Plagues

Lone star tick bite causes severe meat allergy in US farmer

Hannah Frishberg
New York Post
Mon, 01 Jul 2019 11:50 UTC

A tick turned Kristie Downen into a vegan.

"It was the last thing on my mind," the Missouri farmer tells Springfield's KSPR TV of her "life-changing experience ... [it's] unbelievable that a tick can make you allergic to food."

Downen was bitten by a common "lone star" tick four years ago — but doctors were unable to diagnose the array of symptoms she developed until this year.

"It got to the point where my stomach would swell up, I was vomiting," Downen says. "The rashes were real bad, it was getting to the point [I told doctors], 'You're missing something, I'm still dying.' "

Comment: There are various ways one could can attempt to ameliorate the problems of these tick borne diseases. Although the threats ticks pose appears to only be increasing:

Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: A Close Look at Lyme Disease

Britain sees worrying rise in Asian Hornets - 80 nests found

Henry Holloway
Daily Star
Wed, 19 Jun 2019 12:00 UTC

The insects - which can grow up to 1.6 inches - have powerful stings which can be fatal to humans with just a single strike if the person is allergic.

Record numbers of nests have been found on Jersey as there are fears they will move onto the mainland.

The fight is on-going on the Channel Island and is seen as a crucial battle-ground to stop the spread.

Just one of the foreign menaces can eat up to 50 bees a day and their impact on honey production could be devastating.

Nipah virus case confirmed in Kerala, India - Authorities on high alert following outbreak last year

Sputnik
Tue, 04 Jun 2019 12:02 UTC

Last year's outbreak of the virus had a mortality rate of 70% and claimed at least 17 lives. Currently, there is no vaccine to prevent it. It has flu-like symptoms that lead to encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain.

The first case of Nipah virus has been confirmed in the southern Indian state of Kerala after a 23-year-old man tested positive for the infection on Tuesday. The same virus claimed the lives of 17 people last year in Kerala, a coastal state in southern India. A state government source said four districts of the state are currently on high alert.

Initial reports suggest at least five people have been hospitalised in Kerala's Ernakulam district; 27 people are under close observation in the city of Thrissur and several others have also been under observation in Kollam and Idukki regions.

Comment: Other outbreaks reported recently:

Unusual orange algae bloom and mass fish die off at Kent coast, UK

Sean Doherty
Kent Online
Sat, 04 May 2019 09:18 UTC

Orange algae bloom, Kent

The Environment Agency has confirmed what caused an orange substance to appear in the sea around Thanet and Whitstable.

The substance, which has started to stain the groynes at Eastcliff, was reported to Port Control, after being discovered earlier this week.

On Thursday (May 2), dozens of fish washed up on the shore, though this was not stated to be linked to the substance, and the council has recommended keeping dogs on leads and away from going near the water.

Comment: A mass fish die off followed by a 'naturally occurring algae'. Although one would expect that if this was normal for the region it wouldn't be such a surprise to the newspapers nor the port authority. It's worth noting that just 2 days later there was an unusual M2.5 earthquake that occurred further inland in Surrey, in an area of fracking exploration.

See also:

Bubonic plague feared on Mongolian flight as sick couple found dead in departing city

Sputnik
Fri, 03 May 2019 16:10 UTC

Eleven terrified passengers were rushed from the airport for hospital checks as paramedics in hazmat gear boarded the flight from provincial outposts in west Mongolia.

A Mongolian domestic flight was intercepted at Ulaanbaatar airport as emergency workers wearing hazmat suits rushed to board the plane the instant it landed, acting on reports of a husband and wife dying of Bubonic plague in the region where the flight originated.

The man named Citizen T, aged 38, died after hunting and eating marmot meat; his pregnant wife, 37, died soon after, reported The Siberian Times.

Some 158 people were placed under intensive medical supervision in Bayan-Ulgii province after coming into contact directly or indirectly with the deceased couple.

According to the World Health Organisation, Bubonic plague can kill an adult in less than 24 hours unless timely treatment is at hand.

Comment: See also:

China's African swine flu outbreak spreads, 'will move markets and influence geopolitics for years to come'

RT
Fri, 03 May 2019 09:52 UTC

A minor outbreak of African swine fever among some 400 pigs in Shenyang in northeastern China is now threatening the global food supply chain and may increase pork prices for years.

Despite a mass cull, a blockade to prevent any further transmission and a government declaration that the outbreak of the particularly nasty strain of swine fever had been "effectively controlled," China, the country with half of the world's pigs, failed to stop the spread of the disease in time. Domestically, this contagion is already massive: China has a $128 billion pork industry and is third-highest global consumer of pork.

In the truest sense of the word, the outbreak has already gone viral, spreading to Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia and farther afield. The strain of African swine fever kills virtually every pig it infects with a bloody death reminiscent of Ebola, although it is not known to infect humans.

Comment: While the best solution to problems like these likely lies in changing the way farming is practiced, perhaps cooperation between countries to make up for the short fall could help mitigate the situation; for example, Russia is becoming well known for it's sustainable farming methods and has offered up land for those willing to use it productively. Until then, as with the increasingly erratic seasons and the resulting crop failures, outbreaks like these will likely become a regular occurrence:

A Book Review - Prehistory Decoded

Cosmic Tusk
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 01:13 UTC

Any follower of Catastrophism the last few years has seen extraordinary confirmations of ancient cataclysm and novel contributions to our way of thinking. To the Tusk, three revelations have characterized the period: The discovery of an extraordinarily youthful late Pleistocene crater in Greenland; a series of popular, comprehensive and unrefuted major journal articles which exquisitely defined hard evidence for the Younger Dryas impact catastrophe; and the singular contribution of Dr. Martin Sweatman, as made in his fabulous book, Prehistory Decoded.

