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This summer session we covered numerous epidemics and pandemics and how they affected individuals and the population as a whole. It was a great way to get a grasp on infectious diseases and what they really do to the society. It was cool to see the history of the diseases and epidemics and how they went about fixing the problems at hand and giving us the vaccines and some of the cures we use today. I want to first say that I really enjoyed the artifacts. I was able to learn numerous things about different topics and then use that new knowledge and talk about it in a blog form. I think having to regenerate the information in that format really helped me retain more of the information. I also never knew about the portfolio website VMI has to offer or how to create a blog. I thought it was very intriguing to learn how to set up a blog and made doing the assignments more enjoyable. I also know that for myself personally being able to incorporate humor, like witty titles or funny photos really helps me remember the topic and information about the ideas that I covered. That was the cool thing about blogs was the individuality and adding our own personal ideas and such to it. Allowing the customization and our own likes and interest made the artifacts very fun.

The first artifact we did was about bacteria. The title I used shows an example of the humor I used to help myself learn. The title of “Bacteria. The only Culture some People Have” I believe shows a good comical title for the way I went about the artifact. I thought this was a cool artifact to start with because it was bacteria and that is a good one to start with because a lot of the epidemics we talked about had to deal with bacteria and things of that nature. This assignment opened me up to the ideas that we would be dealing with during the course and was a great way to start. Doing this artifact I learned different things. First being that just by good hygiene and cleanliness we can eliminate a lot of bacteria from affecting our bodies and causing illness (Artifact 1). There are also three factors that contribute to the spreading of bacteria today: Economic Activity, Demographic Changes, and large-scale and systematic environmental impacts (Artifact 1). These three factors played a role a few hundred years ago and still have a big impacts on today’s society. For economic activity we see this because we have to trade and spread goods globally in order to maintain life and sustain a good healthy globe, but bacteria is able to spread this way because different areas have different bacteria’s so it is easy to spread it through out the globe, especially with our huge global economy and the way it works (Artifact 1). For the demographic changes we see people traveling to different areas of the world very easily. Today it is very easy to travel allowing more people to do it. Also a good amount of jobs require travel to different areas of the world and that makes people bring new bacteria and also become exposed to new bacteria (Artifact 1). This is seen with immigrants from different countries they can bring new diseases and bacteria when they come to look for a new life here in America. Then finally there is large scale and systematic environmental impacts, examples of these are when society can’t clean and separate germs. So things like water sources and food become contaminated. This happened a lot years ago when they didn’t have the science or technology to prevent it but it is also seen today in poorer countries because they cannot afford to fix this problem (Artifact 1). I really learned a lot about bacteria with this artifact. It was clear that there has been a lot of growth on fighting and preventing of bacteria but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. There are trillions more bacteria than people so the fight and prevention against them will never stop but we have learned how to prevent large epidemics and have done a good job with keeping a healthy society because of it (Artifact 1).

Another artifact that I did that does a good job shaping my learning on epidemics and society is artifact #2 with the plagues, especially the discussion about the bubonic plague. This artifact was really interesting and was the first look into what a epidemic/pandemic really was. It taught me about how plagues have been affecting the world for ages but also showed the impact they have on society. This class was about epidemics so we learned about one of the first and worst to ever exist; that being the Bubonic Plague. Artifact #2 showed how a plague would get started and spread. It came from rats but showed how easy it is to spread. The disease got on furs and blankets and all then was spread throughout the European region through trade (Artifact 2). Then also because people did travel, carriers like rats were able to ride these boats and help spread this disease like a forest fire (Artifact 2). This showed how plagues could get around the world and affect different groups of people. It was also interesting because plagues showed many things at this time to people. This was the first real event where people saw that God and that praying didn’t cause it and such couldn’t make it better. There needed to be a scientific fix to the problem. This is when people really learned about medicine and the need of studying these problems and figuring out that a microorganism like a bacteria or virus was the cause (Artifact 2). The bubonic plague also showed that plagues could affect anyone, whether a poor farm man or the king, the plague knew no boundaries and if you came in contact with it you had the high potential on contracting it (Artifact 2). This artifact showed the beginning of the plague epidemic and the potential it had on affecting the whole globe. It stressed the need to pursue medicine and study the body and diseases to learn from them to make sure we could prevent this from happening again (Artifact 2). It changed a good amount of the European region because of all the deaths during the plague. Different wars were fought within the countries against each other because people were frightened by what was happening and didn’t know how to react to them so they became violent trying to get rid of those they believed to be the problem (Artifact 2).

