Scientists stress biodiversity - human health links
Article Abstract:
Physicians, policymakers, and the public must recognize that human health depends on biological diversity. Environmental destruction reduces the diversity of life and has negative health effects. Global warming and deforestation alter the climate and may increase the rate of some diseases. Climatic changes may allow insects that transmit disease to survive in new areas and may prompt rapid evolution in disease-causing microorganisms. Destruction of tropical rain forests may unwittingly destroy many undiscovered plants with medicinal properties. Although fewer than 1% of all flowering plants have been evaluated for medicinal value, an array of pharmaceutical agents has already been discovered. As these plants become extinct, native people's knowledge about their medicinal properties dwindles. A national council of science and medicine for the protection of biological diversity was founded in 1995 to promote environmental causes.
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1995
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Scary Scenarios Spark Action at Bioterrorism Symposium
Article Abstract:
About 1,000 doctors and public health professionals listened to a fictional account of the use of biological weapons by terrorists during the first National Symposium on Medical and Public Health Response to Bioterrorism in February, 1999. Although many different organisms could potentially be used, anthrax and smallpox have the most appropriate characteristics for a biological weapon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has received $51 million to begin stockpiling antibiotics and to develop a smallpox vaccine.
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1999
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