Environment Disadvantage -4wkj-ndi

Health

Biodiversity shields us from disease

Doyle 5 (Alister Doyle, Writer for Reuters, Biodiversity May Help Slow Disease Spread: Experts, 10/26, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1026-02.htm) Better protection for the diversity of the planet's creatures and plants could help shield humans from diseases like AIDS, Ebola or bird flu and save billions of dollars in health care costs, researchers said on Tuesday.¶ They said human disruptions to biodiversity -- from roads through the Amazon jungle to deforestation in remote parts of Africa -- had made people more exposed to new diseases that originate in wildlife. "Biodiversity not only stores the promise of new medical treatments and cures, it buffers humans from organisms and agents that cause disease," scientists from the Diversitas international group said in a statement.¶ "Preventing emerging diseases through biodiversity conservation is far more cost effective than developing vaccines to combat them later," it said ahead of a November 9-10 conference of 700 biodiversity experts in Oaxaca, Mexico.¶ Peter Daszak, a scientist who helped find links between Asian bats and the SARS virus, said the 2003 outbreak of the flu-like disease cost about $50 billion, largely because it cut travel and trade from Asia. About 800 people died.¶ And AIDS, widely believed to have originated in chimpanzees, killed an estimated 3.1 million people in 2004 and the United Nations estimates that $15 billion will be needed for prevention, treatment and care in 2006 alone.¶ "Emerging diseases are causing a crisis of public health," Daszak, executive director of the consortium for conservation medicine at the Wildlife Trust, New York, told Reuters.¶ WILDLIFE TO PEOPLE¶ Diversitas experts urged governments to work out policies to protect biodiversity, including tougher regulations on trade, agriculture and travel to reduce chances that diseases like avian flu can jump from wildlife to people.¶ "We're not saying that we should lock up nature and throw away the key," said Charles Perrings, a biodiversity expert at Arizona State University. But he said humans should be more careful about disrupting areas of rich biodiversity.¶ He said diseases had spread from wildlife to humans throughout history but the risks were rising because of the impact of growing human populations on habitats.¶ The experts said the preservation of a wider range of species could also ease the impact of disease.¶ A factor helping the spread of Lyme disease in the eastern United States, for instance, was the absence of former predators like wolves or wild cats that once kept down numbers of white-footed mice -- a reservoir of the infection.¶ Lyme disease was also less of a problem for humans in U.S. states where the ticks that transmit the disease had more potential targets, like lizards or small mammals.¶ "The value of services provided by nature and its diversity is under-appreciated until they stop," said Anne Larigauderie, executive director of Paris-based Diversitas, a non-government organization. She said China had to employ people in some regions to pollinate apple orchards because the over-use of pesticides had killed off bees. "It maybe takes 10 people to do the work of two beehives," she told Reuters.¶ And the Australian gastric brooding frog had once been seen as key for anti-ulcer drugs because it bizarrely incubated its young in its stomach after shutting off digestive acids. It has since become extinct, taking its secrets with it

Natural Drugs may hold the key to thwart many devastating diseases

Hong-Fang et. al. 9 (Hong-Fang Ji, Xue-Juan Li & Hong-Yu Zhang are at the Shandong Provincial Research Center for Bioinformatic Engineering and Technique at Shandong University of Technology in Zibo, People's Republic of China, March 2009, “Natural products and drug discovery. Can thousands of years of ancient medical knowledge lead us to new and powerful drug combinations in the fight against cancer and dementia?”, Published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658564/) BC