For my third and final artifact I’m going to cover to show about the epidemics knowledge I gained is the most previous one discussing zoonotic diseases. In artifact 9 it talked about the diseases we get when they are transferred from animals to humans, or better known as zoonotic diseases (Artifact 9). This artifact helped me learn about the potential risks that society and myself risk with the everyday interaction we have with animals. This artifact showed how society, today, can still promote the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases because we come in contact with a lot of animals and sometimes do not know what we have until it is too late and due that we can still spread diseases around (Artifact 9). This artifact was also showed me that even today with our technology and medicine contact with different animals can still spread things. Mosquitos travel all around the world and can transmit diseases very easily and sometimes you won’t feel a mosquito on your body until after it bit you (Artifact 9). This was shocking and a little scary to think about but I found it really eye opening and important to know because it is possible to contract things still today, so becoming aware of that is important.

I found this summer course very interesting. Everything we covered has shaped and affected how we live in society with the medicine, vaccines, precautions, and reactions to different diseases. I could have used any artifact we did to show this, it was hard to really decide which ones to use. They all were beneficial to my learning and what I obtained during this class. I truly did enjoy learning all of these ideas and topics and liked the way we used the portfolio to help us learn it. What I learned from class will go on with me forever as go out into the world, and it will make sure I keep clean and be aware of my surroundings because there are so many bacteria’s out there that haven’t been discovered, so I need to be on the look out. But that also makes me intrigued to learn more and follow what happens with the information that we learn and develop over the years.

 

 

 

Zoonotic diseases are those transferred from animals to humans. For ages humans have domesticated animals that were once wild and turned them into household pets. Those animals run wild outside and explore different areas and are capable of picking up random diseases then being a carrier of those diseases and transferring them to the human population. We also see this with other animals that aren’t pets. Animals like cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are possible animals that can transfer disease to people. They are very important to our lives because we count on them to provide our food and sources of nutrients as we go with our everyday lives. Finally it isn’t just domesticated animals and the ones we eat that can spread diseases to people. Every animal has the potential to spread diseases to humans. Things like spillover have caused for the human race to infiltrate animals living conditions and homes causing more interaction with all animals so we have seen a rise in infections because of that. Whether we domesticated them or just happen to run into one a path humans and animals must cohabitate on earth, so things like the transmission of disease is going to happen because of different ecosystems and lifestyles.

An example of a zoonotic disease is Zika. The Zika virus is transferred mainly through mosquitos (Aedes Species) to people. It is seen in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. But can travel across the globe due to mosquitos having the ability to fly anywhere. It is also very dangerous because you don’t always notice mosquitos until it to late and you had already been bitten. Then if one person gets bit and contracts the disease it is deadly because it can spread through sex, blood transfusions and from a mother to her child during birth. It is truly amazing at how such a small insect can carry such a large and deadly disease and that is a great example of how diseases spreads from animals.

http://www.jokes4us.com/animaljokes/mosquitojokes.html

Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which when abbreviated is known as HIV was and still is a very deadly disease that goes after the human immune system. Eventually is can turn to AIDs and that is the deadly part that does not have a cure just yet in the world. There are medicines to make you survive with HIV and they help you live a healthy life even with the disease. For the origins of HIV it came from a chimpanzee in Central Africa and has spread from that. It is believed it came from apes to humans in the 1800’s. There are some societal and cultural factors that enhance HIV, some of those are sexual preferences like being gay and straight that play a factor. Gay men at one point were the highest percentage of people in the United States. Then also not having safe sex played a factor that enhances HIV. That is a risk behavior, which is like the other risky behaviors like sharing needles throughout the drug community, which has been a big contribution to the spread of HIV. Finally another factor with the enhancement is the location of people. Where you live can enhance if you are more likely to get HIV. Sub-Saharan Africa is more prone to getting the disease. Overall effects and impacts of the HIV pandemic on global society is that it has affected a lot of people globally. There are 36.7 million people around the world that have HIV, while only 19.5 million are being treated.

