Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The History
of Infectious
Diseases
Diseases and their Animals
--World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia. “A brief guide to emerging infectious diseases and
zoonoses.” 2014 ,pg.1 https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/909329/retrieve
EARLY LIFE FREE FROM DISEASE & INFECTIONS
“Disease was not present in the earliest times
of the earth's history, so far as animals & plants
are concerned.”
“Disease... did not exist with the most ancient
bacteria” In the earliest periods physical injuries
& wounds were free from infections
Human Demographics,
Migration and Behavior
“In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Guns, Germs
and Steel, Professor Diamond tried to explain why the
diseases of the landing Europeans wiped out up to
95% of the native Americans, and not the other way
around. Why didn’t native American plagues kill the
Europeans? Well, because there were no plagues.”
-“Pandemics: History & Prevention.” by Michael Greger M.D. FACLM March 27th, 2020
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/pandemics-history-prevention/
“Why didn’t the reverse
happen? Why didn’t
Native American
diseases wipe out the
landing Europeans?
Because there
essentially weren’t any
epidemic diseases.”
“Medical historians have long
conjectured that the reason there
were so many plagues in Eurasia
was that “crowd” diseases
required large, densely-populated
cities, unlike the presumed small
tribal bands of the Americas—but
that presumption turned out to be
wrong. New World cities like
Tenochtitlan were among the
most populous in the world.”
“In his chapter, “Lethal Gift of Livestock,” he explains how before the
Europeans arrived, we had buffalo, but no domesticated buffalo; so, no
measles. American camels were wiped out in the Pleistocene ice age;
so, no smallpox. No pigs, and so no pertussis.”
-“Pandemics: History & Prevention.” by Michael Greger M.D. FACLM March 27th, 2020 https://
nutritionfacts.org/video/pandemics-history-prevention/
“No chicken, so no typhoid. So, while people were dying by the millions
of killer scourges in Europe and Asia, none were dying with diseases in
the so-called new world because there weren’t essentially foreign animals
to domesticate. There wasn’t this spillover of animal disease.”
-“Pandemics: History & Prevention.” by Michael Greger M.D. FACLM March 27th, 2020 https://
nutritionfacts.org/video/pandemics-history-prevention/
“North America had originally been occupied by
only about one million Indians. That low number
was useful in justifying the white conquest of what
could be viewed as an almost empty continent.”
-GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES Jared Diamond , page 211-212
“However, archaeological excavations, and scrutiny
of descriptions left by the very first European
explorers on our coasts, now suggest an initial
number of around 20 million Indians. For the New
World as a whole, the Indian population decline in
the century or two following Columbus's arrival is
estimated to have been as large as 95 percent.”
-GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES Jared Diamond , page 211-212
“The main killers were Old World germs to which
Indians had never been exposed, and against which
they therefore had neither immune nor genetic
resistance. Smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus
competed for top rank among the killers. ”
-GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES Jared Diamond , page 211-212
“ As if these had not been enough, diphtheria,
malaria, mumps, pertussis, plague, tuberculosis,
and yellow fever came up close behind. In
countless cases, whites were actually there to
witness the destruction occurring when the
germs arrived. ”
-GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES Jared Diamond , page 211-212
The rate of emergence for emerging infectious diseases has increased
dramatically over the last century, and research findings have implicated wildlife as
an importance source of novel pathogens. However, the role played by domestic
animals as amplifiers of pathogens emerging from the wild could also be
significant, influencing the human infectious disease transmission cycle.
MEASLES VIRUS
Domestication of Cow & Sheep’s
-GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES Jared Diamond , page 206-207
“The close similarity of the measles virus to
the rinderpest virus suggests that the latter
transferred from cattle to humans and then
evolved into the measles virus by changing its
properties to adapt to us. ”
-GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES Jared Diamond , page 206-207
“That transfer is not at all surprising, considering
that many peasant farmers live and sleep close to
cows and their feces, urine, breath, sores, and
blood. Our intimacy with cattle has been going on
for ...years since we domesticated them—ample time
for the rinderpest virus to discover us nearby.”
-GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES Jared Diamond , page 206-207
SMALL POXS
Domestication of Camels
Pigs
Whooping
Bordetella Pertussis Cough
Pigs are a natural host to Bordetella bronchiseptica and under experimental
conditions can also be infected with B. pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis
[29, 30]. Infected piglets display a wide range of respiratory symptoms, including
fever, nasal discharge, nonparoxysmal coughing, and breathing difficulties
resulting in severe bronchopneumonia, which in some cases was combined with
a fibrinous pleuritis. B. pertussis can be found within airways adhering to the
epithelial lining or phagocytosed by macrophages and neutrophils.
