October 17 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The movie below is written and directed by Peter Joseph. It is 123 min long and offers a lot of food-for-thought. We welcome your comments.

Posted in Identity Management, Security Measures, Health Preparedness, Economic Issues, In The News, Water Issues, Food Security, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Environment, Politics | No Comments »

March 26 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The International Herald Tribune has published the following article:

Efforts to contain bird flu are failing in Indonesia, increasing the possibility that the virus may mutate into a deadlier form, the leading U.N. veterinary health body warned.

The H5N1 bird flu virus is entrenched in 31 of the country’s 33 provinces and will cause more human deaths, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement released late Tuesday.

“I am deeply concerned that the high level of virus circulation in birds in the country could create conditions for the virus to mutate and to finally cause a human influenza pandemic,” FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said.

Indonesia “has not succeeded in containing the spread of avian influenza,” Domenech said, adding that there must be “major human and financial resources, stronger political commitment and strengthened coordination.”

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 236 people in a dozen countries worldwide since it began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003. It has been found in birds in more than 60 countries, but Indonesia has recorded 105 deaths, almost half the global tally, according to the World Health Organization.

FAO’s sharp warning comes amid a flurry of bird flu outbreaks across the region. Chinese officials earlier this week announced the H5N1 virus was responsible for killing birds in poultry markets in the southern city of Guangzhou. Meanwhile, India last week confirmed a fresh poultry outbreak near Calcutta. The country has been battling the virus since January, resulting in the death or slaughter of some 4 million birds.

In addition, Vietnamese health officials on Monday announced that the virus had killed an 11-year-old boy in the north, marking the country’s 52 human death. The virus has resurfaced in several provinces, including the capital Hanoi, prompting the prime minister to put the entire country on alert. Two children in Egypt also were recently diagnosed with the disease.

We’re due for another pandemic. It’s unfortunate that thanks to modern mass media we are desensitized so easily. The threat of a pandemic hasn’t decreased by any means, but already our interest in the subject matter has waned.

What’s perhaps more disconcerting are the continued “promises” by our health care system that it’s ready for anything. I have one simple question in response to those shaking vows: when was the last time you visited the emergency room?

Posted in Health Preparedness, Asia | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

At the end of January, we posted the latest Indonesian death toll which at that time was 100.  As of February 16th the toll was at 140 - that’s 4o deaths in under 20 days! Where is the global concern, folks? At any time Bird Flu can become the next Human Flu, rapidly spreading across the globe. Perhaps we firmly believe that the ever under-stocked Tamiflu will save us. Or maybe it’s just that a vaccine for a strain of influenza whose make up we have no way of predicting will be developed in advance. It’s likely, however, that as we haven’t faced a threat of such magnitude for so considerable a period of time we have forgotten what the impact on our social stability might be and as a result are content to rely on drugs as the answer.

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January 30 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The BBC has reported that:

“The human death toll from bird flu in Indonesia has risen to 100 - almost half of the total worldwide fatalities.

Two Indonesians from the outskirts of Jakarta succumbed to the H5N1 strain of the disease over the weekend, said Joko Suyono of the National Bird Flu Centre.Indonesia is the nation worst affected by bird flu and has struggled to contain the virus.

Since the H5N1 virus emerged in South East Asia in late 2003, it has claimed more than 220 lives around the world.

Suyono said a nine-year-old boy and a 23-year old woman had died from the disease over the weekend.

“The woman died yesterday [Sunday] but we just received the results that she’s positive with bird flu,” Suyono told AFP news agency.

“The total number of deaths is now 100 out of 124 positive cases.

“Indonesia is one of the only countries to log human deaths year-round.Almost all infected people are thought to have contracted the disease from poultry.

But scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form which could be easily passed from human to human, triggering a pandemic and potentially putting millions of lives at risk.”

Is anyone paying attention as the death tolls (those which are recorded) slowly rise?

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December 4 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

James Ridgeway has published an excellent article highlighting several different perspectives on food security in the United States. It is well worth the read:

“While most Americans were planning for the annual ritual of overconsumption known as Thanksgiving, the good folks at the Heritage Foundation, America’s leading architects of conservative thought for at least three decades, were doing their part to add to the holiday cheer. According to a November 13 Heritage article, well-off revelers could stuff their faces unhampered by guilt about the less fortunate, because there are no longer any hungry people in the United States.

You have to hand it to Heritage for always being first out of the gate to exploit the latest event or finding to advance its aims—this is the same think tank that issued a comprehensive strategy, two weeks after Katrina hit shore, for using the hurricane as an excuse to slash federal social programs. This time, its thinkers found inspiration in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual report on Household Food Security in the United States, which is as close as the federal government comes to providing statistics on hunger among the nation’s poor. The latest report states that 11 percent of Americans were “food insecure” for some part of 2006, and 4 percent—11.1 million people—experienced “very low food security.”

