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pandemics
Biodiversity and Climate Crises 'Increase the Risks of Future Pandemics': Study
"New study in Nature confirms that if we want to avoid the next pandemic—we should stop destroying biodiversity, heating, and polluting the planet," one expert said.
May 09, 2024
Biodiversity loss, the introduction of invasive species, the climate emergency, and chemical pollution all increase the risk of infectious disease, a first-of-its-kind analysis has found.
The paper, published in Nature Wednesday, reviewed 972 studies and 2,938 observations on how human-driven environmental change had impacted the spread of disease, looking specifically at 1,497 host-parasite relationships.
"New study in Nature confirms that if we want to avoid the next pandemic—we should stop destroying biodiversity, heating, and polluting the planet," Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, who leads the World Health Organization's climate change unit and was not involved with the study, wrote on social media. "Just one more reason to go for a greener, healthier future."
"This adds to a very long list of reasons we should be rapidly moving away from fossil fuels and trying to mitigate the impacts of climate change."
The Covid-19 pandemic, which some scientists believe passed from bats to humans, has led to increased interest in how diseases emerge and spread. At the same time, research research has pointed to a larger range for pathogens and their hosts as one of the health dangers of the climate emergency. For example, The Lancet's most recent report on climate change and health predicted that, if temperatures rise by 2°C above preindustrial levels by 2100, the ideal conditions for Vibrio would expand by 17-25% and the risk of catching dengue fever would go up by 36-37%.
While previous studies had considered how certain types of environmental change—like deforestation or global heating—impacted disease spread, no study had considered the risk for plants, animals, and humans across the different ways that industrial society has altered the environment.
"This literature gap is critical to fill because resources for infectious disease management will always be limited and could be poorly targeted without knowledge of which global change drivers most affect infectious diseaserisk," the study authors write.
The researchers looked at four major drivers of change: biodiversity loss, the introduction of new species, the climate crisis, and habitat loss or alteration. They found that human-driven biodiversity loss increased illness and death by almost nine times compared with areas where biodiversity remained intact. The next most impactful changes were the introduction of new species, global heating and increased carbon dioxide levels, and chemical pollution such as pesticides and fertilizers, which can put additional pressure on plants' and animals' immune systems.
"It could mean that by modifying the environment, we increase the risks of future pandemics," study co-author Jason Rohr, a University of Notre Dame biology professor, toldThe Washington Post of the results.
One way that the loss of species can increase disease is by eliminating rare species, Rohr explained toThe New York Times. As parasites and pathogens tend to evolve to infect more common species, when these species are all that remain, the risk of infection goes up. One example is the rise of white-footed mice, who host Lyme disease. One theory is that as these mice have proliferated in comparison with other, rarer mammals, the rates of Lyme disease in the U.S. have gone up. Of course, the spread of Lyme disease has also been linked to the expansion of the range of ticks due to warming temperatures, in an example of how different environmental alterations can interact to increase illness.
"This adds to a very long list of reasons we should be rapidly moving away from fossil fuels and trying to mitigate the impacts of climate change," Bard College professor Felicia Keesing, who was not a part of the study, told the Post in response to its findings.
One of the study's more surprising discoveries was that habitat loss actually decreased disease. The authors think this is due to the rise and expansion of cities, as urban areas tend to have better public health and fewer opportunities for humans and animals to mix and exchange germs.
"In urban areas with lots of concrete, there is a much smaller number of species that can thrive in that environment," Rohr toldThe Guardian. "From a human disease perspective, there is often greater sanitation and health infrastructure than in rural environments."
Colin Carlson, a Georgetown University biologist who was not part of the research team, told the Times that the lack of urban biodiversity was "not a good thing."
Next, the researchers hope to explore more about the connections between the different drivers of change.
"Importantly, greater effort is needed to identify win-win solutions that address multiple societal stressors, such as disease, food, energy, water, sustainability, and poverty challenges," they write.
However, the study already points the way toward some recommendations: "Specifically, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing ecosystem health, and preventing biological invasions and biodiversityloss could help to reduce the burden of plant, animal, and humandiseases,especially when coupled with improvements to social and economic determinants of health," the researchers advise.
Carlson told the Times that the study was "a big step forward in the science."
"This paper is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that I think has been published that shows how important it is health systems start getting ready to exist in a world with climate change, with biodiversity loss," Carlson said.
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Sanders Seeks Public Input for Long Covid Moonshot Legislation
"The time is long overdue for Congress to treat long Covid as the public health emergency that it is," said the Senate HELP Committee chair.
Apr 09, 2024
"As chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, it is my strong belief that the crisis of long Covid is a public health emergency that we can no longer ignore."
That's how U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) began a Tuesday letter inviting public comment on a $10 billion bill he is crafting to address the crisis of at least 22 million Americans enduring chronic or relapsing symptoms after a Covid-19 infection.
"In January 2024, the HELP Committee held a hearing on the topic of long Covid where experts underscored the urgent need to aggressively find approved treatments for this terrible disease, to better educate medical professionals on how to diagnose long Covid, to better understand the risks associated with long Covid, and to identify potential therapeutic options, among many other things," notes the letter.
