 | |
| A blood engorged Wood Tick, or maybe just a fossil fuel donation engorged Republican |
On the recent news feeds one of the series of stories, not only here in Minnesota, but also in Iowa and other states have involved the very costly incidence of avian flu outbreaks in both turkey and chicken industrial operations (as distinct from smaller family farms that do not use intensive ag practices that are both unhealthy and inhumane). As of April 16th, there were millions of dollars in losses, with outbreaks involving 26 farms in Minnesota, spread across 14 counties, with additional outbreaks occurring in North Dakota. Minnesota is the largest turkey producer in the United States, with sales worldwide that are affected by these outbreaks, costing our state economy an as yet untold millions of dollars.
Those outbreaks of avian flu, fortunately this time not a zoonotic variety (infection that is transferable between multiple species, including humans, such as swine flu or bubonic plague) are resulting in huge losses as those entire operations require every animal, regardless of sick or healthy, to be euthanized.
This is not the first of these outbreaks, not only in the central 'fly over' states (literally), but occurring in other parts of the country and in other parts of the world. The most recent outbreaks appear to be along the migratory flight paths of wild birds, which are also affected but not on the same scale of epidemic outbreaks as those of domestic intensive ag operations.
That appears to be because of the inherently unhealthy crowding of industrial ag operations, where birds that are crowded together so closely they cannot lie down or turn around creates inherently more contagion.
But another factor in this disease spread and in the spread of other diseases to multiple species appears to be global warming. This is not new, this is not a surprise, this has long been predicted as part of the effects of global warming, on disease, on human beings and other species, as well as on plants that are essential food crops, above and beyond the problems of growing seasons changing, drought and flooding, extreme weather increases and increased frequency of episodes of serious wild fires.
A few examples of the scientific articles predicting these kinds of problems:
What will climate change mean for infectious disease?
BMJ 2013; 347 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f6713 (Published 25 November 2013) Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f6713
Projecting the impact of global environmental change on patterns of infectious disease is not simply a matter of plotting a rise in predicted temperature change and correlating that with the temperature and geographic range of a pathogen. Disease resides within a complex ecosystem, natural and manmade, which influences whether and how it might become manifest. Our knowledge of these systems is frustratingly limited and incomplete.As an example, many tropical diseases are temperature dependent for both the pathogen and its vector, often mosquitoes. They thrive only above a certain threshold, speeding their lifecycle as the temperature rises. “It can have a huge difference on [sic] transmission dynamics,” says Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin.Researchers have compared mosquito maturation in huts in forested areas with their maturation in huts in deforested areas. The difference in temperature was just a few degrees but the percent of insects that transitioned from larva to adulthood jumped from 65% to 82%, and the time to development was cut from 9 to 8 days. According to Patz, the result was a much greater population of mosquitoes to transmit malaria, dengue, or other diseases.
As an example, there is a re-emergence of Dengue fever in Florida.
For those of you not familiar with Dengue fever:
Dengue fever (UK /ˈdɛŋɡeɪ/ or US /ˈdɛŋɡiː/), also known as breakbone fever, is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash that is similar to measles. In a small proportion of cases the disease develops into the life-threatening dengue hemorrhagic fever, resulting in bleeding, low levels of blood platelets and blood plasma leakage, or into dengue shock syndrome, where dangerously low blood pressure occurs. ...As there is no commercially available vaccine, prevention is sought by reducing the habitat and the number of mosquitoes and limiting exposure to bites....Dengue has become a global problem since the Second World War and is endemic in more than 110 countries.
So we have new USA outbreaks of Dengue fever, which like Ebola, is or at leat can be hemorrhagic. And of course there are many varieties and they mutate, making it difficult to treat.
But it's not only migratory birds, or mosquitoes, that are some of the early front line victims of global warming changes. We have a problem with both microbes and other parasites as well. Most Minnesotans are conversant with the problems of the tick borne Lyme disease, carried by the dear tick. Fewer Minnesotans are familiar with the taxonimic name of the dear tick, Ixodes (variously dammini and scapularis) or the scientific name for Lyme disease (named for Lyme county Connecticut), which is borrelia bergdoreri, aka Lyme Borreliosis. Fewer are familiar with diseases like West Nile, that are also mosquito borne, and which have caused illness and death, and which in addition to affecting people and birds, have affected horses in Minnesota. Horses are not only pets, they are a significant sector of Minnesota agriculture.
