The Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012 - Dr. Synthia Andrews Nd [105]
There’s a worry that as the population increases, close living conditions will encourage the spread of cholera. Combined with extreme weather that overloads sewage control, many countries are preparing for cholera epidemics. As we write this book, Myanmar has been hit with a cyclone, leaving at least one million people homeless and surviving in devastating conditions. The world is preparing to respond as cholera is erupting through the population.
Malaria and Dengue Fever
Malaria and dengue fever are tropical diseases spread by mosquitoes. As the climate changes and mosquitoes begin to live in new environments, malaria and dengue fever are spreading into northern climates. Malaria is spreading in Europe, the United States, and Turkey.
Dengue fever was confined to Southeast Asia in the 1960s, but is now widely distributed in Africa and Central and South America. Dengue fever even moved as far north as Florida and Texas, but quickly fizzled out in the face of aggressive measures to fight it.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
In 2003, an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) threatened to become a pandemic, or worldwide epidemic. The SARS virus is a mutated form of “bird flu,” the coronavirus that infects birds. The disease spread rapidly throughout Asia, infecting backyard chickens, and then transferring to the families who kept them.
SARS quickly spread to many countries around the world due to infected people traveling on airplanes and transporting the virus to new countries. Maybe you were one of the air passengers caught in the struggle to contain the disease. In a desperate attempt to halt the spread of the disease, airplane companies began screening passengers for fevers or flu-like symptoms. Passengers with symptoms were not allowed to fly. Many passengers began to protect themselves from infection by wearing face masks on airplanes. When the outbreak spread to Toronto, some Toronto residents also began wearing face masks. However, no one could stop the spread of SARS through migrating bird populations.
At the height of the 2003 SARS pandemic, the World Health Organization reported that a total of 8,098 people worldwide became sick. Of these, 774 died. In the United States, only eight people had verified lab evidence of SARS.
Morgellons
You may not have heard of this new disease, but it’s starting to get a lot of attention. It was discovered in 2001 and was largely discredited until recently. Here’s a brief description: a person will start to itch, get nasty sores on his or her skin, and then feel something alive and moving underneath the skin. At first people with Morgellons were diagnosed as having psychotic parasitosis. In other words, it was all in their heads!
Unfortunately for the people who get it, these moving things under the skin eventually erupt through the skin as multicolored fibers. The fibers have been collected and analyzed from people all over the world. They are all the same. Hard for a psychosis to produce!
Other symptoms of Morgellons include arthritis pain, confusion, memory loss, vision problems, and itching, stinging, and biting sensations. It often occurs in people already diagnosed with Lyme disease.
What’s really odd is that the fiber material is unknown. Many suspect it’s a type of nanotechnology, or genetically engineered material. The fibers seem to have a component of cellulose, leading some researchers to believe it’s caused by a rare infection of Agrobacterium. This is a bacteria that has an ability to transfer DNA between itself and plants, and for this reason has been used extensively in genetic engineering. Is it possible that genetically modified bacteria got out of the lab and is transferring DNA to humans? Hopefully we