Climate change, population growth, and new technology are changing our planet, fast. At some point, we’ll change just enough to create the conditions for the next massive infectious disease.
This early television news broadcast about a strange form of cancer infecting homosexual men offers a fascinating insight into how the public came to understand AIDS, before it was even called as such.
UNAIDS just released a 30 year stock taking of the global fight against HIV/AIDS. The report, AIDS at 30: Nations at the Crossroads, is voluminous, but contains some interesting factual nuggets about recent progress against the disease.
The International Atomic Energy Agency just completed a fact finding mission into the Japanese nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant--and one fact they find is that the Tsunami hazard was under-estimated.
Late last week, the Vatican hosted a major meeting on "The Centrality of Care for the Person in the Prevention and Treatment of Illnesses Caused by HIV/AIDS.” This was the first meeting of its kind since last fall when Pope Benedict commented that in some narrow circumstances, condoms might sometimes be morally acceptable.
In 2008, 36.1 million people died from conditions such as heart disease, strokes, chronic lung diseases, cancers and diabetes. Nearly 80% of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries.
