The Human Disease: How We Create Pandemics, From Our Bodies to Our Beliefs by Sabrina Sholts, 2024
Drawing on dozens of disciplines—from medicine, epidemiology, and microbiology to anthropology, sociology, ecology, and neuroscience—as well as a unique expertise in public education about pandemic risks, biological anthropologist Sabrina Sholts identifies the human traits and tendencies that double as pandemic liabilities.
Pandora's Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk by Alison Young
This fearless, deeply reported book about laboratory accidents asks the haunting question some elite scientists don’t want the public to entertain: Did the COVID-19 pandemic start with a lab leak in Wuhan, China?
Pandemics as Matter of a System Crisis: Precarity of Society by Peter Herrmann
This book is focusing on the German polity and its structural weakness, analysing the situation in a historical perspective. It is completed by an essayist globalist outlook on the pandemics.
Devastating Roman-era #plagues were ushered in by cold snaps in a new study of ancient Roman #climate.
The new study links periods of #climatevariation with major #pandemics and found that the three largest pandemics of the Roman period occurred during some of the most abrupt and deepest cold snaps on record.
[Professor Raina MacIntyre] published her first book, Dark Winter - An insider’s guide to pandemics and biosecurity in 2022, which conveys her knowledge and concerns about biosecurity in lay language for non-expert readers.
Professor Raina MacIntyre (MBBS Hons 1, FRACP, FAFPHM, M App Epid, PhD).... heads the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, which conducts research in epidemiology, vaccinology, bioterrorism prevention, mathematical modelling, genetic epidemiology, public health and clinical trials in infectious diseases.
Area of Expertise
Emerging infectious diseases, infection, biosecurity, biodefense, influenza, vaccines, adult vaccination, elderly vaccination, epidemiology, outbreaks, epidemic control, pandemics, travel and border control, HPV, pneumococcal disease, bioterrorism, smallpox, monkeypox, anthrax, Ebola, viral haemorrhagic fevers, MERS coronavirus, COVID-19, health security, health intelligence, modelling, clinical trials, study design, big data, precision harm, artificial intelligence for epidemic detection.
My former history teacher wrote a book ‘Pandemics in Singapore: 1819-2022’
Of note is the mention that during the colonial period, locals often did not report infectious diseases to the British colonial authorities as they often quarantined them in horrific situations. Also discusses SARS of early 2000s (I remember taking my temp daily in sch); and of course Covid-19
From the author of the #1 New York Times best seller How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over, but even as governments around the world strive to put it behind us, they’re also starting to talk about what happens next. How can we prevent a new pandemic from killing millions of people and devastating the global economy? Can we even hope to accomplish this?
“contrary to what the movies taught us—#pandemics don’t automatically spawn terror-stricken stampedes in the streets. Media and public health coverage have a strong hand in shaping public response and can—under the wrong circumstances—promote indifference, incaution, and even apathy.” #PanicMythhttps://mstdn.ca/@jvipondmd/111228555739933475
⚠️ 20 September
[United Nations] High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response - PPPR ⚠️
"The President of the General Assembly, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, will convene Heads of State and Government for a one-day meeting to adopt a political declaration aimed at mobilizing political will at the national, regional and international levels for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Watch the event live or on demand at UN Web TV"
"Humans and pigs easily swap #influenza#viruses. Worse still, pigs can also pick up influenza strains that circulate among birds, whose viruses aren’t well adapted to infecting and spreading among people. Humans don’t have the receptors in our throats and noses that avian flus can easily attach to. Our isolation from avian flus is what makes them dangerous—since our immune systems rarely encounter them, we have little innate ability to fight them off. Enter pigs. They can catch flu strains from birds (often carrying them without symptoms), mash them up with genetic material from human-adapted flus, and create novel varieties capable of flummoxing human immunity and generating #pandemics. That’s why virologists call hogs “mixing vessels” for novel influenza strains." https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/06/tightly-packed-poultry-and-pig-farms-could-be-incubating-the-next-deadly-flu/ #CAFOs
"1990s... study identified antibodies to the coronaviruses that cause the common cold in the cerebrospinal fluid of Parkinson's patients.
Over the past year, scientists...have been concerned by the emergence of a small handful of case studies describing patients who have developed what doctors term acute Parkinsonism – abnormalities such as tremors, muscle stiffness, and impaired speech – following #Covid-19 infection."
Must-read! 🤔 😯
Broad long-term societal implications / public health concerns re: COVID-19 / long COVID
Why long COVID could be a ticking time bomb for public health
Long COVID isn't novel: Other viruses in history have had similar "long" arcs - with devastating repercussions
Great article by Philip Finkelstein | https://philipfinkelstein.com/general
Cites leading peer-reviewed, primary research (Nature Communications; Mayo Clinic; ...)
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