These Orwellian euphemisms are a triumph for the conservative agenda; the USDA altered its terminology last year on the recommendations of an “expert panel” convened back in 2003. “Very low food security,” for example, used to be “food insecurity with hunger.” The experts asked the department to eliminate “hunger,” which, they argued, “should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.” To some, that might better describe starvation, but the panel’s reasoning wouldn’t be a stretch for the Bush administration, which claims “torture” must entail pain “equivalent in intensity” to the pain of “serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” Click here for more.

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November 13 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

The following is an interesting article posted on the Continuity and Business blog managed by John Fernandes:

Time to return to a theme we have sounded on numerous occasions in the past three years. In a recent post we called for a renewed investment in our public health and social service infrastructure as the best strategy. The object is to harden local communities and make them more resilient to all kinds of shocks, not just a pandemic. We should have added, however, that this means local preparation can’t be too local: only looking after ourselves and our families. Of course families should prepare, to the best of their ability, and having some reasonable stockpile will stand them in good stead whether it is a pandemic, a flood, a hurricane or a blizzard. But the more important point is that making a community more resilient requires structures that allow us to help each other, not just protect ourselves.

People react in different ways to community disasters. Some hunker down and wall themselves off from their neighbors. In a pandemic, this will serve a useful purpose and I don’t condemn anyone for doing it. But experience shows many people will also try to help their neighbors, even if it entails added risk to themselves. If you aren’t a helper, you could easily be among the helped. Communities where the impulse to help is encouraged and facilitated will do much better than those where helping others depends on individual heroic initiative. In practical terms, this means looking ahead to organizing and using volunteers efficiently, establishing means of communication (like neighborhood visiting groups) that allow others to know when a family is in distress, having community stockpiles and resources available for those who need it (e.g., essential medications or baby formula) are all part of thinking like a community, not just acting like anonymous individuals and isolated families.

It’s easier to prepare individually than to get your neighborhood or community moving in the right direction and individual prepping is a good thing. But it’s not the only thing.

Posted in Disaster Management, Health Preparedness | No Comments »

November 8 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

Every week several articles run all over the world on the threat of future pandemics. The question begs, how many more warnings does the Western world need before it actually does something in preparation? Surface level planning won’t prepare society for the fallout of a pandemic. More must be done to educate and engage the general public. More articles with warnings by scientists, followed by more articles from health officials with shaky claims of preparedness do little to achieve such necessary public engagement. It’s time to try a new approach.

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October 31 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Blog Avian Flu Diary has posted a wonderful commentary on the unwarranted optimism of government officials and other leaders who continue to make public statements professing preparedness for pandemics. Drawing from the informed preparedness of the general public during the Cold War in the 1950’s, the author contrasts the ability of average citizenry to cope with a disaster then as opposed to the misled and placated masses of today. The piece is definitely worth a read.

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October 30 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

In world where the illegal trafficking of humans shows no abating, curtailing the apparently legal trafficking of exotic pets seems highly unlikely despite the clear benefits that might be derived by society.

The Times Online has reported that:

“Dorothy Crawford, Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Edinburgh, said that the risk to people from zoonoses – animal-borne microbes – had never been greater, and that there was a need to reexamine our relationship with wild and domestic animals.

Professor Crawford also predicted that global travel would need to be restricted in the event of an avian flu pandemic.

Most emerging infections, including HIV, severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and bird flu had been acquired from animals and no one could say how many other devastating diseases could yet mutate to human beings, Professor Crawford said. “Who knows what could be hiding around the corner? We really have to think about what we are doing,” she said.

Professor Crawford highlighted the example of a consignment of giant Gambian rats, which were flown from Ghana into the US as exotic pets. The rats carried monkeypox virus, which transferred to prairie dogs that were sold in the same pet shop. The prairie dogs then passed the disease to their human buyers. The chain of infection was only terminated after the microbe had infected 71 people. In another instance, crocodiles being farmed in Papua New Guinea to provide luxury items for the West had been infected by a virus from wild pig meat, which crossed to their keeper.” Click here for more.

It’s very unfortunate that the plight of billions of people will never improve until humans can manage to see so many issues from a better vantage point. Professor Crawford’s points are very logical and certainly valid. Are the needs driving people to have exotic pets so sensible? Should the rights of so few really override the safety of so many? If the exotic pet industry is really the only means for those in poorer countries to survive, perhaps it is our wider system that should be risked, not the health of a typically ignorant Western population.

Posted in Disaster Management, Health Preparedness, Africa, Europe | No Comments »

October 19 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

The following cartoon was done by artist Larry Wright for The Detroit News:

ClassBrain re-published the cartoon along with 10 points the Centre for Disease Control in the U.S. wants everyone to know about H5N1. The points are certainly worth reading.

Posted in Health Preparedness | No Comments »