For the United States there are many different factors that contributed to the epidemic of HIV, the first being that it was very negative to have. If you had it you would lose friends and family because it was thought to be a deadly disease that traveled through the air. Then it was thought to be a disease only contracted by homosexuals (which a lot of gay men did get the disease) but that is false. The negative context associated with the idea of HIV was very sad and made a big separation between those that had it and those that didn’t early on. From the political side didn’t help either because they didn’t talk about the facts of it. They knew it wasn’t an airborne contagious disease but did not tell that to the public so it kept a secret. But over the years knowledge and awareness has grown on the topic. People now know it isn’t spread by just touch and air and that those infected are not deadly to be around. These actual facts have expanded across the states so that people now know what is going on and because of that it as limited its spreading throughout the country. Overall there are roughly 38,500 new cases in America every year. Then there are believed to be 1.1 million people in the U.S. who live with HIV. The numbers have gone down with the knowledge and medicine and safety precautions that the country has shown the people. Progress is in the right direction people are learning about HIV and AIDs and scientist are working hard to find medicine and cures for the problem. Today though, although still expensive, it is possible to live a life with HIV. Safe sex is promoted, not sharing needles throughout the drug community has been pushed and then doctors screen and test for HIV and are more aware of it. It isn’t as taboo as it once was, even though it doesn’t have a positive few people are as looked down on for it and still keep their normal lives because of it. Organizations like ART, PrEP, and PEP have pushed hard and have done a strong job with teaching and helping those with HIV with how they live.

Cholera is a disease that is mainly spread from the oral-fecal route. This means people tend to contract this when they come into contact with poop that has cholera in it. Although most of the ways of contracting it are gone there are still cases that come up from the same way they did in history. Cholera really develops in the Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Historically it has happened anywhere there is a large body of water that people use as their main source of water and it has been infected with it. Cholera is a water/food-borne illness and it lives in water so it can be there for days and months. In history people mainly got it because the main drinking water port was infected with the disease because people would use the restroom and clean themselves in the water. It also didn’t even have to be directly in the water, cases could come up where people would contract it because their restrooms, which might have been way from the water, had runoffs that would affect it. Cholera really hits areas that are full of communities in poverty and poor environments. Societies and cultures weren’t that clean or aware of the importance of cleanliness and how it was really important to keeping you from getting sick.

After people found out about the disease what really lead to limiting its ability of spreading came from attaining the knowledge of good sanitation. Then people learned the importance of population density for a disease that had to deal with feces. Different people played different roles for helping us make it a possibility to fight it off. John Snow was one of the first guys and he learned that Cholera is from water contamination and that the water ways that people used were infected with the disease and that is why it was spreading as fast and as big as it was. Henry Whitehead, who was a priest and someone who eventually worked with Snow had some contributions to it. Together, Whitehead and Snow set the significant precedent for the new science of epidemiology. Filippo Pacini and Robert Koch both identified the cholera bacteria that were around and Koch named it Vibrio Cholerae. Pacini didn’t really get the credit till later in his career for it, while Koch was noticed quickly for his work. After these guys played a big role fixing and improving the sanitation. The implication of public health systems helped with stopping the bacteria of cholera. It showed the importance of having public health and the role it has with knowledge in the community and its organizations. Public policy can facilitate changes in health before there is a complete knowledge of causation. There is also the implications of toilets and restrooms that lead to the decrease in the spread of cholera because it separated all the waste and disease from the water and wells and also made it an area where you can clean yourself as well.

For the factors that lead to the continuing epidemics in the 21^st century it seems to be that when in poor areas and there are places where waste and disease can get into the only water source they have because they do not separate it and do not have the privileges of having more than one water source. For places like Yemen where they have damaged infrastructure and are deep in poverty because of things like war that destroy their areas it makes it so countries can have their water contaminated. Same thing with Bangladesh they are in more poverty so their waterlines are more likely to get hit.