The medicinal use of natural products—compounds that are derived from natural sources such as plants, animals or micro-organisms—precedes recorded human history probably by thousands of years. Palaeoanthropological studies at the cave site of Shanidar, located in the Zagros Mountains of Kurdistan in Iraq, have suggested that more than 60,000 years ago, Neanderthals might have been aware of the medicinal properties of various plants, as evidenced by pollen deposits in one of the graves at the site (Solecki, 1975). Over the ensuing millennia, humankind discovered and made use of an enormous range of natural compounds; the latest version of the Dictionary of Natural Products (DNP; http://dnp.chemnetbase.com) has just over 214,000 entries. Throughout our evolution, the importance of natural products for medicine and health has been enormous. Since our earliest ancestors chewed on certain herbs to relieve pain, or wrapped leaves around wounds to improve healing, natural products have often been the sole means to treat diseases and injuries. In fact, it has only been during the past decades that natural products have taken a secondary role in drug discovery and drug development, after the advent of molecular biology and combinatorial chemistry made possible the rational design of chemical compounds to target specific molecules. The past few years, however, have seen a renewed interest in the use of natural compounds and, more importantly, their role as a basis for drug development. The modern tools of chemistry and biology—in particular, the various ‘-omics' technologies—now allow scientists to detail the exact nature of the biological effects of natural compounds on the human body, as well as to uncover possible synergies, which holds much promise for the development of new therapies against many devastating diseases, including dementia and cancer.…Throughout our evolution, the importance of natural products for medicine and health has been enormous This new strategy could have several advantages as it would modulate biological networks rather modestly and might therefore be more efficient in dealing with complex diseases (Csermely et al, 2005; Dancey & Chen 2006; Zimmermann et al, 2007). Moreover, it could prevent, or at least slow down, the development of resistance against many antibiotics, antimalarials and anti-cancer drugs. The prospect of new and better drug combinations is enticing, and natural compounds hold great promise. Nevertheless, a huge challenge remains to identify natural compounds—or naturally inspired compounds—that can be combined to be effective against human disease. The enormous number of possible drug combinations, the inherent risks of harmful drug–drug interactions, the possible antagonistic effects and the unpredictable pharmacokinetic properties of multi-component formulations must still be addressed. As pointed out above, we have a rich historical record from ancient physicians about how to use natural medicines alone and in combination, which might provide important clues for developing new drugs (Schmidt et al, 2007; Verpoorte et al, 2009). To make the best use of our forbearers' knowledge, we need to analyse these medical formulae and elucidate their synergistic effects. We already know of some compounds that are more powerful in combination than alone: for example, the combination of Realgar, Indigo naturalis, Radix salviae miltiorrhizae and Radix pseudostellariae constitutes a formula in TCM that has proven effective against human acute promyelocytic leukaemia (Huang et al, 1995). Its synergistic effect was recently attributed to the direct anti-cancer properties of tetra-arsenic tetrasulphide from Realgar and the complementary effects of indirubin and tanshinone IIA from Indigo naturalis and Radix salviae miltiorrhizae, respectively, which enhance the transport of tetra-arsenic tetrasulphide into target cells and thus potentiates its efficacy (Wang et al, 2008). …we have a rich historical record from ancient physicians […], which might provide important clues for developing new drugs…

