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Ebola haunted Zaire because of corruption and political repression. The virus had no secret powers, nor was it unusually contagious. For centuries Ebola had lurked in the jungles of central Africa. Its emergence into human populations required the special assistance of humanity's greatest vices : greed, corruption, arrogance, tyranny, and callousness.
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Laurie Garrett |
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In all, 86 per cent of the increased life expectancy was due to decreases in infectious diseases. And the bulk of the decline in infectious disease deaths occurred prior to the age of antibiotics. Less than 4 per cent of the total improvement in life expectancy since 1700s can be credited to twentieth-century advances in medical care.
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Laurie Garrett |
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In 1982 President Ronald Reagan called for a war on drugs: by 1990 more men were in federal prisons on drug charges alone than had comprised the entire 1980 federal prison population for all crimes combined.
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Laurie Garrett |
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In 1980 the Latin American nations collectively were receiving from their external creditors--major banks, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank--about $11 billion more than they were losing in capital transfers back to wealthy-nation interests. But by 1985 these nations would be losing $35 billion more a year in capital transfers to North America and Europe than they received in loans and investments.41
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Laurie Garrett |
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The skills needed to describe and recognize perturbations in the Homo sapiens microecology are disappearing with the passing of the generations, leaving humanity, lulled into a complacency born of proud discoveries and medical triumphs, unprepared for the coming plague. 1 Machupo BOLIVIAN HEMORRHAGIC FEVER Any attempt to shape the world and modify human personality in order to create a self-chosen pattern of life involves many unknown conse..
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Laurie Garrett |
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Only mosquito can save Nigeria. Only mosquito can save South Africa. Only mosquito can save Zimbabwe Only mosquito can save Namibia. Only mosquito can save Africa. Only malaria can save Africa. Only yellow fever can save Africa.
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Laurie Garrett |
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According to official Soviet statistics submitted to the World Health Organization in the 1970s, virtually every imaginable infectious disease was on the decline or had disappeared, thanks to communist policies. It was widely believed in international health circles at the time that these statistics were wholly fabricated. 9
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Laurie Garrett |
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Fourteen percent of Americans believe Ebola is likely to sicken them or someone in their family in 2014,
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Laurie Garrett |
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Consider the difference in size between some of the very tiniest and the very largest creatures on Earth. A small bacterium weights as little as 0.00000000001 gram. A blue whale weighs about 100,000,000 grams. Yet a bacterium can kill a whale ... . Such is the adaptability and versatility of microorganisms as compared with humans and other so-called "higher" organisms, that they will doubtless continue to colonise and alter the face of the ..
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Laurie Garrett |
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The city of Strasbourg alone savagely slew 16,000 of its Jewish residents, blaming them for spreading the Black Death.10
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Laurie Garrett |
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A new global iatrogenic form of malaria was emerging--"iatrogenic" meaning created as a result of medical treatment. In its well-meaning zeal to treat the world's malaria scourge, humanity had created a new epidemic."
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Laurie Garrett |
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Besides, there wasn't much the lab could tell a physician in 1940 that a well-trained, observant doctor couldn't determine independently.
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Laurie Garrett |