New Diseases in My Lifetime

[Hagar]

I'm sure I'll forget some, but here's a list of "new" diseases since I was a kid.  New in the sense that I'd never heard of them until I was older.

Ebola, hanta virus, flesh eating virus, legionaries disease, zika virus.

Take the zika virus for example.  Discovered in 1947 in Africa.   Now, 69 years later, all of a sudden it's spread over much of South America, and is now in the US.   Air travel?  Yes, we have more now, but we've had a lot for a long time.  Why is it suddenly spreading like a glass of water spilled on a table?  I remember the first time we heard about the flesh eating disease. Who knew?   One rare case.  Now, it's sadly a common occurrence.  

I just find all this strange.  

[baddog]

1 hour ago, REBgp said:

I'm sure I'll forget some, but here's a list of "new" diseases since I was a kid.  New in the sense that I'd never heard of them until I was older.

Ebola, hanta virus, flesh eating virus, legionaries disease, zika virus.

Take the zika virus for example.  Discovered in 1947 in Africa.   Now, 69 years later, all of a sudden it's spread over much of South America, and is now in the US.   Air travel?  Yes, we have more now, but we've had a lot for a long time.  Why is it suddenly spreading like a glass of water spilled on a table?  I remember the first time we heard about the flesh eating disease. Who knew?   One rare case.  Now, it's sadly a common occurrence.  

I just find all this strange.  

How about HIV, Mononucleosis, West Nile, Lyme disease? There are probably a lot more that I can't recall right off the top of my head. Funny, I have always said that micro-organisms will be the demise of the human race....not famine, nuclear war, asteroids (although that ranks second).

Good topic Reb. Even Big girl can get in on this. She's a nurse I believe.

[Hagar]

And head lice have mutated.  Maybe that's the origin of the term, Fuzzy a Headed Mutant.

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[BS Wildcats]

Just read about a girl in SC contracting a brain eating amoeba after swimming in a river.  Have heard about a lot of these cases the last few years.  I remember as a kid swimming in numerous lakes, ponds, and rivers.  Don't know about doing that now.  

[baddog]

18 hours ago, BS Wildcats said:

Just read about a girl in SC contracting a brain eating amoeba after swimming in a river.  Have heard about a lot of these cases the last few years.  I remember as a kid swimming in numerous lakes, ponds, and rivers.  Don't know about doing that now.  

Only thing we could get as kids was called "swimmer's ear".

[shovel]

Do you notice every year there is some threatening new disease that promise to not just disrupt our lives, but create death and despair for the planet? That hasn't happened yet, but there is more funding for the CDC and our tax dollars are poured into foreign countries to keep it from happening. Pay attention y'all! 

[Hagar]

On August 9, 2016 at 9:30 AM, shovel said:

Do you notice every year there is some threatening new disease that promise to not just disrupt our lives, but create death and despair for the planet? That hasn't happened yet, but there is more funding for the CDC and our tax dollars are poured into foreign countries to keep it from happening. Pay attention y'all!  

On August 9, 2016 at 9:30 AM, shovel said:

Double clutched the quote button.   

You're absolutely right.  And this Zika spreading like wildfire makes me think of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg, and most of our antibiotics are useless.  Smh

[westend1]

Plague, polio, smallpox.  This stuff is nothing.  Bacteria and virus have been around for a long time.  They evolve like everything else.  We might whip them all eventually,   but i doubt it. 

[baddog]

Still undiscovered viruses in the South American and probably African jungles.