Nicole Guiso, in Molecular Medical Microbiology (Second Edition), 2015
Although B. pertussis strictly affects humans and has no known animal reservoir, 8
many of the other Bordetella species are recognized primarily for the diseases they
cause in animals. B. bronchiseptica causes kennel cough in dogs and cats, and human
infections occur primarily in immunocompromised patients, often after exposure to
animals. Ovine-adapted B. parapertussis causes respiratory tract infections in
9-11
sheep. B. avium is a pathogen of poultry but has been isolated from the ear culture of
12 13
a patient with chronic otitis media. Similarly, B. hinzii also colonizes the respiratory
14
tract of poultry and has been isolated from the sputum of cystic fibrosis patients.
15
INFLUENZA FLU
Domestication of Ducks
Ducks
Avian Influenza
Influenza flu
(Bird Flu) H5N1
“The global nature of influenza and the aqueous
environment needed for virus spread are depicted by
the world viewed from space and its aqueous environs
(blue globe). Gulls and wild ducks are the natural host
of all known influenza A viruses.”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page iX
“ During evolution these viruses adapted to
migratory birds that travel long distances and spread
virus by transmission to mammals (lines of migration and
interspecies spread). Pigs act as intermediate hosts with
receptors for avian and mammalian influenza viruses and
occasionally transmit the viruses to humans.”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page iX
TYPHOID
Domestication of Chickens
Chickens Salmonella
Typhoid Fever &
typhi. (S. typhi)
Typhoid Mary
Salmonella
Contaminated
Listeria
Foods Listeriosis
monocytogenes
Listeriosis is a serious bacterial infection and is most commonly
caused by eating contaminated food such as unpasteurized dairy
products or ready-to-eat foods that have not been hygienically
packaged. Changing food habits and new technologies such as
refrigeration and vacuum packing of dairy, meat and fish products
are contributing factors in the emergence of listeriosis.
Listeria monocytogenes mainly occurs in soil, forage, water, mud,
livestock food and silage. Animal reservoirs include infected domestic
and wild mammals, fowl and humans. Animals can carry the bacterium
without appearing ill and can contaminate foods of animal origin such
as meat and dairy products. Unlike most other foodborne pathogens,
Listeria can multiply in refrigerated foods that are contaminated.
HCoV-229E
THIS COMMON COLD CAME FROM CAMELS
Camel
HCoV-229E Common Cold
There are four globally endemic human coronaviruses which, together with
the better known rhinoviruses, are responsible for causing common colds.
Usually, infections with these viruses are harmless to humans. DZIF Professor
Christian Drosten, Institute of Virology at the University Hospital of Bonn, and
his research team have now found the source of "HCoV-229E," one of the
four common cold coronaviruses -- it also originates from camels, just
like the dreaded MERS virus.
“Coronaviruses are the second-most
common cause of the common
cold. So far, we’ve discovered four
133
human cold coronaviruses, so that
makes seven coronaviruses in all
that can cause human disease. We
suspect we got SARS from civets,
MERS from camels, and COVID-19,
perhaps, from pangolins.”
“Where did we get the common
cold coronaviruses? The origin of
two of the four mild coronaviruses
remains a mystery, but one—
HCoV-229E—has been traced back
to camels and the other—HCoV-
134
OC43—to cattle or pigs.135”
Diseases and their Animals
"From the light God has given me, the prevalence of cancer
and tumors is largely due to gross living on dead flesh." {CCh 229.5}
“The effects of a flesh diet may not be immediately realized; but this is no
evidence that it is not harmful. Few can be made to believe that it is the meat
they have eaten which has poisoned their blood and caused their suffering.
Many die of diseases wholly due to meat eating, while the real cause is not
suspected by themselves or by others." {CCh 229.7}
Emerging Infectious
Diseases
Vector- Borne Zoonotic Contamination
EID events (defined as the temporal origin of an EID, represented by the original case
or cluster of cases that represents a disease emerging in the human population—see
Methods) are plotted with respect to a, pathogen type, b, transmission type, c, drug
resistance and d, transmission mode (see keys for details).
“Nearly every
According to the executive editor of Meat Processing magazine,
food consumers buy in supermarkets and order in restaurants
can be eaten with certainty for its safety— except for meat and
poultry products.”
-Food Revolution, The: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World
John Robbins; Dean Ornish M. D.
-NIH Human Microbiome Project defines normal bacterial makeup of the body
Genome sequencing creates first reference data for microbes living with healthy adults.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-human-microbiome-project-defines-
normal-bacterial-makeup-body
“Microbes live on us and within us and inhabit
virtually every available ecological niche of the external
environment, and they will expand into new-niches that
occur as we continue to alter the environment and extend
our contact with the microbial world. Most of the
microbes that live on or inside humans or exist in the
environment do not cause disease in humans.”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page 53-56
“These microbes may appear to be
unimportant. However, they are often crucial to
the human ecosystem. Moreover, microbes that
have heretofore not affected humans directly
may still represent a potent threat. .”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page 53-56
“Microbes that are pathogenic to the animals and plants on
which We depend for survival, for example, are an indirect
threat to human health. Other microbes live in apparent
harmony with animals but can be pathogenic for humans,
as evidenced by the number of emerging zoonotic diseases
that are transmitted to humans from animals.”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page 53-56
During the past decades, many previously unknown human
infectious diseases have emerged from animal reservoirs, from agents
such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Ebola virus, West Nile
virus, Nipah virus and Hanta virus. In fact, more than three quarters
of the human diseases that are new, emerging or re-emerging at the
beginning of the 21st century are caused by pathogens originating
from animals or from products of animal origin.
