DOCTORS’ LOUNGE
(continued from page 33)
just before a holiday weekend.
the second generation of each male died off.
So far, reports of altered ecology on Cayman
have not materialized; however, the memory
and reach of Mother Nature stretch into
eons, not years, and no one knows if major
or minor effects will even be measurable.
Mosquito bites are so common that people don’t fear them enough. Mosquitoes kill.
If survived, they can cause severe and lasting deformity and disability. Zika can ruin
the brains of the unborn and badly injure
the nervous systems of the adult. West Nile
can cause meningoencephalitis, paraplegia,
quadriplegia and death. At least 400 million
cases of Dengue occur annually, mostly in
places Americans visit, not live. Dengue
is like the worst flu ever – bone breaking
fevers – and can trigger hemorrhagic shock
syndrome.
Scientists therefore have cast about for
more lasting and lethal ways to remove entire populations of mosquitoes. Oxford researchers, working with the Oxitec biotech
firm, successfully eradicated 96 percent of
the Aedes on Cayman between 2009-2010
by genetically modifying the males. The new
gene engineered
development,
soquarter
that
Octoberfaulty
2016 Harding
Shymanski
Public health authorities walk a fine line
between scaring us enough to get us to pay
attention and take precautions, and causing
either panic in the streets, or apathy. For Ebola, we profiled the entire nation eventually,
screening every person who sought medical
care for travel to certain parts of Africa. The
budgetary response to Ebola was too little,
too late, but was in fact spurred by hysteria
and panic, and Congress felt obliged to act.
It was not so for the men and women
of Ground Zero. After 9/11 the toxicity of
air in lower Manhattan was greatly downplayed by the EPA. In fact, the head of the
EPA specifically and repeatedly assured
New
that the1air8/30/2016
was safe. Not
untilPM
page
ad Yorkers
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34
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
2010, after multiple Congressional battles
had been fought, after sick cops and firefighters trekked to Washington year after
year after year, did Congress finally pass
the first-responder health bill. It’s called the
James Zadroga Act, after an NYPD detective
who worked at Ground Zero and died in
2006, at only 34, of fiberglass lung disease
(like asbestosis). He was poisoned like so
many others. By 2011, over 75,000 people
had registered for federal health costs coverage. In December 2015, Congress extended
the benefits for the next 75 years. By 2021,
predic