The
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a warning
to medical experts across the country to be on the lookout for the
deadly and contagious Cryptoccocus gattii fungal infection.
At
least 60 people in the Pacific Northwestern region of the US have
already been diagnosed with the disease, which affects the lungs and
nervous system and can take up to a year for symptoms to emerge. As it
normally occurs in warmer climes such as Australia and southern regions
of Asia and Africa, Dr. Ted Schettler, science director for the US-based
Science and Environmental Health Network, explained that Cryptoccocal
gattii’s
presence in the northern US is an indicator of climate change affecting us now.
Dr. Ted Schettler – Science Director, Science & Environment Health Network (M): It has typically been thought to be confined primarily to tropical and sub-tropical regions.
So,
its emergence in the Pacific Northwest of the United States is a bit
unusual. And so my reaction to this report is that this could be a
signal of infectious disease appearing in a new area precisely because
of climate change.
VOICE: Dr. Schettler stated that although the
current number of people infected is small, the illness is very
dangerous, with fatalities in 33% of the cases. Meanwhile, other, more
widespread diseases are also spreading due to rising global
temperatures.
Dr. Ted Schettler (M):
Many scientists have pointed out that we will see infectious diseases
emerging in new areas as the climate changes and the ecology that will
support certain infectious agents’ changes as well.
So we’ll see
malaria showing up in new places, we’ll see dengue fever showing up in
new places, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising that we would see
fungal diseases showing up in new places as well.
So many people
think that climate change is something that we start to worry about in
25 or 50 or 100 years. So we are seeing the effects of climate change
right now, in various places of the world and this may be just one other
manifestation of it.
VOICE: Our thanks US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, for alerting the medical community to the threat
of Cryptococcus gattii in colder climes, and to Dr. Schettler for
helping us understand this data on disease in the context of climate
change.
May we quickly recognize the increasing risks caused by
an unbalanced climate and act to protect our families’ health and the
planet. During a 2008 videoconference with our Association members in
Washington, USA, Supreme Master Ching Hai cautioned about the spread of
disease as a consequence of climate change, urging for everyone’s swift
response to save the Earth.
Supreme Master Ching Hai:
And some places may have more mental illness, and all kind of other
illnesses, and diseases go where they have not been before even. Like
mosquitoes, they migrate into different areas where they have not been
before because the climate is warmer.
So it depends on how many
people join the vegetarian diet. The more vegetarian people, the less
killing of the animals, the more time we have to rescue the planet and
the lives on the planet.
So everybody has to join into the
vegetarian diet, and stop the killing, stop the harm to other people and
the animals and save energies every way possible and go green wherever
possible. THEN WE STILL CAN SAVE THE PLANET
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2010/07/disease-spreadhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20100917/hl_ac/6803456_whooping_cough_epidemic_not_only_illness_outbreak_in_united_states
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