Dr. Sweatman has done our planet and history a tremendous favor by writing Prehistory Decoded. By employing the hard science of probability, he has managed to demystify the world's very earliest and most mysterious art.

Prehistory Decoded begins by documenting Sweatman's initial discovery, reported worldwide in 2015, of an empirical method for decoding the world's first art using pattern matching and statistics. Guess what? The code is a memorial and date stamp for our favorite subject here: the Younger Dryas Catastrophe, and its associated Taurid meteor traumas.

Sweatman has managed to produce a synthesis explanation for the previously indecipherable succession of artistic animal figures at Gobekeli Tepe in Turkey, Chauvet Cave in France, Lascaux Cave in France, and Çatalhöyük in Turkey, among others. Unsurprisingly to the open minded, the ancient artists are communicating using a universally handy and persistent reference set: Stars. Or, more precisely, the appearance of constellations as adjusted over time according earth's precession.

(Don't you love the internet? One hyperlink and no need to explain all that!)

It seems reasonable then to the Tusk that, if there were a code, someone, somewhere, would break the code soon given the global availability and intense interest in the information. In fact, if I waited much longer without someone cracking it, the Tusk may have become convinced the oldest art is simply stunning cave paintings, and heavy carved rocks, with no relevant common narrative (other than horses are pretty, and moving rocks is cool).

Flea infestations triple due to UK's mild winter

Daily Mail
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:53 UTC

Calls to pest controllers surged in the first three months of the year, with reports of fleas up by 198 per cent on the same period in 2018 and of flies by 120 per cent (stock image)

Fleas and flies are normally a blight of the summer but infestations have begun early this year because of climate change, according to experts.

Calls to pest controllers surged in the first three months of the year, with reports of fleas up by 198 per cent on the same period in 2018 and of flies by 120 per cent.

The blame has been laid on milder winters allowing the insects to emerge earlier to breed.

This February was the warmest on record, according to the Met Office, with temperatures soaring as high as 20C.

David Cross, head of Rentokil's technical training academy, said: 'There's been a sharp increase in the number of flea and fly inquiries out of season - they are coming out much earlier than we would expect.

Comment: While it is true that, for some areas, this winter has been unusually warm and dry, other areas have seen a continuation of the record breaking cold. Because, overall, our planet is seeing serious cooling and these anomalous and extreme weather patterns are congruent with those that occurred during the last little ice age, and do not correlate with any global warming 'models'. Lest we forget that it was only last year that the UK was being battered with bitter cold by the 'beast from the east':

Deadly swine fever spreads throughout China threatening massive pork shortage

RT
Mon, 22 Apr 2019 21:32 UTC

© Reuters / Hallie Gu
Workers in protective suits are seen at a checkpoint near a farm where African swine fever was detected in Hebei province, China on February 26, 2019.

African swine fever has spread all across China's mainland, threatening the country's entire sprawling hog industry and the global supply of pork. The epidemic broke out nine months ago but still appears to be uncontained.

It has now reached China's southernmost province of Hainan - which had thus far been spared from swine fever. Over 140 pigs have already died from the disease at six farms in the province, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Sunday.

The outbreak of the virus began last August and has now spread to all 31 provinces of mainland China, with more than 100 cases reported over the past few months across the country. The virus is highly contagious and deadly for pigs, it causes high fever, massive hemorrhaging in internal organs and, ultimately, death. While, fortunately, the African swine fever does not affect humans as such, it has heavily affected the massive pork industry of the country.

Comment: Food prices across the planet are already rising because of the increasingly erratic seasons and extreme weather events, animal pandemics could result in a catastrophe for our food supply:

'Urgent threat': Mysterious, deadly fungus Candida auris sweeps the globe

New Straits Times
Sun, 07 Apr 2019 11:01 UTC

Candida auris is so tenacious, in part, because it is impervious to major antifungal medications, making it a new example of one of the world's most intractable health threats: the rise of drug-resistant infections.(stock image for illustration purposes)

In May, an elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn, New York City branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious. Doctors swiftly isolated him in the intensive care unit.

The germ, a fungus called Candida auris, preys on people with weakened immune systems, and it is quietly spreading across the globe. Over the past five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical centre to shut down its intensive care unit, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa.

Recently, C. auris reached New York, New Jersey and Illinois in the United States, leading the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add it to a list of germs deemed "urgent threats."

Comment: It may be that there are other factors contributing to the rise and the virulence of these outbreaks:

Other recent outbreaks of note:

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hobnyeba

Plagues

Lone star tick bite causes severe meat allergy in US farmer

Britain sees worrying rise in Asian Hornets - 80 nests found

Nipah virus case confirmed in Kerala, India - Authorities on high alert following outbreak last year

Unusual orange algae bloom and mass fish die off at Kent coast, UK

Bubonic plague feared on Mongolian flight as sick couple found dead in departing city

China's African swine flu outbreak spreads, 'will move markets and influence geopolitics for years to come'

A Book Review - Prehistory Decoded

Flea infestations triple due to UK's mild winter

Deadly swine fever spreads throughout China threatening massive pork shortage

'Urgent threat': Mysterious, deadly fungus Candida auris sweeps the globe

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