We cannot ignore the public health crisis that is Long COVID. On Long COVID Awareness Day, let us commit to doing everything we can to address this horrible condition. The U.S. government must do more to increase awareness and provide additional resources to develop treatments. pic.twitter.com/OLnRkhivm7
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 15, 2024
"Before getting Covid-19 in Los Angeles in March 2020, I was a runner for nearly two decades," Angela Meriquez Vazquez, a long Covid patient and former president of Body Politic, told the panel. "What started as a mild illness progressed over weeks with an increasingly scary set of symptoms, including severe levels of blood clots, a series of mini-strokes, brain swelling, seizures, painful heart palpitations, severe shortness of breath, extreme confusion, and numbness in my face, hands, and legs that progressed to an inability to walk for several days, and new onset of allergic anaphylaxis after every meal."
"We are living through what is likely to be the largest mass disabling event in modern history," she warned. "Not since the emergence of the AIDS pandemic has there been such an imperative for large-scale change in healthcare, public health, and inequitable structures that bring exceptional risks of illness, suffering, disability, and mortality."
Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in Saint Louis and one of the experts who testified earlier this year, pointed out that there are no medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating the condition and "the ongoing and planned trials for long Covid are too slow and too small (i.e. underpowered) to provide definitive answers."
"We developed vaccines at warp speed. We are doing trials for long Covid at snail speed," the doctor said. "We don't go through an earthquake without dealing with its aftermath. We cannot live through the biggest pandemic of our lives without dealing with the aftermath."
Sanders' proposed legislation would provide a decade of mandatory funding to help the National Institutes of Health respond to the crisis. At the NIH, the bill would create a centralized coordinating entity for research activities, establish an advisory board, and require the federal agency to launch a new grant process for clinical trials as well as a database "for the storage and dissemination of de-identified patient data to make long Covid research more accessible."
The bill would also "require federal entities to provide continued education and support to patients, providers, and the public about the ongoing risks of long Covid, as well as how to identify and address it," explains the letter, which has an addendum detailing the plan.
The committee is accepting emailed feedback on the proposal at LongCovidComments@help.senate.gov through April 23.
"In my view, the time is long overdue for Congress to treat long Covid as the public health emergency that it is," Sanders said in a statement. "Congress must act now to ensure a treatment is found for this terrible disease that affects millions of Americans and their families."
Sanders, a longtime advocate of ensuring everyone in the nation has healthcare by passing Medicare for All legislation, stressed that "far too many patients with long Covid have struggled to get their symptoms taken seriously. Far too many medical professionals have either dismissed or misdiagnosed their health problems."
"That has got to change," he asserted. "We cannot turn our backs on the millions of Americans who continue to suffer from long Covid. I look forward to hearing from patients, experts, and researchers about what we must do to address this crisis."
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Sanders, Dems Tell Biden to Learn From Covid Amid Pandemic Treaty Talks
"A fairer, more equitable response to the next public health outbreak is in everyone's interest."
Mar 19, 2024
This week's high-stakes negotiations on a new global treaty inspired by the Covid-19 crisis "present an historic opportunity to prepare for future pandemics, to protect lives and livelihoods, and to demonstrate political leadership the world will long remember," a dozen progressive U.S. lawmakers wrote to President Joe Biden on Tuesday.
The members of Congress told Biden that "as the U.S. participates in the negotiation of the pandemic accord at the World Health Organization (WHO), we urge you to push for strong, binding equitable access standards to ensure that tests, treatments, and vaccines for the next global public health threat are available to everyone who needs them as soon as possible."
"You can help make sure the next pandemic is shorter and less deadly than the last."
"Nearly 15 million people died during the first two years of the pandemic," they noted. "Most tragically, millions of people died needlessly after the vaccines were developed, but before they became widely available in low-and-middle income countries. Major manufacturers chose not to share the vaccine recipe to expand global production."
"But vaccine inequity did not just hurt people abroad. Major gaps in access to vaccines globally also increased the risk of deadly new variants that changed the course of the pandemic at home," the lawmakers highlighted, stressing that "we must act on the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic."
The letter was led by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) along with Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). They were joined by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), as well as Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.).
During the WHO talks on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response—which began Monday and are scheduled to run through March 28—they want the Biden administration to champion three foundational commitments:
- Pharmaceutical companies should not be allowed to charge outrageous prices for products developed with taxpayer dollars;
- When the public funds information that can help end a pandemic, it should not be kept a secret; and
- The U.S. should support countries that take steps to increase access to pandemic products.
The letter specifically calls out Pfizer and Moderna, asserting that the latter "serves as a powerful reminder for why American leadership is so critical," because the Massachusetts-based company "worked hand-in-hand with scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health" to invent one of the multiple coronavirus vaccines created during the pandemic.
"U.S. taxpayers spent $12 billion to research, develop, and procure the vaccine," the letter explains. "Yet Moderna refused to share its technology with other manufacturers to increase global production, charged some poorer countries more for doses than wealthy countries, and then quadrupled the price of the Covid vaccine to $128—at a time when it costs just $2.85 to manufacture the vaccine."
"A fairer, more equitable response to the next public health outbreak is in everyone's interest," the lawmakers wrote to Biden. "By supporting strong, binding equitable access standards, you can help make sure the next pandemic is shorter and less deadly than the last."
Reporting on the negotiations Monday, Axiospointed out that "a key sticking point is whether countries must provide viral specimens or genome sequences to a global repository managed by the World Health Organization, which would enable others to use that information to create vaccines, diagnostic tests, and treatments."
Nithin Ramakrishnan of the global advocacy group Third World Network told the outlet that the treaty's current draft "serves the interests of developed countries and their biotech industries by forcing developing countries to share biological materials and information without adequate legal certainty of benefit sharing."
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