Finally with outbreaks of Cholera in Haiti we saw it as human activity in the Artibonita River caused Cholera to spread to their whole country and fast. There were 473,649 cases and 6,631 deaths because of it. Although it has been made clear on ways to prevent it we need to make sure to help those countries that are in poverty with whatever they are doing because it is easy to spread Cholera.

Tuberculosis or just known as TB has been around for what seems like forever. It is really one of the only disease or plagues that was around with the mummies. It is said that disease Mycobacterium Tuberculosis originated roughly 20,000-15,000 years ago. It kept growing and growing hitting different areas of the world. But TB really has a strong impact in the poorer less sanitized parts of the world. We could see this in the 19^th century with immigration and such when it was very deadly and spreading like a tsunami. Places with high populations and very poor sanitary conditions make up the perfect conditions for TB to be around and spread. We saw this with the U.S. tenements because those that immigrated here lived in filthy housing. It was damp, poorly lit; roughly 18,000 people had homes that had mud floors at the time. There were no windows or ventilation in these houses so people would just inhale TB and never get real good fresh air. Then it didn’t help that majority of those immigrants at the time didn’t have better jobs either. Their work environment was also very nasty and that would cause them to bring home more germs and such. TB was able to spread in the U.S. very easily with all the immigration. The poverty was very high amongst the immigrants so good living conditions weren’t in the picture but also they weren’t able to be checked on by the best doctors and then they weren’t really educated properly on what was happening and how to potentially prevent TB from spreading. Also with the poverty we see malnourishment, people couldn’t eat that much causing them to be small and weak and not have a strong enough immune system to fight of TB. That weak immune system is also seen with things like HIV. People with HIV ran higher risks for catching TB because their immune systems are already weak. This is seen today as well as those with HIV still have a higher chance of catching it. Also those that have HIV and TB have a higher chance to die.

TB is also a hard disease to get rid of because there have been multiple kinds of TB that become immune to the medicine making it resistant. Some of the factors include those that stop taking the drugs to soon or not taking the drugs right allow for the TB to become strong and immune to the medicine. Then that type of TB gets spread to others making it hard to fight against. The drugs cause people to hurt though they do not necessarily make you feel a lot better. They break down the body and you are weak and hurt and that is what normally drives people to get off the drugs. To be MDR-TB or Multidrug-Resistant TB the bacteria must be resistant to the drugs isoniazid and rifampin, which are the two most powerful TB drugs when fighting it off and killing it. Then for the XDR-TB or Extensively Drug-Resistant TB it most is immune to those two as well as any fluoroquinolone or one of the three shots you get. Like that one sounds it is the most deadly because there is greatly higher chance to not get rid of this type of TB bacteria.

It is very important to diagnose and properly treat TB because the earlier you can stop it the more likely it is to not spread amongst those around you and then they can start giving you the medicine early so it can be killed faster before it can become immune to certain drugs. But if not properly done, that’s were we can see the bacteria grow and become untreatable and then spread to others and eventually lead to death of the patient.

The potato has and will be a vital food that people consume apart of their diets. It has many nutrients that make it an important part of an ideal diet. It has been highly praised and relied by many people, especially the Irish before and during the famine. For many a good baked stuffed potato with cheese, bacon, chives, and butter is a great side dish for dinner but the Irish used it for more than that. Their diets consisted of just the potato for breakfast, lunch and dinner and could be filler for any snack. The potato was very important because first the Irish people relied heavily on it. It was the main source of nutrients they received. It gave an abundance of quality, healthy energies and sources to be broken down and used by the body (proteins, sugars, salts, etc.). A normal diet for an Irishman that could allow you to live a very healthy life consisted of potatoes and milk with sometimes the addition of cabbage and salt. And with that alone they met all of their required nutrients to sustain life. The potato also was very easy to grow. The health benefits greatly outweighed the labor investment when growing potatoes. It was an ideal crop for the area and a whole country relied on its accessibility.