Biodiversity key to Human Health

Ostfeld and Keesing 13 (Richard S Ostfeld, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY, USA, Felicia Keesing, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA, Elsevier Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, “Biodiversity and Human Health” http://ac.els-cdn.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/B9780123847195003324/3-s2.0-B9780123847195003324-main.pdf?_tid=e3f0ac3e-f33b-11e2-8ded-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1374545112_3c915724869f82f0aad33f3288a1e075)BC Biodiversity supports and protects human health in many ways, and the continuing loss of biodiversity will compromise this support system. Some species currently or potentially of conservation concern provide animal models important for basic biomedical research. Others contain substances that can be used or modified to produce medicines of enormous health benefit. Biodiversity is critical for reducing impacts of disease on crop production, for increasing nutritional diversity, and for providing insurance against climate change and other environmental changes. High biodiversity reduces the rates of transmission of various human pathogens, including the agents of Lyme disease, West Nile fever, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and schistosomiasis. Areas with high diversity of free-living organisms also appear to maintain high diversity of parasites and pathogens, and some have argued that these areas might be “hot spots” for disease emergence. However, reductions in native biodiversity associated with human activities are consistently associated with increases in disease risk and incidence. In a private, unregulated market economy, private agents guided by self-interest decide for themselves what to make, buy, and consume. A celebrated result dating back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1904 (1776)) holds that the “invisible hand” of the market will generate a socially desirable outcome even though it is driven by the selfish interests of myriad independent actors. This result was later formalized in what is known in economics as the “First Welfare Theorem”: A perfectly competitive market economy is efficient. (Efficiency has a specific and limited meaning in economics: An outcome is efficient if no one can be made better off without making another worse off.) Efficiency does not address another social objective: equity. However, another fundamental result, known as the Second Welfare Theorem, holds that any efficient outcome – including any that are both efficient and equitable – can be achieved by first reallocating the initial distribution of wealth and then allowing trading in a market economy. There is, however, controversy as to whether it is ever possible to reallocate wealth without altering the incentives to amass wealth, which would violate the assumptions under which the welfare theorems are derived. Even introductory economics courses quickly teach their students that the perfectly competitive market economy as envisioned by Smith and mathematically formalized in the middle of the twentieth century by Nobel laureates such as Kenneth Arrow, Gerard Debreu, and John Nash rests on a number of very restrictive assumptions. For readers interested in environmental policy, the most problematic of these assumptions is that there are complete markets; that is, all goods in the economy are, in fact, owned by someone, and, consequently, if one person could realize greater satisfaction from a good than could its current owner, the former will purchase the good from the latter. This sounds like a reasonable depiction of the circumstances of ownership of, say, bread, cars, and cell phones. For what types of goods is this description not adequate? The answer, in brief, is “public goods.” It may be best to define a public good by contrasting it with a private good. You and I cannot both consume all of the same loaf of bread, because bread is a private good. It is by definition, a good from whose enjoyment I can exclude you – if I have a loaf of bread, I can prevent you from simply taking it from me without compensating me a mutually agreed-on amount (Of course in most societies, preventing you from appropriating my belongings involves more than personal defense; police and courts play a role as well. Such mechanisms are no less necessary in the allocation of public goods than they are in the defense of private ones, but the authors will abstract from further consideration of them here.) – and whose enjoyment is rival – if I eat my loaf of bread, you cannot eat the same loaf of bread. A public good such as environmental quality, in contrast, is neither excludable nor rival. You cannot be excluded from enjoying the benefits of, say, cleaner air, even if it is my actions that have resulted in the air being cleaner. Nor does my consumption of clean air diminish in any way the benefits you enjoy from cleaner air. Biodiversity gives rise to many public goods. For example, preserved natural ecosystems may both harbor a diverse collection of species and provide downstream communities with protection against flooding by retaining water. The flood protection, however, is necessarily available to all members of the downstream communities if it is available to any. There are numerous other examples. Consider, for instance, the simple moral or esthetic satisfaction one realizes from knowing that such unique and fascinating creatures as giant pandas, California condors, and tigers continue to exist. This is a quintessential public good. My satisfaction in knowing that there are still tigers in the wild in no way reduces the satisfaction you may take in the same knowledge. Furthermore, villagers in India may “pay for” preserving tigers in that tigers they refrain from killing may attack their livestock or themselves. These villagers are providing a benefit to people elsewhere who care about the continued existence of tigers for purely moral or esthetic reasons. The types of markets envisioned by Smith are incapable of allocating public goods efficiently. The reason is simple. Goods are efficiently produced when the benefits accruing to all members of society collectively from one additional unit of their production are exactly offset by the cost of that production. This balancing occurs naturally when a private purchaser compares the benefit she alone receives from the purchase of a good with price she must pay for it, and that price is exactly the same as the incremental cost the good's provider incurs to offer.

When one provides a public good, however, the benefits accrue to many people. Unless one accounts for the benefits to others when making the choice of whether to provide a public good, the public good will be undersupplied. This would not occur if everyone who benefited could be compelled to pay for the benefits she receives, but this is where the problems of nonexcludability and nonrivalry arise. People will not choose voluntarily to pay their fair share of the cost of providing public goods because each would be better off to let others pay their shares and to “free ride” on the benefits the others provide. Consider again the tiger example. Those of us in the wealthier countries who care about the survival of tigers could pay villagers not to kill the tigers, or perhaps pay to relocate the villagers to areas away from tigers. If I were willing to pay for this outcome, though, why would you want to “buy” a good that I was providing to you anyway? Perhaps we could devise a system under which we both contributed to the payments necessary to compensate Indian villagers for tiger preservation. When you consider that such a scheme would have to involve millions of people to cover all the beneficiaries of tiger preservation, however, you appreciate that what we are then contemplating is really a public program for the provision of a public good – an alternative to a private free market.

