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Last time I looked at the effect of a global pandemic, this time I'm looking at how we might change the agricultural landscape by hacking plants.
What if a pandemic strikes? Over the past century, humans have been transforming the planet so profoundly that we are pushing it into a new geological era, the Anthropocene (the Age of man.
what if our species were hit by a global pandemic? In the Anthropocene we are encroaching on wild lands,
Epidemics are certainly not new or unpredictable. A new strain of influenza virus occurs every 1-2 years, for example.
But the sudden global explosion of an epidemic that infects a large number of the population oe a pandemic oe is harder to predict.
We know a pandemic has occurred every 10-50 years for the past few centuries, and the last one was in 1968,
whether there will be a new pandemic, but of when it will occur. Pandemics, which kill a significant proportion of the population have acute and lasting effects on society.
The Black death, a bubonic plague during the Middle ages caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, killed 30%-60%of Europeans (80%of people in the south of France and Spain) and reduced global population from 450 million to around 350 million.
The impacts of this pandemic should have been especially severe because unusually, more than half of those who died were young working-age adults,
The HIV/Aids epidemic, which also disproportionately effects young, working age men and women, can give some idea of economic impact oe in hard-hit sub-Saharan African countries the economies were estimated to be on average 22%smaller in 2010
So what would be the result of a global pandemic in the 21st Century? The world's population in the middle Ages was just a few hundred million;
But what if the pandemic was really severe oe killing 80%-90%of our species?
Wouldn't it be great to achieve some of these desirable planetary outcomes without the horrific suffering of a global pandemic?
Is China's flu pandemic the next big one? China's flu pandemic: The big one?
Laurie Garrett Foreign policy 24 april 2013 Ten years after Sars, a new virus strikes China, perhaps more deadly,
and to chronicle the experience in his book, An Epidemic of Absence. Once infected, he suffered diarrhoea and a dull, constant gut pain,
and much of the world seems to be in the grip of a shopping epidemic.
Planets, pandemics and powerthe vanishing groves Ross Andersen Aeon 16 october 2012 A superb essay on the world's oldest trees, the bristlecone pines of California,
Where will the next pandemic come from? And how can we stop it? David Quammen Popsci 15 october 2012 The best guess:
sufficiently virulent and transmissible to cause a pandemic capable of killing tens of millions of people?
The prospect of a new viral pandemic, for these sober professionals, looms large. They say it might happen anytime.
environmentalists and demographers predicting humanity's collapse through famine, wars and epidemics, if we don't check our population.
Dementia Epidemic South korea is at the forefront of a worldwide eruption of dementia from about 30 million estimated cases now to an estimated 100 million in 2050.
the epidemic of tobacco-related disease and death has begun just, THE WHO said. But by 2030, the annual death toll could reach 8 million.
THE WHO said smoking is one of the biggest contributors to a worldwide epidemic of noncommunicable,
Citing an epidemic of childhood obesity, regulators are taking aim at a range of tactics used to market foods high in sugar,
#Stink Bug Epidemic Spreads to 33 U s. States Stink bugs Stink bugs, the smelly scourge of the Mid-atlantic, are hitchhiking
Shiva belongs to a colony of monkeys who have been fattened up to help scientists study the twin human epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
demand for the overweight primates is growing as part of the battle against the nations obesity epidemic, according to Dr. Grove and other researchers working with such monkeys in Florida,
and causing deadly epidemics in humans. Scientists from Cambridge and Edinburgh universities said that while the transgenic chickens still got sick
and producing a pandemic in which millions of people could die. ECONOMIC AND FOOD SECURITY THREAT In Southeast asia, China and parts of Africa, bird flu is already a major economic and food security issue,
fostering an obesity epidemic. Read on to see how one program is working to change Chicagos landscapes
These are ALSO the same foods that have created the obesity epidemic in this country. 2. Top foods keeping your ass wide.
and still debated, is sugar s role in the obesity and chronic disease pandemic. From an evolutionary perceptive, sugar in the form of fruit was available only a few months of the year, at harvest time,
With the national obesity and diabetes epidemics of the 2010s a distant memory, fastfood chains are a thing of the past.
Additionally Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus, or PED, is taking down piglets in 15 states. And as of now, there s no vaccine in the US just yet.
