Impacted forest patches a key driver of malaria in Amazonian Brazil

nature.com

45 points·rkraaijenhagen··8 comments

Consideration of an illness' context is the one of the most important reforms needed in our approach to health. 20th century doctors were trained to think that nutrition/stress/living environment were of no relevance to their diagnosis and treatments.

This study confirms that context is very important to developing malaria-resistant societies.

I often wonder how this approach to medicine came about.

Becuase this approach to medicine was vastly more powerful than other competing approaches. Think about what this approach accomplishes in the 20th century.

1)Vaccines that basically wiped out most severe childhood illnesses

2) Conquest of polio

3) Eradication of smallpox

4) Antibiotics. No longer was bacterial pneumonia a death sentence

5) Significant advances in trauma care

6) Reliable birth control

7) Significant advances in cancer treatment, especially childhood cancers

Doctors had been talking about the importance of nutrition and environment for centuries (malaria literally means "bad air"), but it was this recent approach to malaria that could actually cure it.

On the topic deforestation/ecosystems: this reminded me of a company I discovered the other day called BioCarbon Engineering which uses drones to plant trees.

> https://www.biocarbonengineering.com/

The idea is intriguing.

Also see https://www.droneseed.co/

Thanks!

Took me a second not to read this as a changelog entry

> impacted ... patches ... key driver ... Amazon ...

I thought was a new take on random forests...

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