Impacts of Pandemics are far reaching

Morag 12 (Dr. Nadav Morag is Deputy Director for Policy Research and a faculty member at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Naval Postgraduate School, and teaches senior federal, state and local homeland security officials selected and funded by the Department of Homeland Security within the context of the center’s Master’s in Homeland Security program., Ph.D., Political Science (1999), Tel Aviv University; MA, Political Science (1989), University of California, Los Angeles; BA, Political Science (1987), University of California, Los Angeles, “The Ripple Effects of Pandemics on Modern Society”, November 28, 2012, http://www.coloradotech.edu/Student-Life/CTU-Blog/November-2012/Pandemic-2) Human history records a number of significant pandemics, from influenza to tuberculosis. From this, most people associate pandemics with death, but few understand the severe impact pandemics have on society as a whole. The following three cases explore the potentially devastating nature of pandemics, both in terms of the loss of life and economic impact.The Black DeatIn the Spring of 1348, the Bubonic Plague struck Asia and Europe and continued to return, in varying degrees of virulence, until the eighteenth century. The plague caused painful swelling of the lymph nodes, known as “buboes,” which caused the skin to be covered with dark blotches. From this, the name, “Black Death,” was popularized.Rodents carried the disease and another version of it, known as the Pneumonic Plague, was transmitted by air. Set in a period devoid of modern medical care and sterile hygiene standards, four out of five infected persons died within a week of contracting the Bubonic Plague, or in as few as one or two days if infected by the Pneumonic Plague. Collectively, some 75 million people are thought to have died from the pandemic with at least 20 million deaths in Europe, which accounted for potentially two-thirds of Europe’s population. The impact of a highly contagious pandemic of such virulence led to what is commonly referred to today as “social distancing,” but in a very extreme way. People fled cities, abandoning family and friends, which caused old class and religious structures to break down. For a time, the process of urbanization was reversed and Europe reverted to a more agrarian society. The economic impact was startling. With fewer people left to produce goods, basic commodities became extremely expensive. Additionally, wages for peasants increased creating slightly more social mobility for those who were lucky enough to survive.SmallpoxSmallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the Variola virus, which in the twentieth century, is thought to have killed over 300-500 million people globally. Its more virulent strain has a mortality rate of 30-35%. Originally transmitted by Europeans to the Americas during the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of Latin America, smallpox is thought to have been the main reason for the devastating drop in population among the native population because they had no natural immunity to the disease. Some estimates suggest as many as 95% of the native population perished. Further, the collapse of advanced Native American civilizations, such as the Aztecs and the Incas, has been attributed to ravages of smallpox. In 1979, as a result of the successful worldwide vaccination campaigns, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared smallpox to have been completely eradicated. The virus is thought to only exist in a handful of laboratories around the world.Ironically, the success of the WHO’s eradication campaign has left today’s human population at risk. People are no longer vaccinated against the virus, and consequently, human populations are highly vulnerable to it.Spanish FluBetween 1918 and 1919, the Spanish Flu killed approximately 50 million people globally. Caused by the influenza virus, some people were able to stave off the disease and only experienced severe flu symptoms. Yet, many fought a losing battle with the disease experiencing an excruciating death as their lungs filled with fluid and they quickly asphyxiated. The disease was so rapid that people sometimes died only hours after being infected. This strain of Influenza received its name because Spain, a non-combatant in World War I, provided most of the information about the outbreak. Other combatant countries, including the United States, suppressed the news, choosing to exercise military censorship. It is difficult to know the number of people who became infected because of censorship, but the worldwide impact is clear.The Spanish flu claimed the lives of 20-50 million people worldwide, infecting people in all age groups, from very young children to elderly people. But most striking and of greatest social impact, was the very large percentage of working-age people, aged 15-34, who were killed by the disease.Lessons for TodayAs the above sampling of cases suggest, pandemics are a considerable threat to lives and livelihoods. Some public health officials estimate that in a major pandemic, particularly one that is highly contagious, some 60% of the workforce will be homebound resulting in basic goods disappearing from store shelves, the shutting down of basic services such as municipal services, health, transportation, law enforcement and schools. All could lead to runaway inflation due to price rises. Increasing global transportation links make managing pandemics a challenge. Pandemics are poised to spread more quickly than they did in the past, which complicates the process of identifying the virus or bacteria in question and developing vaccinations and drug treatments. Ultimately, pandemics will spread rapidly and kill many more people before they can be stopped.

Disease Causes Extinction

DJUS 9 (Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, “Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of Our Fate”, May 22, 2009, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate#.UfQumb4o7Kp, MS) A pandemic will kill off all humans.¶ In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging — a process that maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction.¶ Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIV’s rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the virus’s abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIV’s use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune system. ¶ However, for more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of new strains could prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a “global influenza pandemic,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the original viral strain — which could only infect birds — into a human-viable strain (10).