Jon Arrizabalaga
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479878246
- eISBN:
- 9781479884155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479878246.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Health, Illness, and Medicine
Since the 1980s the world has witnessed the global emergence of new epidemic infections (HIV/AIDS being the most dramatic so far), and the reappearance of known infectious diseases, such as ...
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Since the 1980s the world has witnessed the global emergence of new epidemic infections (HIV/AIDS being the most dramatic so far), and the reappearance of known infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria, and syphilis, that had seemed for some time to be under control. In the field of public health, these events have led to the designation of a new nosological category: emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Such diseases pose a growing threat to the hegemony of biomedicine, raising many questions about the adequacy of biomedical discourse and practices to meet the global challenge of infectious diseases. This chapter analyzes the construction of this new nosological category and examines the implications of (re)emerging diseases for public health, food security, and human development on a worldwide scale.Less
Since the 1980s the world has witnessed the global emergence of new epidemic infections (HIV/AIDS being the most dramatic so far), and the reappearance of known infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria, and syphilis, that had seemed for some time to be under control. In the field of public health, these events have led to the designation of a new nosological category: emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Such diseases pose a growing threat to the hegemony of biomedicine, raising many questions about the adequacy of biomedical discourse and practices to meet the global challenge of infectious diseases. This chapter analyzes the construction of this new nosological category and examines the implications of (re)emerging diseases for public health, food security, and human development on a worldwide scale.
Gregory P. Cheplick and Stanley H. Faeth
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195308082
- eISBN:
- 9780199867462
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195308082.003.0007
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
Systemic endophytes of grasses provide ideal systems for testing ecological and evolutionary theory, as well as providing an important research platform for developing and improving pasture and turf ...
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Systemic endophytes of grasses provide ideal systems for testing ecological and evolutionary theory, as well as providing an important research platform for developing and improving pasture and turf grasses. Presently, most basic and applied research has been directed towards Neotyphodium-infected agronomic grasses. There is an urgent need to expand basic ecological and, especially, evolutionary studies to native grass systems and other systemic endophytes and the more ubiquitous, non-systemic endophytes. Little is understood about the effects of endophytes on host biology and reproduction, and even less about the complex effects of endophytes that change with host and endophyte genotype, host ontogeny, environment, and the presence of other interacting species. Long-term cost-benefit analyses across an array of varying biotic and abiotic factors seems like a prudent path of investigation. Studies of the coevolutionary dynamics of endophyte-host interactions are still in their infancy, yet endophyte-host interactions are ideal systems in which to test contemporary theories. There is still a lack of detailed knowledge of how the genetics of endophytes and their hosts alter interaction outcomes, especially in complex natural communities. Grass-endophyte symbioses offer tractable systems for addressing societal problems such as global environmental change, invasive species and emerging infectious diseases, restoration of degraded ecosystems, and food, fuel, and forage shortages.Less
Systemic endophytes of grasses provide ideal systems for testing ecological and evolutionary theory, as well as providing an important research platform for developing and improving pasture and turf grasses. Presently, most basic and applied research has been directed towards Neotyphodium-infected agronomic grasses. There is an urgent need to expand basic ecological and, especially, evolutionary studies to native grass systems and other systemic endophytes and the more ubiquitous, non-systemic endophytes. Little is understood about the effects of endophytes on host biology and reproduction, and even less about the complex effects of endophytes that change with host and endophyte genotype, host ontogeny, environment, and the presence of other interacting species. Long-term cost-benefit analyses across an array of varying biotic and abiotic factors seems like a prudent path of investigation. Studies of the coevolutionary dynamics of endophyte-host interactions are still in their infancy, yet endophyte-host interactions are ideal systems in which to test contemporary theories. There is still a lack of detailed knowledge of how the genetics of endophytes and their hosts alter interaction outcomes, especially in complex natural communities. Grass-endophyte symbioses offer tractable systems for addressing societal problems such as global environmental change, invasive species and emerging infectious diseases, restoration of degraded ecosystems, and food, fuel, and forage shortages.
Dorothy Margolskee
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195325256
- eISBN:
- 9780199864409
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195325256.003.0015
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter describes ways to improve vaccines, antimicrobials, and antitoxins through research. It describes and discusses a number of issues, including the need for rapid diagnostic tests for ...
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This chapter describes ways to improve vaccines, antimicrobials, and antitoxins through research. It describes and discusses a number of issues, including the need for rapid diagnostic tests for several pathogens, the potential role of antitoxins, the potential post-exposure utility of vaccines, and the need for fundamental research on the viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever.Less
This chapter describes ways to improve vaccines, antimicrobials, and antitoxins through research. It describes and discusses a number of issues, including the need for rapid diagnostic tests for several pathogens, the potential role of antitoxins, the potential post-exposure utility of vaccines, and the need for fundamental research on the viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever.
