I blame you if Lyme disease comes to this country
(Grist) From the known and treatable (Lyme Disease) to the unpronounceable and potentially deadly (Cryptococcus gattii), climate change is giving nasty diseases a leg up, clearing their way onwards to the U.S.
Um, really? Does Grist’s James West understand that Lyme disease has been in the US for a long time, and that it tends to affect more people in northern states? Where it’s cooler?
Increased rainfall, warmer temperatures, dying reefs, and hotter oceans are handing diseases that afflict humans — algal, fungal, mosquito-borne, tick-borne — a chance to spread, meaning diseases previously unheard in the U.S. of are now emerging.
As Tom Nelson wonders “how, specifically, would the alleged CO2-induced death of a reef cause disease to spread?”
George Luber, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), says the deadly fungal infection C. gattii, once considered limited to places like Papua New Guinea and Australia, “popped out of nowhere†when it first moved to Vancouver Island around the early 2000s. Scientists were alarmed by its readiness to set up shop in a new climate, well outside its comfort zone. If subtropical C. gattii could settle down in just any backyard, what was next?
Obviously, diseases are supposed to be static, much like the Earth’s bio-system, at least in Warmist World.
Even the CDC does not know what it is talking about. It is not a fungal disease. It is similar to syphilis. It is not necessarily deadly, but sure makes you feel bad. And it has been here a very long time.
Come now, David, Warmists have spoken, Lyme is brand new and caused by climate change. We must listen to our betters!
I would much prefer that Lyme disease and a fungal syphilis reef infection not come to America and infect us all. I mean, I like my reef deer population to be plentiful and bounding to and fro.
BTW, Vancouver Island Canada is a very popular tourist spot. There is also a border crossing spot there.
So, with our country’s liberal immigration policies of late, where all one needs is a breath and you’re in, then I am not surprised that we have not seen more foreign disease outbreaks than we have.
But then, we are seeing Whooping Cough and Polio return, aren’t we?