The extent of the obesity epidemic worldwide has been thrown into stark reality as a report from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) puts the number of overweight and obese adults in developing countries at more than 900 million.
Binge drinking and alcohol-related hospitalizations have reached now epidemic proportions the Guardian reports and the Chinese who once enjoyed a relatively healthy diet
and ruled out several possible causes for the elk deaths including poachers anthrax lightning strikes epizootic hemorrhagic disease (an often-fatal virus known to affect deer and other ruminants) botulism poisonous plants
The porcine epidemic diarrhea virus or PEDV was assumed long to be spread only by direct contact
Scientists are grappling with understanding the calorie imbalances causing the obesity epidemic which is fueled partly by eating too many sweets.
The central habitat of the grizzlies is among the hardest-hit in the beetle epidemic he said.
However it's unlikely the virus could cause a pandemic unless it undergoes genetic changes that allow it to spread more efficiently between people experts say.
Because H7n9 doesn't transmit very well through the air it doesn't look like it has the capacity to cause a pandemic
With the financial rewards from illegal logging high and the odds of being caught low it's no surprise that illegal logging has reached epidemic proportions in the Russian Far east
days after returning to Taiwan according to Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center nd the fact that Chinese officials are publicly saying that at least some of the existing cases may have involved human-to-human transmission this new bird flu strain could spread nd fast.
epidemic is more than triple the mortality rate of tuberculosis in China today. Despite widespread fears among public health officials that the earlier bird flu strain years ago might become a human-to-human pandemic that didn't occur.
Nearly all reported cases of the earlier bird flu strain while deadly seemed to jump from poultry to humans who were handling them or in contact with them.
New Rules on Mutant Bird flu Research Stir Debate What's more it could reignite fears about the possibility of deadly global pandemics.
A decade ago several well-known virologists and public-health experts warned in published papers that the world was at risk for pandemics that could kill tens of millions of people or even more without adequate infectious disease monitoring and medical research.
The 2006 Chinese bird flu outbreak came on the heels of those global pandemic warnings. The good news is that China is more transparent about disease epidemics now than it was a decade ago
and that the number of reported cases with the new bird-flu strain has jumped not dramatically so far.
If the suspicions of human-to-human transmission potential is confirmed that alone makes the threat of a pandemic (as opposed to a series of local outbreaks that can be contained with efforts to close down poultry markets or the sale of infected birds) more likely.
In the case of a pandemic a vaccine would need to be developed and distributed quickly.
The new report does not mean that H7n9 is getting closer to causing a pandemic in people James Rudge
When the local clinic ran out of supplies during a dysentery epidemic the healer was dismayed that her professionally trained young relatives didn't know that the plant growing all around the health care facility was an effective traditional treatment for diarrhea.
or parties variety is a significant factor contributing to overeating and the obesity epidemic. Bottom line:
Ignorance to those simple details has had broad implications helping to accelerate ridiculous myths that may be partially responsible for Americans'obesity and the diabetes epidemic.
The solution to the obesity epidemic begins with eating more fresh fruits and vegetables not re-engineering processed foods.
This has driven an epidemic of poaching especially of elephants for ivory and rhinos for rhino horns that appears to be said worsening Hannah.
The worldwide adoption of the hazard analysis critical control points system HACCP originally developed by NASA to protect astronauts from food poisoning makes it less likely that the world food supply could lead to a major epidemic
However the normalization of hookah use could result in a potential epidemic of a lethal habit Weitzman said.
and the cholera epidemic in the 19th century the long-lasting denial of the harm of tobacco smoking in the 20th century global warming and climate change in the 21st century) when the translation of science into practice clashes with vested interests.
and the obesity epidemic in the US#he said. The article concludes that while diets low in saturated fat can lower bad#LDL cholesterol switching to carbohydrates may increase another type of LDL cholesterol In a study that compared two low-calorie diets one low-fat and one low
If we can persuade the Department of health that this programme is very likely to help considerably with the obesity epidemic
which has resulted in theories that this allergy epidemic has been driven by environmental changes: fewer infections in childhood living away from environments such as farms
and consequences of this diet and how the U s. industrialized food system could be a major contributor to the national obesity epidemic.