The biggest societal/political factors we can see that led to he severity of the potato blight in Ireland really has to do with the dependence on the crop. By 1840 nearly half of the population was dependent on potatoes. This is not good when a fungus comes in and makes the crop die and not edible. As a society they were very poor, the way they lived was dirty and was low living conditions. The potato was all they grew and as a political side it was all they used to really trade with. They could grow so much of it they had the power when trading and selling the potato. The potato for the Irish was so highly praised they didn’t really have much back up plan with growing other crops or such. They didn’t see the need to do so because they were doing so well with the potato and how it was. The blight started in 1845 and was the Phytophthora Infestans fungus. This is what caused the crop to die and not be able to be eaten anymore. It moved quick and efficiently as almost ¾’s of the crop was gone by 1846. It is believed to be from North America, and then carried on boats to the European countries to where it then hit Ireland and completely took out the potato. The potato was hit extremely hard from this fungus because it does not have a defense for it. Nowadays they spray the fields to kill off the fungus but the potato genes themselves do not make anything to prevent this outbreak from occurring. Of course the Irish of the time did not know that this existed and were not prepared. The weather was almost a additive in helping the fungus thrive and destroy because it allowed it to stay and grow throughout the years.

The Great Famine was devastating to the country of Ireland. More than a million people died and then a million more fled and went to different countries, places like North America. Things weren’t easy for those that migrated either they got harassed and treated very poorly especially in America. There was mass starvation during the famine and because everyone was getting so weak diseases were able to spread throughout Ireland very easily because immune systems were very weak. Dieses like TB, measles, respiratory infections, whooping cough, different kinds of intestinal parasites, cholera, and diarrhea hit the whole country impacting majority of the population that was still alive and there.

From class discussion we got to see how technology today has really helped with the growth of plants and animals. If we can modify crops, animals and insect vectors we can see a potential rise in how much growth of things we would get. There would be a lot more food available with this production. Then also we would see the capabilities of removing genes that could potentially harm the crop or such and when we get rid of those things we can take away the vulnerability to infection. This would allow more consistent growth on crops and foods, eliminating the fear of possible failure due to an outbreak or things like that amongst the crops, animals, and insect vectors. There are downfalls to this though. We see things like GMO’s today and our food becomes genetically modified but we have to pump things like testosterone and estrogen into the food we eat, so there is an abundance of hormones that we as the consumer take on and because of that we can see/have seen changes to our bodies. It is a great idea and would prevent a lot of starving around the world because we could implicate this into different areas, but we do not know the full effects that this has on us as a human race and it could or couldn’t be very detrimental, so we need to really explore this topic and make sure it would be very beneficial.

“Smallpox also provided the incentive for the development of protective measures (variolation and vaccination), affected the cultural responses to disease, and contributed to the establishment of more-humane public health policies.”

The variola virus or better known as smallpox’s was/is a very deadly disease that started in the Egyptian Empire around the 3^rd century, what it came from was unknown to the people then but it spread quickly and took out many people in which it infected. Smallpox was a very strong killer in that 3 out of every 10 people that had it died from it. When the first outbreaks occurred people were unprepared. Medicine was not around and there were no remedies that seemed to work. Like many devastating diseases around this time period, people turned to prayer and odd remedies. There were many Gods created to represent the Smallpox’s disease. They tried to give goods and do human sacrifices to appease the God’s and make the disease go away but nothing seemed to work. Then some of the remedies involved in fighting off smallpox include bloodletting (where you would lose large amounts of blood in thought that the disease would leave your body), they used leeches, fasting, laxatives, purgatives, and diuretics. They would also bring heat and sweat therapy as long as cold therapy into play. These remedies actually really helped the disease take over the body by weakening the immune system and made smallpox more disastrous, but again modern science was not involved back then so people had to try different things because smallpox, much like the Black Death had been something they had never seen or expected. There was also a remedy called “Red Treatment” that came in the late 19^th century from Niels Finsen. But during the 18^th century we start to see two combatives for smallpox and they are variolation (inoculation) and insufflation and then vaccination. Variolation is when healthy people would expose themselves to the smallpox by scratching the bumps and putting the substance into their system by either opening wounds or inhaling it through the nose. Although it was not a 100% at preventing death those that did this did tend to survive more than those that got the smallpox virus naturally. Patients would get a fever and majority of the illnesses criteria but would be able to overcome the sickness and then wouldn’t catch the smallpox as it was still passed around. It was the first idea into a vaccination. Math was done on the variolation process and it was believed that if you got smallpox naturally you had a 1 in 5 chance of dying, while if you did the inoculation it turned into 1 in 100 chance of dying. In 1803 we see the term Vaccination which when shortened to “vaccinia” means cowpox and that’s a very fitting name. Edward Jenner was a scientist at the time that heard different stories of men who worked with cows and caught cowpox and recovered but then were immune to smallpox. Jenner was intrigued with the idea and took it into his own hands to see so he inoculated his son with the cowpox to see what would happen. For a week his son was very ill and sick, but recovered and was back to normal. Jenner then put the smallpox disease into his son and saw that nothing happened to him, he had become immune to it so now there was a vaccine to fight off the smallpox. Reactions were huge, as Jenner’s work was put all over Europe and he even got some love from the Vatican. But like most things there was backlash as well. Socially it was that now that people could fight it off meant that the poor population that was dying off could fight it which would result in a larger poorer group of individuals. From the religious side people thought that Jenner was now messing with God’s plan and stopping the deaths that he had planned out. Then finally it was the first vaccine of its kind so it raised a lot of questions in the scientific community.

