Having recently moved from a suburban area nestled in a major metropolitan region to a semi-rural area amid forests, farms, a nature preserve, and even a swamp, I’ve become a little more conscious of the need to take proper precautions against insect-borne diseases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports, “Disease cases from mosquito, tick, and flea bites tripled in the US from 2004 to 2016. Nine new germs spread by mosquitoes and ticks have been discovered or introduced since … [Read more...]
Is Global Warming to Blame for Spread of “Tropical” Diseases?
The New York Times has just published an article claiming that global warming is (partly) to blame for the spread of various "tropical" diseases to the U.S. and other areas where previously they had been eradicated or had never existed. Donald G. McNeil Jr. begins his article titled "U.S. Becomes More Vulnerable to Tropical Diseases Like Zika" thus: Tropical diseases---some of them never before seen in the United States---are marching northward as climate change lets mosquitoes and ticks expand … [Read more...]
Get Out Your Bed Nets:
We must let Africans fight mosquitoes and disease the same way we do: with pesticides Gulf Coast residents are slowly recovering from Katrina’s winds, floods, anarchy, and tardy local, state and federal disaster responses. Now they face yet another peril. Millions of acres of brackish, polluted water could become fertile breeding grounds for billions of mosquitoes. Some fear the hordes could infect survivors with West Nile virus and encephalitis – or even malaria and yellow fever. They point … [Read more...]