Wheat genes could help fight fungal epidemics: Nature Newsas farmers around the world anxiously monitor the march of a deadly orange fungus across their wheat fields,
The results are welcome news as plant pathologists race to arm themselves against an ongoing epidemic of stem rust (P. graminis) caused by a recently emerged fungus called Ug99 (see'Wheat fungus spreads out of Africa'.
'The epidemic was isolated first in Uganda and has since spread eastwards into Iran. From there, pathologists believe wind currents may sweep Ug99 spores into India and, eventually, China.
Meanwhile, new types of stripe rust that can overcome the defences bred into commercial varieties have sparked a separate epidemic in the United states. It is amazing that we are still fighting this battle,
The influenza pandemic policies and responses recommended and taken by WHO were influenced not improperly by the pharmaceutical industry,
Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that pregnant women might be increased at risk for complications from pandemic H1n1 in a research paper in eventid=login>The Lancet (hithardbyswi. html>more on this story.
At this time, there is no evidence to indicate the development of widespread antiviral resistance among pandemic H1n1 viruses.
The world is in a full-blown influenza pandemic for the first time in 41 years. 9 june 2009: THE WHO reports that Inuit communities in Canada may be particularly hard-hit.
It continues to face questions as to why a full-blown pandemic has not been declared. 8 june 2009:
THE WHO says it is 6swineflupandemic get. html>inching closer to moving its pandemic alert status to phase 6,
which would denote official global pandemic status. 1 june 2009: June opens with 17,410 cases reported in 62 countries,
and declaring a pandemic, that the global extent of a pandemic should be described objectively and should be just one factor in decisions about how to respond.
22 may 2009: Australia raises its alert level to'Contain, 'even as the Mexican government relaxes its restrictions in Mexico city.
However the pandemic alert level is still at five today, one level below a full pandemic.
A modeling study in Science suggests that the virus spreads at a rate comparable to that of previous influenza pandemics.
THE WHO raises pandemic level alert to phase 5, a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent.
First swine-flu death outside Mexico reported as a baby dies in Texas. 161/nn200120/DE/Content/Service/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2009/082009. html>Germany joins European countries with H1n1
THE WHO 0427/en/index. html>raises pandemic alert level to 4 having confirmed human-to-human transmission able to cause'community-level outbreaks'.
'Phase 4 indicates a significant increase in risk of a pandemic but does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is a forgone conclusion,
says the organisation. 25 april 2009: WHO director-general, Margaret Chan calls the flu problem a public health emergency of 0425/en/index. html>international concern.
Nature Newspublic-health experts are warning that a lack of surveillance may be allowing the 2009 pandemic H1n1 flu virus to go undetected in pigs.
Their main concern tends to be that any reports of the pandemic virus in pigs might provoke overreactions such as the mass culling of pigs that took place in Egypt
Within minutes of the World health organization (WHO) announcement on 11 june that swine flu had become a pandemic, Bernard Vallat, director-general of an intergovernmental trade body,
and his colleagues concluded that the lack of systematic swine surveillance allowed for the undetected persistence and evolution of this potentially pandemic strain for many years.
The pandemic virus has so far been found in pigs from just one farm, in Alberta, Canada,
Past pandemic viruses have gone also on to become endemic in pig populations. It's absolutely surprising that a virus this contagious in both humans and swine
Absence of evidence of the pandemic virus in pig populations is not evidence of absence,
however its member states to voluntarily report any occurrences of the 2009 pandemic virus in pigs.
Network members hope that with the pandemic highlighting the need for better pig surveillance new funding will be forthcoming.
-and public-health communities underestimated the potential for pigs to generate a pandemic virus . Although pigs can be infected with many subtypes of flu,
Most expected that any new pandemic would involve the introduction of a viral subtype not previously seen in humans,
The consensus was that a pandemic could not be caused by H1, H2 or H3 because the current human population would have antibodies against them,
The emergence of the reassorted H1n1 pandemic virus which current research indicates noone has any immunity to, apart, perhaps,
Pandemic flu viruses brew for years before going global: Nature Newsfamily trees for pandemic influenza have revealed that components of deadly flu viruses probably lurk in humans
and other animals for years before they emerge as a worldwide threat to human health.
