroom fixtures, changing tables) contaminated with stool from an infected person.

Treatment

Rapid loss of fluids because of diarrhea can be managed by fluid and electrolyte replacement.  Infection in healthy, immunocompetent persons is self-limited.  Nitazoxanide has been approved for treatment of diarrhea caused by Cryptosporidium in immunocompetent patients.  Immunocompromised persons and those in poor health are at highest risk for severe illness.

 

Cryptosporidium spp. oocysts are rounded and measure 4.2 to 5.4 µm in diameter.  Sporozoites are sometimes visible inside the oocysts, indicating that sporulation has occurred.

Infectious Disease of Intrest

Highly pathogenic avian influenza is an infection caused by avian (bird) influenza (flu) A viruses. Avian influenza virus is found chiefly in birds, but infections with these viruses can occur in humans. The risk from avian influenza is generally low to most people, because the viruses do not usually infect humans. However, confirmed cases of human infection from several subtypes of avian influenza infection have been reported since 1997. Of the human cases associated with the ongoing outbreaks in poultry and wild birds in Asia and parts of Europe, the Near East and Africa, about 60% of those people reported infected with the virus have died. Most cases of avian influenza infection in humans have resulted from contact with infected poultry (e.g., domesticated chicken, ducks, and turkeys) or surfaces contaminated with secretion/excretions from infected birds. The spread of avian influenza viruses from one ill person to another person has been reported very rarely, and has been limited and inefficient(CDC, 2011).

In general, avian flu remains a very rare disease in people. The virus does not infect humans easily, and if a person is infected, it is very difficult for the virus to spread to another person. Nonetheless, because all influenza viruses have the ability to change and because the bird flu has a known ability to cause human infection, scientists remain concerned that this virus has the potential to possibly change into a form that can spread easily from person to person. Because this virus does not commonly infect humans, there is little or no immune protection against them in the human population. If avian flu were to gain the capacity to spread easily from person to person, an influenza pandemic (worldwide outbreak of disease) could begin. Experts from around the world continue to monitor for potential changes in the virus and changes in patterns of human infection and work with the many stakeholders to prepare for the possibility that the virus may begin to spread more easily and widely from person to person (CDC, 2011). For more information about influenza pandemics, visit http://www.flu.gov/.

Disease Outbreak Map (WHO, 2011)

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, Jan 01, 2005 to Jan 01, 2011

 

Why global warming is NOT the result of human activities.

1. Solar Flares

Evidence of a link between solar flare activity and the earth's temperature has been the topic of much debate into the cause of global warming. The evidence shows that as solar activity increases earth’s temperature increases by way of emitted radiation from the sun outermost surface warming earth's atmosphere. The temperature of a solar flare is typically 10 or 20 million degrees Kelvin, and can be as high as 100 million degrees Kelvin. The frequency of solar flares coincides with the Sun's eleven year cycle. When the solar cycle is at a maximum, active regions increase and multiple solar flares can be detected. Therefore, rising temperatures on earth could not possibly be a result of human activities but rather excess radiation from increased solar flare activity. This evidence is yet another contribution to the ongoing data that supports global warming true cause.This strong link between solar flares and our climate has been established, and should override the theory of human influence affecting the temperature of Earth. Below is a graph outlining this phenomenon.

2. Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age

The climate warms, and the climate cools during the medieval warm period occurring from roughly 700-1300 AD, ALL evidence shows the Earth was actually warmer than it is now. During this time frame there was far less carbon released into the atmosphere by human activities than there is today, yet the summer temperatures were between 1 and 1.4 degrees higher back then they are today. Climate is notoriously fickle. A thousand years ago Europe was balmy and wine grapes grew in England; Later, the climate turned chilly during a period known as the Little Ice Age from roughly (1560-1830) in, which climate temperatures were lower than they are today. These facts pose an enormous question as to the validity of greenhouse effects on recent temperature/climate change. The current warming phase we are currently experiencing is just another natural phenomenon, and a passing occurrence.

 3. Anglia global warming scandal

Emails from scientists of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA) were hacked and posted online. The emails strongly suggest that the scientists are manipulating climate data and suppressing their critics. In addition, they have admitted to losing much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation. The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses preventing climate skeptics seeking access to such data. In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenized) data.” The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change skeptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled and questioned the scientific methodology of the UEA procedures. That is now impossible.

Natural Catastrophe

Below is a link to my Japan Tsunami Fact Sheet.

http://www.mercer.edu/enp/mph720/japanfactsheet.pdf

Where in the world are the people? What are some interesting statistics about the quality of life for the people of the world? (For example, how many large populations live great distances from clean water?

Where in the world are the people?

The percentage of people served with some form of improved water supply rose from 79% (4.1 billion) in 1990 to 82% (4.9 billion) in 2000. Over the  same period the proportion of the world's population with access to excreta disposal facilities increased from 55% (2.9 billion people served) to 60% (3.6 billion). At the beginning of 2000 one-sixth (1.1 billion people) of the world's population was without access to improved water supply and two-fifths (2.4 billion people) lacked access to improved sanitation. The majority of these people live in Asia and Africa, where fewer than one-half of all Asians have access to improved sanitation and two out of five Africans lack improved water supply. Moreover, rural services still lag far behind urban services. Sanitation coverage in rural areas, for example, is less than half that in urban settings, even though 80% of those lacking adequate sanitation (2 billion people) live in rural areas – some 1.3 billion in China and India alone.  These figures are all the more shocking because they reflect the results of at least twenty years of concerted effort and publicity to improve coverage.  (WHO, 2011)

Identify the ten most populated cities in the world. Identify the ten most populated cities in the United States. Identify tribal groups in the world that have little or no contact with "modern society". Where is the greatest ethnic diversity? Where is the least ethnic diversity?

