Module 56 Human Disease
e.coli in produce: summary
acute vs. chronic disease
note global rate of CV disease, usually preventable
Pathways (vectors)
epidemic: rapid increase in disease
pandemic: entire continent
plague: bacterium from fleas (modern antibiotics can cure this if given in time)
Malaria: from the Spanish for "bad air", also why Buenos Aires is such a nice place. Plasmodium in blood, no cure, just cure for symptoms. Once you have it, you have it for life, and it can recur.
Tuberculosis: airborne bacterium (like in Les Miserables), very contagious, modern threat is from drug resistant TB, esp. in Russia.
Emergent ID: AIDS/HIV first seen in early 1980's (along with certain music and hair)
First showed up in babies, homosexuals and blood transfusion recipients
No known cure, but can be managed. Drugs are expensive, so this is still a threat in Sub Saharan Africa, among other places.
Ebola: Hemorrhagic fever, about 90% fatality rate, very contagious, from primates originally
Mad Cow disease (
bovine spongiform encephalopathy): prion pathogen, basically a toxic protein that survives cooking, originally found in GB, banned all beef from there for a certain time in 1996.
Swine Flu, Bird Flu: both jumped from animals to humans (like perhaps Covid-19). If this jump is not human-to-human transmitted, then only a few humans die, if it jumps or mutates, then things get serious.
SARS: 2002, 10% fatality rate, air transmission, coronavirus
MERS: another coronavirus in 2012
West Nile virus: in birds from mosquitoes, to humans, causes brain swelling
Lyme disease: from deer ticks, incidents are further north now due to global warming
Zika: pathogen causing babies brains to be damaged/small
Module 57 Toxicology
Note the heavy metals (mercury, lead, arsenic) the artificial chemicals (PVC, VC, Alcohol, phthalates) and the pesticides (atrazine, DDT).
Asbestos is natural, but used in places that can cause cancer through inhalation in humans
Radon is natural, but concentrates in lower dwellings or in the lower lobes of your lungs.
Allergens: not usually taken seriously, but are often synergistic with toxins above.
Endocrine disrupters: can interfere with growth, metabolism and others, often estrogens or similar
Dose response studies: acute or chronic, seeks to find an LD50 or an ED50 (non-lethal)
Surmised to be linear, but often not so, e.g. drugs for the aged are not cleared by their liver/kidney as effectively, so blood levels of the drugs increase.
See also the THC decay curve
NOEL: no observed effect level-non-lethal impact
Bioaccumulation: A single organism, collecting in fat tissues (PCB, dioxins) or muscles (mercury)
Biomagnification: MANY organisms eaten by an apex predator, increasing the level of a toxin, e.g. you eating Ahi, getting mercury poisoning. See Jack Black and Sushi.
POPs: persistent organic pollutants
n.b. roundup was recently banned in CA and EU, suspected of causing cancer
Module 58 Risk Analysis
Note difference between lightning and heart disease...
Risk = probability of exposure x probability of being harmed
probability of exposure example: is you live in Nebraska, not much risk of sharks
If you surf in Hawaii, different story
probability of being harmed: flying is safe, but if the plane crashes, fatality rate is around 100%
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