The work suggests that a more thorough characterization of circulating flu viruses could provide clues to an emerging pandemic before it hits.
ultimately giving rise to the dangerous assortment of genes carried by the 1918 virus. This work suggests that the generation of pandemic strains
is key to identifying possible pandemic strains and their future evolution. Yi Guan of the University of Hong kong, Robert Webster of St jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee,
and then swapped genes with mammalian flu viruses before becoming a pandemic. Meanwhile, elements of the 1957 pandemic flu virus also thought to be a mosaic of human
and avian flu genes were introduced probably into human populations two to six years before the pandemic, the researchers found.
These analyses were completed before the current pandemic swine flu strain made its mark, but the researchers argue that their results have implications for future pandemics.
Results from 1918 and 1957 pandemic flu suggest that public-health authorities should track the sequences of all influenza virus genes in emerging strains
the authors argue, rather than focusing largely on the gene that encodes the haemagglutinin'protein,
which is critical for vaccine production, as is the current practice. Nevertheless, reliance upon patchy data from historical flu viruses has its limitations.
Swine flu shares some features with 1918 pandemic: Nature Newsas far as your immune system is concerned, the pandemic H1n1 (swine flu virus currently circling the globe bears an uncanny resemblance to an influenza virus that wreaked havoc nearly a century ago,
researchers have found. For months, it has been apparent that swine flu strikes the young more often than the old an unusual pattern that suggests older patients could have been exposed to similar viruses in the past.
are effective against the new pandemic virus in human cells grown in the lab. These drugs are already being used to treat some infected patients.
and the severity of the present pandemic does not come close to the 1918 flu, but experts worry that the new virus could become more virulent over time.
Pandemic flu: People infected with the H1n1 swine flu virus who are otherwise healthy should not routinely be given antiviral drugs,
It's really getting to a systems-level understanding of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, says study co-author JÃ rg Bohlmann, a chemical ecologist at the University of British columbia in Vancouver, Canada,
which handles samples of H1n1 pandemic flu, and which earlier this year lost track of 22 vials containing harmless Ebola-virus genetic material.
Pandemic over: The World health organization (WHO) announced on 10 august that the world is no longer experiencing an H1n1 influenza virus pandemic.
An emergency committee, which convened that day, said that countries were generally not reporting out-of-season outbreaks of the flu strain,
director-general of THE WHO, said the pandemic had turned out better than feared because the virus hadn't mutated into a more lethal form
Events Cholera in Haiti The escalating cholera epidemic in Haiti had claimed more than 900 lives and caused close to 15,000 infections by the start of this week, according to the Haitian Ministry of Public health and Population.
Epidemics are currently raging in the United kingdom and United states, and the oomycete annually destroys more than US$6 billion worth of crops worldwide.
Trend watch Growth of the global AIDS epidemic seems to have stabilized, said the UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on 23 november (see chart).
Virus sharing In the event of a future flu pandemic, member states of the World health organization (WHO) will send samples of flu virus to laboratories and drug makers around the world,
Research Cholera in Haiti The cholera epidemic currently raging through Haiti was introduced inadvertently to the country through faecal contamination of river water,
during an epidemic, culling on farms that are at risk of infection could be unnecessary.
West africans at risk from bat epidemics: Nature Newsserious viruses carried by bats pose a considerable risk to people in West Africa,
and his colleagues fear that the next big epidemic could come from henipaviruses, which can cause fatal encephalitis or respiratory disease in humans.
In its Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 20111, the World health organization provides statistics from multiple countries showing that packet warnings,
whether the public-health benefits of the work outweigh the risks of a potential pandemic if the virus escaped from the lab. For the scientists who have created the mutated strains of the H5n1 virus,
and other animals for the mutations that would provide an early warning of a pandemic
and that it sends a valuable warning about the potential for the virus to spark a human pandemic.
Scientists contacted By nature say that basic research on such mutated strains may eventually yield insight relevant to developing pandemic countermeasures such as drugs and vaccines.
which are only capable of supplying vaccine six months after a pandemic starts, and of producing enough vaccine for a small fraction of the world population.