Daniel R. Brooks, Eric P. Hoberg, and Walter A. Boeger
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226632308
- eISBN:
- 9780226632582
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226632582.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Disease Ecology / Epidemiology
Emerging Infectious Diseases in humans, livestock and crops currently cost the world 1 trillion dollars a year in production losses and treatment costs, more than the GDP of all but 15 countries. ...
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Emerging Infectious Diseases in humans, livestock and crops currently cost the world 1 trillion dollars a year in production losses and treatment costs, more than the GDP of all but 15 countries. Evolutionary analysis of this crisis, based on what is called the Stockholm Paradigm, links the potential for emerging infectious disease outbreaks directly to climate change. Highly specialized pathogens evolve in localized settings in association with one or a few hosts. Climate change and ecological disruption alters geographic distributions, bringing those pathogens into contact with susceptible but previously unexposed hosts. This has been true throughout the history of life on this planet. Human activities during the past 15,000 years, including domestication and agriculture, population growth, conflict and migration, urbanization and globalization have all increased the risk. Technological humanity now faces an existential crisis in global climate change and emerging infectious disease. The time is short, the danger is great, and we are largely unprepared. But we can change that. The very evolutionary specializations that make pathogens a threat for widespread emergence also provide insights into how we can find them before they find us. The DAMA (document - assess - monitor - act) protocol links activities from neighborhood gardens to global surveillance systems that can allow us to anticipate to mitigate emerging disease. We can lower costs to society, limiting the global impact of pathogens and slowing the expanding and accelerating crisis, while buying time for traditional efforts to medicate, vaccinate and eradicate.Less
Emerging Infectious Diseases in humans, livestock and crops currently cost the world 1 trillion dollars a year in production losses and treatment costs, more than the GDP of all but 15 countries. Evolutionary analysis of this crisis, based on what is called the Stockholm Paradigm, links the potential for emerging infectious disease outbreaks directly to climate change. Highly specialized pathogens evolve in localized settings in association with one or a few hosts. Climate change and ecological disruption alters geographic distributions, bringing those pathogens into contact with susceptible but previously unexposed hosts. This has been true throughout the history of life on this planet. Human activities during the past 15,000 years, including domestication and agriculture, population growth, conflict and migration, urbanization and globalization have all increased the risk. Technological humanity now faces an existential crisis in global climate change and emerging infectious disease. The time is short, the danger is great, and we are largely unprepared. But we can change that. The very evolutionary specializations that make pathogens a threat for widespread emergence also provide insights into how we can find them before they find us. The DAMA (document - assess - monitor - act) protocol links activities from neighborhood gardens to global surveillance systems that can allow us to anticipate to mitigate emerging disease. We can lower costs to society, limiting the global impact of pathogens and slowing the expanding and accelerating crisis, while buying time for traditional efforts to medicate, vaccinate and eradicate.
Janina Kehr and Flurin Condrau
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226390734
- eISBN:
- 9780226390901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226390901.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter combines historical and anthropological inquiry. The authors analyze the tensions around the treatable and untreatable, the emergent and the chronic, in two distinct time frames, ...
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This chapter combines historical and anthropological inquiry. The authors analyze the tensions around the treatable and untreatable, the emergent and the chronic, in two distinct time frames, conceptualized as historical and ethnographic case studies. The first period concerns the decline and disappearance of tuberculosis (TB) from Western countries in the first half of the twentieth century, whereas the second period touches on the reappearance of TB in the wake of HIV/AIDS, multi-resistance, and globalization at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Both sections interrogate the narratives of revolution and stagnation and of exciting acuteness and boring routine, which the authors regard as significant for the relation between tuberculosis and its treatments, as well as for the ways a disease, its biomedical treatments, and public health approaches are defined, problematized, and understood in medicine and society.Less
This chapter combines historical and anthropological inquiry. The authors analyze the tensions around the treatable and untreatable, the emergent and the chronic, in two distinct time frames, conceptualized as historical and ethnographic case studies. The first period concerns the decline and disappearance of tuberculosis (TB) from Western countries in the first half of the twentieth century, whereas the second period touches on the reappearance of TB in the wake of HIV/AIDS, multi-resistance, and globalization at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Both sections interrogate the narratives of revolution and stagnation and of exciting acuteness and boring routine, which the authors regard as significant for the relation between tuberculosis and its treatments, as well as for the ways a disease, its biomedical treatments, and public health approaches are defined, problematized, and understood in medicine and society.
