Human-Health

Coronavirus rarely kills people directly—so why are people dying? This piece from Paul Feather, animist farmer and writer, challenges simplistic, reductionist thinking, and proposes a synthesis approach to understanding the current crisis. Cause of Death: Civilization By Paul Feather Sixty five thousand, six hundred and fifty two. As of this writing, John Hopkins reports this death toll from coronavirus [the official death toll is now above 100,000]. It’s strange to me, the way we count these deaths. I would like to count them differently. I would like to use science, even though the scientists won’t. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you count things, but this particular number—or rather its rate of growth—has lost us our constitutional right to assemble. A third of the world’s population is on lockdown with more to come no doubt, and I fear for the suffering that results from these restrictions. ...

The origins of epidemics can be traced back to the emergence of civilization. By aurora linnea There is a family of bacteria dwelling in soil, in water. Some reside in the bodies of cows. Humans domesticate cows, for meat, milk, labor. Cows are corralled in large groups, in small spaces, near to human settlements. The bacteria, disturbed by the upset of their microbial life-ways, shift their behavior. Now they move quickly between cows, they become more aggressive. Cows get sick. ...

By Boris Forkel / Deep Green Resistance Germany I want to tell you a story. A story about permaculture, food chains, friendship, love and death. People are storytellers. We transport information through stories, or narratives, to use the more sophisticated term. Actually I wanted to go with my good friend Cengiz to a political event, a meeting of the initiative aufstehen (stand up) about the resistance of the yellow vests in France. However, Cengiz decided to spend the evening with his newly hatched chicks, his cats and a good friend whom he looks after because she has addiction problems. He is one of the finest characters I have ever met. I taught him how to kill. We have already taken the lives of a many proud roosters together. At the same time, I have never met a person who cares more about his animal friends than he does. ...

Editor’s note: this essay was written by Mark Behrend, a Routledge author and veteran of the Vietnam War who became an activist after refusing to facilitate shipments of munitions. DGR does not agree with all of the points in this essay, but it has value and deserves publication. Image: mwewering, Pixabay By Mark Behrend While environmental discussions typically center on climate change, pollution, and biodiversity, both activists and educators tend to avoid the question of human numbers. We might argue whether overpopulation gave rise to industrial capitalism, or vice versa. But we avoid discussing it further, due to fears of being politically incorrect on race, religion, or family rights. ...

Award winning author and veterinary epidemiologist David Waltner-Toews has published seven collections of poetry, one of which includes recipes, a collection of short stories, a murder mystery, six books of popular science, and several texts and manuals on ecosystem approaches to health. From meditations on the origins of feces to elegant terzanelles on the meaning of life, from human diseases we get from other animals, to what food, sex and Salmonella share with each other, DWT celebrates the whole complex mess of life. A University Professor Emeritus at University of Guelph, he was founding president of Veterinarians without Borders–Canada and of the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health, and a founding member of Communities of Practice for Ecosystem Approaches to Health in Canada. He is the recipient of the inaugural award for contributions to ecosystem approaches to health from The International Association for Ecology and Health. ...

by Dahr Jamail / Truthout - reprinted with permission / Image: NSIDC I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song? — Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours ...

by Kate Randall / World Socialist Web Site Drug overdose deaths in the US topped 72,000 in 2017, according to new provisional estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This staggering figure translates into about 200 drug overdose deaths every day, or about one every eight minutes. The new CDC estimates are 6,000 deaths more than 2016 estimates, a rise of 9.5 percent. This has been primarily driven by a continued rise of deaths involving synthetic opioids, a category of drugs that includes fentanyl. Nearly 30,000 deaths involved these drugs in 2017, an increase of more than 9,000 (nearly 50 percent) over the previous year, according to preliminary data. ...

Featured image: The Yanomami are the largest relatively isolated indigenous people in the Amazon. © Fiona Watson/Survival by Survival International A measles epidemic has hit an isolated Amazon tribe on the Brazil-Venezuela border which has very little immunity to the disease. The devastating outbreak has the potential to kill hundreds of tribespeople unless emergency action is taken. The Yanomami communities where the outbreak has occurred are some of the most isolated in the Amazon. ...

Editor’s note: this article critiques elements of Steven Pinker’s absurd claim that “things are better than they ever were, but still gives too much creedence in our view to some of his propositions. Nonetheless, the piece adds some valuable elements to the discussion. We publish a variety of views that are associated with DGR positions on this website, not just material that we agree with in every detail. by Charles Eisenstein ...

Agriculture did not arise from need so much as it did from relative abundance. People stayed put, had the leisure to experiment with plants, lived in coastal zones where floods gave them the model of and denizens of disturbance, built up permanent settlements that increasingly created disturbance, and were able to support a higher birthrate because of sedentism. Area altered by Glacial Lake Missoula floods. ...