For states fighting over the compulsory vaccination there are a few pros and cons. For the 10 states that had compulsory there was an average of 6.6 incidences out of 100,000, then for the 4 states that prohibited compulsory vaccine there were a total 115.2 incidences. The pros of compulsory are that it has the potential to end the disease totally and prevent you from getting it. Some cons are that people believed the vaccine was worse than the actual disease. There was a large fear with this idea because it became so widely known even though it was the first of its kind so it scared some people. Then finally it takes away individuals rights to make decisions for their body and what they want to do with it. Although it might be safe it is unlawful to make someone do something to their body that they do not want to do. We saw draconian public health measures when the first mandatory laws for vaccination came out with strict isolation for those who did not get vaccinated and anyone they communicated with got quarantined. And because of the draconian public health measures there were numerous protests that eventually allowed for parents to have a say over whether or not the child gets the vaccination.

For the eradication of smallpox using surveillance and containment it was hard because of low funding when it first began because there are way more people than made vaccine at that time. It was also hard to get the vaccine all over the world. Then with the ever-growing rate of people traveling and moving around, especially to North America it was hard to prevent smallpox from traveling with immigrants. But finally on May 8^th, 1980 they said the world was free of smallpox. It is the biggest achievement of international public health. They had to use surveillance to make sure the disease didn’t spread to different parts of the world, parts that already eradicated it, and then they had to contain it to that area to make sure it was stopped there.

 

Ethical issues arise every time a plague and epidemic occur. There are numerous rules and ethics when dealing with people and how we treat them. We have viewed more and more cases of how we use ethics within the past ten years because of public health on the global level. They have cracked down on ethical protection ever since the Tuskegee syphilis study. The first main issue that goes with infectious disease is individual verse population. This is hard because when dealing with someone who is sick and contagious you want to hold their morals and be ethically right with how you treat them. But then there is the factor of the greater health of the population. We see this dilemma with isolation and quarantine. Isolation and quarantine to make sure diseases don’t spread and affect those around them. It allows for us to take a prevented action to a current situation. The downfall is when we remove someone from their normal life we remove their freedoms and that becomes unethical. We saw this with Typhoid Mary who was put on an island for a few years because she was a positive carrier of the typhoid disease. It was unethical to do because we took her civil rights and freedoms away and that is now unethical. The doctors believed they were doing the right thing when putting her there and because of it they didn’t believe to be in the wrong but numerous things have changed since that outbreak. If someone has to go in isolation and quarantine it is required they get paid leave from work. Then depending on their disease it is required to teach them a new job so that if the disease isn’t contagious one way they can still participate. Then the second issue we have seen is biases against certain populations. We saw this with African Americans during slavery and segregation then today we still see that with immigrants who come to America and are learning the way of society. Although they might come from poorer countries and communities it is unethical to treat them different when it comes to how we treat and cure them during times of distress. They are given the same rights and liberties and as a society we must abide by the rules to ensure they are treated right. The third and final ethical issue that has association is the experimental studies. For experimental studies there are a lot of new rules that have been instilled. First there has to be a choice on if people want to participate. They then must correct any problems that they made occur to the participants. You must not let participants die and cannot lie to them on what is going to happen. Then finally they must also be told about the true natures of the experiment and be made aware of all the risks upfront on what can happen.