"In order to even consider the possibility of reducing the animal reservoir of an emerging pandemic virus,
or years after they are collected hardly the swift turnaround of a pandemic alert system.""Could we pick up a mutation in real time
and stop a pandemic? asks Capua.""Not with the surveillance we have now. Source: Genbankmoreover, if H5n1 surveillance in poultry is poor,
Yet pigs are a likely source of a human pandemic H5n1 virus because they are susceptible to both human
But even if a candidate pandemic H5n1 virus was detected in poultry, culling flocks to eliminate it would be no mean feat.
H5n1 is far from being the only flu virus that poses a pandemic threat. But he believes that more extensive genetic surveillance could eventually pay off."
Timely global surveillance of animal flu viruses is crucial not just for identifying pandemic threats,
because"H5n1 is not the sole pandemic candidate, and low pathogenic viruses are just as likely, if not more likely,
to become pandemic. The number of avian flu sequences deposited in the database skyrocketed between 2003 and 2010,
Yet pigs are a serious pandemic risk: they can be infected co with both human and avian flu strains,
the emergence of pandemic strains such as the 2009 H1n1 pandemic virus. The world is home to some 1 billion domestic pigs, almost half
The pandemic risk posed by pigs has risen also since 2009. The 2009 pandemic H1n1 virus,
which is now endemic in pigs, is unusual in that it contains the triple reassortant internal gene (TRIG) cassette,
a highly conserved set of six genes that allows the virus to swap genes with flu viruses from other species much more freely than the seasonal H1n1 that circulated before 2009 (see Pandemic 2009 H1n1 virus gives wings to avian flu).
but"we are noting lots of reassortment between the pandemic virus and endemic swine viruses, says Peiris.
because it contains a gene from the H1n1 pandemic strain that may increase transmissibility among humans.
triggering a global pandemic, reminded us of the need to monitor animals such as pigs that can host the development of dangerous viral strains.
Like that responsible for the 2009 pandemic, the new strain, known as Sw/1204, is a'triple-reassortant'virus that is, one with genes from avian, swine and human flu.
Choi wanted to assess the pandemic potential of Korean strains. His team tested two H1n2
and two H3n2 viruses isolated from pig abattoirs before the 2009 pandemic. Most of these viruses did not cause any signs of serious disease in ferrets.
but not transmissibility, in the pandemic H1n1 strain. NA315N has also been found before, but its role is less clear.
global pandemics and/or deliberate biological attacks? To further improve preparedness, we must continue to invest in the best public health monitoring systems that can be built.
when he heard the identity of the pathogen in the epidemic that originated with the New england Compounding Center pharmacy in Framingham, Mass."
"If a small number of trees have survived the very intense epidemic in Demark, then there is hope for us here,
where it is required to provide local solutions to the epidemics, he says
Obama rekindles climate hopesthroughout his reelection campaign, US President Barack Obama rarely said the words climate change.
an animal epidemic that has spread abroad, or the international spread of a partially or fully human-adapted virus. Maps presented are for data-visualization purposes only;
Maryland. go. nature. com/wfnyw227-30 april Flu pandemics, the resurgence of measles and antimicrobial resistance are discussed all at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology
or morph into a virus that can spread easily between people and spark a deadly pandemic.
If a pandemic were to occur, it would probably have a severe toll. But it is too early to predict how events will unfold;
potentially sparking a pandemic. Scientists stress that it is much too early to do a full risk assessment of the potential pandemic threat.
But the initial analysis of viral sequences is"worrisome because they show several features that are suggestive of adaptation to humans,
This is in contrast to the 2009 H1n1 pandemic virus, which was a mix of viruses that infect birds, pigs and humans.
Ireland s dependence on potatoes was the reason the epidemic exacted a far greater toll there than it did on the rest of the continent.
Deadly pig virus slips through US bordersthe pathogen, a type of coronavirus called porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus (PEDV),
and it caused mass epidemics in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. As pigs there developed immunity, the virus petered out and now causes only occasional, isolated outbreaks.
and could become an epidemic (see Pig virus on the wing). SOURCE: US Department of agriculture"It s a real threat, says Lisa  Becton, a veterinary surgeon and director of swine health information at the National Pork Board, an industry group in Des Â
which caused a pandemic among humans in 2009. In the study, H1n1 infected more cells
"That s the biggest hope we have of ending the tobacco epidemic. But as big tobacco companies have piled into a market worth more than US$2 billion worldwide,
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