A wide variety of animal species, domesticated, peridomesticated
and wild, can act as reservoirs for these pathogens, which may be
viruses, bacteria, parasites or prions. Considering the wide variety
of animal species involved and the often complex natural history of
the pathogens concerned, effective surveillance, prevention and
control of zoonotic diseases pose a real challenge to public health.
“Moreover, many bacteria and viruses can sense
changes in the external environment, and depending on
what they sense, their genes can enable virtually instant
changes in the regulation of certain sets of other genes,
thus allowing the microbe to adapt to the new
environment.”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page 53-56
“Microbes have enormous
evolutionary potential and are
continually undergoing genetic
changes that allow them to
bypass the human immune
system, infect human cells, and
spread disease. ”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page 53-56
“RNA viruses, and retroviruses in particular, can mutate at
very high rates, allowing them to adapt rapidly to changes
in their external environment, including the presence of
therapeutic drugs. Because microbes reproduce so quickly
—as often as every 10 minutes— even very rare mutations
build up rapidly in viral and bacterial populations.”
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response by Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua
Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century , page 53-56
Pneumococcal Disease Mumps
Tetanus
Polio
-Horrors of vaccination exposed and illustrated, petition to the President to abolish compulsory
vaccination in army and navy by Higgins, Chas. M.(Charles Michael),b. 1854, page 174
50 Great Myths of Human Evolution
Understanding Misconceptions about Our Origins
John H. Relethford. Pg. 211
MYTH #41 The recent increase in life expectancy was due initially
to antibiotics
--World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia. “A brief guide to emerging infectious diseases and
zoonoses.” 2014 ,pg.1 https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/909329/retrieve
“. . . most human [zoonoses] infections are acquired from the
world’s 24 billion livestock . . . [and] exploding global demand for
livestock products means the problem is likely to get worse.”
-(REUTERS)Diseases from animals hit over two billion people a year by Kate
Kelland
In 2012, the human population reached 7 billion and the production
animal population around 24 billion (FAOSTAT, 2012). Global livestock
systems have been recently re-mapped (Robinson et al., 2011). Poultry and
pigs increasingly dominate in terms of number of animals kept (although
in terms of tropical livestock units ruminants are more important):
85% of all domestic animals alive are now pigs or poultry.
As disease transmission is dependent on numbers and contact rates,
and monogastrics are kept in higher numbers and more intensive
systems, monogastrics may become more important in disease
emergence.
“LONDON (Reuters) - A global study mapping human
diseases that come from animals like tuberculosis, AIDS, bird
flu or Rift Valley fever has found that just 13 such diseases
are responsible for 2.4 billion cases of human illness and 2.2
million deaths a year.”
-(REUTERS)Diseases from animals hit over two billion people a year by
Kate Kelland
“The vast majority of infections and deaths from so-called
zoonotic diseases are in poor or middle-income countries, but
“hotspots” are also cropping up in the United States and Europe
where diseases are newly infecting humans, becoming
particularly virulent, or are developing drug resistance. And
exploding global demand for livestock products means the
problem is likely to get worse, researchers said.”
-(REUTERS)Diseases from animals hit over two billion people a yearKate Kelland
•
“While zoonoses can be transmitted to people by either wild or
domesticated animals, most human infections are acquired from
the world’s 24 billion livestock, including pigs, poultry, cattle,
goats, sheep and camels.”
-(REUTERS)Diseases from animals hit over two billion people a year by Kate
Kelland
“The study initially looked at 56 zoonoses that together
are responsible for around 2.5 billion cases of human illness
and 2.7 million human deaths per year.”
-(REUTERS)Diseases from animals hit over two billion people a year by
Kate Kelland
•
A 2009 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine states:
“Given the animal agriculture sector’s considerable role in
environmental degradation, zoonotic disease emergence, and chronic
disease promotion, reducing livestock production and promoting
healthy plant-based diets should be a global health priority.”
— “Health Professionals’ Roles in Animal Agriculture, Climate Change, and Human Health” , Aysha Z. Akhtar,
MD, MPH, Michael Greger, MD, Hope Ferdowsian, MD, Erica Frank, MD
According to the executive editor of Meat Processing magazine,
“Nearly every food consumers buy in supermarkets and
order in restaurants can be eaten with certainty for its
safety— except for meat and poultry products.”
-Food Revolution, The: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World
Steve Bjerklie, Executive Editor of Meat Processing magazine, lamented, "Meat is a
lush medium for pathogenic bacteria and germs; it can harbor
parasites, toxic chemicals, and metal contaminants. And now it can
bring death by brain-rot.”
-Food Revolution, The: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World