We didn’t see this code of ethics during the Tuskegee Syphilis studies were rationalized with lies told to the men on what was going to happen to them. They believed they were going to get treatment for their problems. Then the doctors played that against them because majority of the men who were involved were very poor and had never personally had health care on a regular basis before, so to these men they believed they were getting treated and because of that they never truly had the opportunity to back out or question the authority of the doctors. The Tuskegee Syphilis study was unethical for numerous reasons that go against our ethical code today. First the doctor’s lied with what they said was going to happen. They told the men they were there to cure “bad blood”, then because of that men were never told the true natures of the study and weren’t aware that they actually weren’t being cured they were just seeing how the body was affected by syphilis. Another reason is like I said before in that the farmers were poor so it felt more like an obligation to participate with the study and because of that they didn’t actually have a choice on whether they wanted to participate or not. The Tuskegee Syphilis study was a turning point on how we treat certain populations. This was at the end of an era where segregation was strong in the south so they weren’t thought of as humans, which is ironic because one of the only things the study showed in that black men react the same way to syphilis as white men do.

This study is a fine example of the potential consequences on a specific group because it made a lot of African American people of the south distrust the government, hospitals and doctors. They were uneasy going in because they didn’t know if everything was truthful or not. For another instance I found from the NCBI government website would be woman in New Zealand who were treated unfairly in the untreated carcinoma in situ. So genders can also have a fear of what could happen because of who they are genetically.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26270295

Plagues have been around for as long as man has been on Earth. Just like the human race, microorganisms and bacteria have developed at tremendous rates. There are different plagues that come up from all around the globe. We’ve had things like Ebola and the Zika virus both come from different organisms. Then there were plagues that were in history that had a huge impact on society. The Black Death or Bubonic Plague had a huge impact on the European region of the world in the late middle ages. There are numerous factors as to why the Black Death was able to spread like it did. For the society of the people it was easy to spread because the people of the late middle ages really relied on travel and the sharing of goods on a global market. Things like furs and blankets held the Black Death, they were traded and sold but especially as the disease spread more people died and they took their clothing (which was infected) anyway. People used boats to pass around the European area and tended to carry the disease around. Rats were known to be carriers and they would be transferred around on the boats and then get off and transfer diseases that way. Also because of that flies would bite the rats they became carries and would bite people and pass the disease that way. Another big thing about the disease and what helped it spread was that was bacteria were spread from coughing so it was airborne. The global economic growth is what really enhanced the virulence of the epidemic.

Throughout society people were panicked. Society became hostile blaming different attributes that they believed to be the cause. This was the first time that society had faced something like this so people did not know where to turn. Also medicine was just beginning, there was not a lot of information on bacteria and how to cure it. Medicine was brand new and it was hard for people to really trust and understand it. Society of the time blamed God and religion. They thought he was mad at how society, especially the poor acted. Then there was blame towards Jewish people. They were believed to be the cause of the epidemic. People ended up killing a lot of Jewish people and poor people because they were the ones thought to be the problem. There were also thoughts about the idea that evils were in charge of it, like spirits and such had brought this evil to society. There was also a big separation between rich and poor. The plague hit both but when it started spreading the rich people of villages started moving out and leaving separating themselves from the poor. Then people also put those who were infected together so they would stay together. There were some people who were not infected and they went together. They also quarantined kings and royalty from people so they couldn’t be affected with the disease.

The overall affects on the society created a division between groups. Different races, religions and economic status really separated the people of the society. The disease killed numerous people but also because of the fear of who caused it people ended up killing each other and riots and hostility really broke out throughout the Europe region. Also to just recap it again religious groups were separated and a hate stirred up between them, as they believed they were part of the problem to why it happened. Then different educations and economic status separated people and where they went when the diseases started.