Daniel R. Brooks, Eric P. Hob Erg, and Walter A. Boeger
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226632308
- eISBN:
- 9780226632582
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226632582.003.0009
- Subject:
- Biology, Disease Ecology / Epidemiology
Humans attempt to combat, mitigate, and react to diseases only after they have emerged. These reactive management policies are unsustainable in a world of climate change and its threat multipliers.
Humans attempt to combat, mitigate, and react to diseases only after they have emerged. These reactive management policies are unsustainable in a world of climate change and its threat multipliers.
Alex M. Nading
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520282612
- eISBN:
- 9780520958562
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520282612.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter introduces the book’s main setting, Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua, a low-income city on the outskirts of Managua. It does so through a particular case history of dengue fever, showing how ...
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This chapter introduces the book’s main setting, Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua, a low-income city on the outskirts of Managua. It does so through a particular case history of dengue fever, showing how dengue brought together political and ethical questions about mosquito and human behavior. The case history leads to a working definition of the “politics of entanglement,” the persistent inequalities that attend attachments between people, places, and ways of knowing. The chapter identifies the three main elements of the politics of entanglement as infrastructure, bodies, and knowledge. The politics of entanglement is linked to theory in critical medical anthropology and political ecology. Methods for studying entanglement are discussed. I use the trope of the trail—a mark on the landscape that may be anthropogenic but may also be created by a plant or animal—to call attention to the role of people and other living creatures as place-makers.Less
This chapter introduces the book’s main setting, Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua, a low-income city on the outskirts of Managua. It does so through a particular case history of dengue fever, showing how dengue brought together political and ethical questions about mosquito and human behavior. The case history leads to a working definition of the “politics of entanglement,” the persistent inequalities that attend attachments between people, places, and ways of knowing. The chapter identifies the three main elements of the politics of entanglement as infrastructure, bodies, and knowledge. The politics of entanglement is linked to theory in critical medical anthropology and political ecology. Methods for studying entanglement are discussed. I use the trope of the trail—a mark on the landscape that may be anthropogenic but may also be created by a plant or animal—to call attention to the role of people and other living creatures as place-makers.
Joseph R. Mendelson III
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226538327
- eISBN:
- 9780226538631
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226538631.003.0025
- Subject:
- Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
As modern zoos were evolving to substantiate their claims to be leading conservation organizations in the late twentieth century, amphibians were succumbing to conservation challenges of unimaginable ...
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As modern zoos were evolving to substantiate their claims to be leading conservation organizations in the late twentieth century, amphibians were succumbing to conservation challenges of unimaginable proportions. A previously unknown pathogenic fungus was moving among continents and, in some cases, eradicating populations and species virtually instantly. This phenomenon went mostly unnoticed until about 1990, when scientists and conservationists scrambled for answers, or even the relevant questions, and suitable responses. Amphibians have never been prominent in zoo programs or exhibits, so the coincidental timing of the upswing of conservation rhetoric from zoos and what was acknowledged as the most drastic large-scale animal conservation crisis in history created a maelstrom of confusion and controversy. Being understandably unprepared for a conservation challenge of unprecedented proportions, the response of zoos ranged from unfulfilled promises to valiant, if unsuccessful, efforts to establishment of successful programs. More broadly, the disease-driven declines of amphibians is a case study for zoos and conservationists to consider in face of the ever increasing reports of devastating emerging infectious diseases as direct-drivers of extinction in wildlife. It is clear to no one, including zoos, what are the best responses to these situations.Less
As modern zoos were evolving to substantiate their claims to be leading conservation organizations in the late twentieth century, amphibians were succumbing to conservation challenges of unimaginable proportions. A previously unknown pathogenic fungus was moving among continents and, in some cases, eradicating populations and species virtually instantly. This phenomenon went mostly unnoticed until about 1990, when scientists and conservationists scrambled for answers, or even the relevant questions, and suitable responses. Amphibians have never been prominent in zoo programs or exhibits, so the coincidental timing of the upswing of conservation rhetoric from zoos and what was acknowledged as the most drastic large-scale animal conservation crisis in history created a maelstrom of confusion and controversy. Being understandably unprepared for a conservation challenge of unprecedented proportions, the response of zoos ranged from unfulfilled promises to valiant, if unsuccessful, efforts to establishment of successful programs. More broadly, the disease-driven declines of amphibians is a case study for zoos and conservationists to consider in face of the ever increasing reports of devastating emerging infectious diseases as direct-drivers of extinction in wildlife. It is clear to no one, including zoos, what are the best responses to these situations.