10 most populated cities in the world

1.     Shanghai, China- 22,210,000

2.       Beijing, China - 22,000,000

3.       Istanbul, Turkey - 13,120,596

4.       Karachi, Pakistan - 13,052,000

5.       Delhi, India - 12,565,901

6.       Mumbai, India - 12,478,447

7.       Moscow, Russia - 11,514,300

8.       São Paulo, Brazil - 11,037,593

9.       Seoul, South Korea - 10,208,302

10.    Jakarta, Indonesia - 9,580,000

10 most populated cities in the United States

1. New York, New York 8,175,133

2. Los Angeles, California 3,792,621

3. Chicago, Illinois 2,695,598

4. Houston, Texas 2,099,451

5. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1,526,006

6. Phoenix, Arizona 1,445,632

7. San Antonio, Texas 1,327,407

8. San Diego, California 1,307,402

9. Dallas, Texas 1,197,816

10. San Jose, California 945,942

Researchers have produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who they say are among the few remaining peoples on Earth who have had no contact with the outside world.Taken from a small airplane, the photos show men outside thatched communal huts, necks craned upward, pointing bows toward the air in a remote corner of the Amazonian rainforest.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/05/uncontacted_tribe_photographed.html


Greatest Ethnic Diversity, Kenya: Kikuyu 22%, Luhya 14%, Luo 13%, Kalenjin 12%, Kamba 11%, Kisii 6%, Meru 6%, other African 15%, non-African (Asian, European, and Arab) 1%

Least Ethnic Diversity, Lesotho: 99.7% Sotho

Where in the world is traditional industry? Where in the world is the high-tech industry?

The Indian economy has a thriving traditional industrial sector, which includes handloom products, coir fiber, cashews, tiles and bricks, handicrafts, spices, and marine products. This sector of the economy generates employment opportunities in rural areas and also earns foreign exchange through large-scale exports. In the liberalized economy of India, there are fears that the traditional industries may begin to disappear due to the presence and pressures of large industrial enterprises, both domestic and foreign.

High- tech industry

Many countries and regions like United States, Singapore, Canada, Greece, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Israel, Japan, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Australia, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Brazil and France can be in general considered high-tech societies in relation to other countries, since it is common for its citizens having access to technology that is presently at the cutting edge.

Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centers throughout the United States and the world, Silicon Valley continues to be the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development, accounting for 1/3 of all of the venture capital investment in the United States

Where in the world are the good and accessible soils for agriculture, silviculture, and farming?

Good soil for agriculture, farming, and  silviculture contains appropriate amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.

Alfisols — form in semiarid to humid areas, typically under a hardwood forest cover.

Andisols — soils formed in volcanic ash and defined as soils containing high proportions of glass and amorphous colloidal materials, including allophane, imogolite and ferrihydrite

Aridisols — (from the Latin aridus, for “dry”) form in an arid or semi-arid climate.

Entisols — are soils that do not show any profile development other than an A horizon

Gelisols — are soils of very cold climates which are defined as containing permafrost within two meters of the soil surface.

Histosols — a soil consisting primarily of organic materials

Inceptisols — form quickly through alteration of parent material

Mollisols — form in semi-arid to semi-humid areas, typically under a grassland cover

Oxisols — are best known for their occurrence in tropical rain forest

Spodosols — are the typical soils of coniferous, or boreal forests

Ultisols — commonly known as red clay soils

Vertisols — a soil in which there is a high content of expansive clay

Where is Earth's water located and in what forms does it exist? You can see how water is distributed by viewing these bar charts. The left-side bar shows where the water on Earth exists; about 97 percent of all water is in the oceans. The middle bar shows the distribution of that three percent of all Earth's water that is freshwater. The majority, about 69 percent, is locked up in glaciers and icecaps, mainly in Greenland and Antarctica. You might be surprised that of the remaining freshwater, almost all of it is below your feet, as ground water.

 

 

Picture of Earth showing if all Earth's water (liquid, ice, freshwater, saline) was put into a sphere it would be about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) in diameter. Diameter would be about the distance from Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, USA.Credit: Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; USGS.

Contaminated water.

People in the industrialized world generate 5 times more wastewater per person than in developing countries – but treat over 90% of the wastewater compared to only a few percent in developing countries

Below is an interesting link to the United Nations Environmental Program with some intresting information on the ongoing effort to transform wastewater from a major health and environmental hazard into a clean, safe and economically-attractive resource.

http://www.rona.unep.org/documents/news/20100322_press_release_sick_water_march_2010.pdf

Atlanta



I am interested in learning more about the public health benefits of alternative energy especially as it relates to alternative fuels.  I selected Atlanta, GA because it is where I reside and I feel there is a need to address the escalating concern of pollution in this rapidly growing city. Here are a couple links I thought were interesting:

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/index.html
http://www.epa.gov/greenkit/q5_energ.htm