Day 1165 – We Could Be Leading the World, but Instead …
Saturday March 28, 2020
218 Days until the election on November 3rd
298 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
At the end of the book “Lost City of The Monkey King” the author talks about contracting a parasite that causes a condition called Leishmaniasis. It is a parasite that is spread by the bite of a particular sand flea that lives on The Brown Wood Rat. The parasite likes to eat soft tissue, notably the earlobes, nose, and cheeks. It can literally “eat your face off.” The cure is a medicine that is only available in one place in the world – the National Institute of Health (NIH). There’s a guy there that has raised those sand fleas and studied the parasite and come up with a cure. (The other antidote is a poison that can help, but might kill you.)
When I read about this I was quietly proud of our country that we had someone on the case. I’ve been worried ever since Trump came in that this program and others like it might be cut. I mean why bother? You can always hire or buy this when you really need it. – That’s the argument. Of course, you have to find and develop a person that would be interested in such a thing. He had ten years of work into the project when Robert Patterson came to him and was sick. “Hey bud, no problem, sit here and wait ten years.”
When Trump dismantled the pandemic response team we didn’t pay much attention. Now? Don’t you wish we had? Don’t you wish we had screamed at him? Of course, the intelligence and health communities had been doing that on Covid 19 since January. He finally, kind of did something yesterday. He tweeted that GM better make ventilators fast because we need them. We’ve needed them since January, but he ignored the reality of the coming storm. Now, thousands will die because of his stupidity and arrogance. We really don’t know what he did yesterday, do we? Did he invoke the War Powers Act and order GM or did he just tweet that he was going to do it? With this guy you don’t know.
And therein lies one of the many problems.
Cases of Leishmaniasis have been reported in Texas. People are being infected that have never gone to remote jungles where this condition is known to occur. What can explain this? Climate change, the Brown Wood Rat is moving north with the warming climate.
218 Days until the election on November 3rd
298 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
PS Say Yes to the Dress!
Kathy Goodwind says
Omg! Years ago we had a patient with Leishmaniasis at Providence
here in Seattle. That was over 40 years ago. I was in a micro rotation at the time. It just made me puke.
Hunkered down here in Seattle. Got my gloves, got my N100 mask.
Looking to get one of those tyvec body suits. I need to go shopping.