For cases today plagues like Zika and Ebola start just like any plague, the contraction can happen to anybody. They spread very quickly but today doctors and such are a lot smarter and have better technology to stop the transmission. We also have vaccines so diseases can be prevented from the beginning, which is a big factor. We also know a lot about the transmission of diseases and how they start and go. For today plague is transmitted when people travel around the world, since there is much more access to travel and people can explore the world so they can get around better they can contract much more diseases because they are more susceptible to things that are around. Today the country has numerous control protocols because we have a lot of preventable things with medicine and vaccines. Then also today we have groups like the CDC, FDA, and the government that help to regulate plagues and diseases. The social and cultural factors involved in the plague’s resurgence in Madagascar after 2009 were that Madagascar is underdeveloped in their medical and monetary side. It is hard for them to help and prevent the disease. The bubonic plague had spread fast and moved around from people to people. It became airborne so it spread fast and all around. There is also an alarming rate of death that goes with this down there. The society is struggling because of where they are economically. Other countries need to step in and help out because this case is different from the one in the late middle ages because we do have medicine and antibiotics to stop it nowadays.

There are numerous factors, both cultural and societal, that contributed to the appearance of plagues in history. Culturally the hygiene and cleanliness we have today been around back then so the spread of germs was inevitable. Contact with other people would cause a share of different diseases that wouldn’t be cleaned off. Then there weren’t the technological advances that we had so things like clean drinking water and making sure meat and food was safe to eat wasn’t really possible. Also it was hard to prevent different diseases because there weren’t vaccines or medicines that could fight off and prevent different microorganisms that would cause people to get sick. Microorganisms are everywhere in the world. They out number the human race by billions and considering humans need the help of animals and the environment (One Health) to survive they came in contact with numerous different microorganism that could be both beneficial and detrimental to your wellness. Some societal factors that lead to the appearance of plagues and still contribute to the spreading of them today are based off three factors: Economic Activity, Demographic Changes, and large-scale and systematic environmental impacts. Economic activity was a factor because of the trading that happened back in the day. Because you had to trade things like furs, felts, animals, and fruits there was numerous ways to spread diseases. The bubonic plague got passed by rats, fur coats, etc. that came from different countries to get traded and sold. Then there were also jobs that others had to do (specifically the poor) that were needed to keep the everyday life going, but there was a lack in sanitation and cleanliness with them that allowed for germs and bacteria to spread to them. For the demographic changes, there was a growth in population that made it so people had to travel out to new areas and because of people venturing out to change areas, there held new bacteria’s that can lead to plagues. Organisms are everywhere so it was possible to contract new ones in different areas. For the large scale and systematic environmental impacts once the plagues hit back when there was no way to clean and separate germs, water sources and food became contaminated so it was really easy to spread plagues when they first started.

Current technologies hold both positive and negative effects on health. For positives we can turn to medicine and vaccines that will prevent and kill diseases before they spread. We are able to fight off strong bacteria’s because of what we have learned and how we fight them. But technology can also be bad. We can see the three main ideas through economic, demographic, and large-scale and systematic environmental impacts again. Starting with the later we see underdeveloped countries get hit with this all the time. Most of the time drinking water is where people shower and use the bathroom so they have the contaminated water. For the demographic people are moving around more and more exploring the world but are coming across strong bacteria’s that are looking for someone to be a carrier. Our bodies are not use to every bacterium so new ones can affect us extremely fast and hard. Then with economic we need the whole globe to survive so trading and selling to other lands is constant and because of that we see a transfer of bacteria throughout the globe and that is why bacteria is considered cultural now. Things like Lyme disease, SARS, and Ebola are plagues that we today have seen come up. Even with all our knowledge and technology these have been affective to society as a whole. People can get hit from these diseases, especially in third world countries.

We are learning more and more about bacteria but we aren’t there yet. We know a lot more since things like the black plague but there are trillions of bacteria out there that we haven’t even encountered and because of that there is still always the threat of potential outbreaks, and that is why even those who hide under rocks and become cultured with a blink of an eye.