Yes, there is a connection.  

Reports are coming in from across the country that cases of West Nile Virus have increased.

From MSNBC.com:

CONCORD, Calif. - Standing on the edge of a swimming pool gone bad, public health worker Jeremy Tamargo scoops up a sample of murky, brown water to make sure the mosquito treatment he administered earlier is still working.

A collection of plastic toys stashed in a corner of the yard and a stuffed toy floating forlornly in the swampy water indicate a family once played here, until foreclosure forced a move.

Now the once-sparkling, turquoise jewel is a "green pool," a legacy of the foreclosure crisis — and a breeding ground for millions of potentially disease-carrying mosquitoes that have kept health officials busy in California and elsewhere.

More below the fold....

For some time now, I've been expecting to read about some mah-valous scientific discoveries in the nano-tech field.  You know, super-science.

I've been waiting.  

Waiting.

Still waiting.

Oh, looky here, maybe the waiting is about over?

When people stop vaccinating their children, disease breaks out. It's that simple. It's happening in Africa, and it's happening in the U.S., and if trends continue it's going to get worse.

America is a myth, and here’s yet more proof.  While Wall Street thieves wipe their asses with thousand dollar bills and paunchilly content middle-aged prols thrill to an orgy of shoe shopping and glorified self-absorption in a Sex And The City movie, the health and vitality of America’s poor is being drained by worms and parasites.  Worms and parasites.  In America.  Today.   As if the poor and disadvantaged didn’t have it hard enough.

This diary is cross-posted to my blog, where you'll find a great blow up of the norovirus, in color, and links to stories mentioned below.

Save The Children is out with a new report detailing the state of the world's children (and women as well). Their major conclusions are shocking, sadly unsurprising, and once again put the "civilized" world's preoccupation with "terrorism" as a cause of death in perspective: 9.7 million children die every year (26,000 each and every day) from diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia which are not only treatable but treatable at extremely low-cost. 6.1 million of those 10 million could be saved if those low-cost solutions were made available to the world's population. Unfortunately the report does not attempt to estimate the cost in total, but given that antibiotics to treat pneumonia can cost less than 30 cents, and that the oral rehydration salts needed to prevent a child from dying of diarrheal dehydration cost less than 50 cents, I think it's safe to say that the total cost of saving the lives of 6.1 million people would be well under the cost of the war in Iraq. Probably less than one month's worth. Maybe less than a day's worth.

Tobacco is the most addictive legal substance in America.

It's responsible, not that most people give a shit, for 350,000 deaths per year and costs untold fortunes in healthcare dollars from the diseases it causes.

But who cares, right? It's legal!

The FDA is mulling wading in and regulating some of the chemicals that are added to tobacco to make it do this, that, and the other. They aren't talking of banning tobacco or nicotine yet, but there is hope.

And your choice for President has already endorsed it! Woo-hoo!

More on the flip.

US leads on deaths from treatable disease

More patients die in the US from diseases that could be treated by timely intervention than in any other leading industrialised country, a study by senior health academics showed yesterday.

Surely it's a coincidence that the "leading" performer in that category is the only country without universla health care?

Many of us on this page, myself included, have a disease. It is the product, I think, of being very conscious of the world around us, having a strong belief of what is right and wrong, wanting to have a meaningful existence that goes beyond much of the superficiality that dominates our lives, and just generally caring about what happens to other people.

Our disease is an obsession with process, which too often leads us to observations that, though intellectually interesting and emotionally exciting, ultimately have very little worth. Our inner substance has been diverted to focus disproportionately on matters that, though an important piece in building a better world, should only be a necessary evil that takes up a small part of our attention.

Any of us can turn in nearly any direction and find a cause that makes us both cry and want to fight for change. But first we have to identify the problems, which are not usually so clear on the surface, and discover what that deep change we want is. Otherwise, it is just a platitude that subdues us until we awake into disappointment.

When's the last time you heard someone say, "Every _ seconds someone is diagnosed with cancer," or "Every _ seconds someone dies of _ disease"?

The World Clock is an eye-opening website that estimates several vital statistics, including the earth's temperature, population, incidences of disease, and more. Open the website, and you will see constantly updated stats for many categories for this year. Clicking each of the buttons at the top will give you data pertaining to this month, this week, and today.  

I'll point out some of the more revealing statistics below the fold.

21 days from today, New Jersey voters will vote on whether or not to have the state spend $45 million a year for the next 10 years on stem cell research. The funding would go toward advancing medical treatments and attracting leading scientists and research companies to the state.

One of the things that the Republican presidential candidates were doing in the debate yesterday was try to appeal to peoples' sense of optimism. This is one of the things that we were able to win elections based on in the last 70 years; FDR and JFK were both able to win by appealing to that, as did Bill Clinton.

Therefore, in order to win the next election, we have to be able to coopt that and present our own vision for the future. What we need to be able to do is ask where we want to be 100 years from now. We can't make the world as though George Bush had never risen to power. But what we can do is work to ensure that it never happens again. Here is what I where I would like to see us in the next 100 years.

Twin news items to make you nervous:

Mishandling of germs on rise at US Labs.

Some cattlemen nervous about new biolab.

Well, it makes me nervous, anyway.  First we have a report on how with the increased accreditation of so-called high security labs has seen an increased incident rate for those labs.  In the last 4 years, more than 100 incidents involving very dangerous biologic materials have occurred.  From the first news article:

Of all the things I've ever heard anyone say about John Edwards, something Kate Michelman said has stuck with me the longest and has been proven true again and again by Edwards himself.  Kate, the former head of NARAL ProChoice America, said

"John Edwards understands the links between poverty and disease, war, and the destruction of our environment."

I'll add John also demonstrates his understanding of the link between greed, corruption, and the decline of America's working middle class, the shredding of our Constitution, and our nation's plunge in esteem in the eyes of the civilized world.  

The French fashion industry has come out in favor of anorexia, or at least has started to attack the Italians for trying to do something to prevent it.

With the political landscape strewn with the corpses of scandals, hypocrites, failed legislation, and Constitutional and rational crises, what rooom do any of us have for optimism? What makes us think that we are able to competently govern ourselves? Since history has been recorded, government has been a disaster; perhaps the second most destructive and devisive force right behind religion. We preach democracy, freedom of speech, civil liberties, peace, but is the world a fundamentally better place than it was 50 years ago? 150? 1500? Are our leaders better today? Are the world's economic conditions better? Is their peace? Humankind has failed in every aspect of life, and it's time that we all take a look at ourselves and our beliefs and evaluate them based on results.

The 1980's introduced high-fructose corn syrup and trans-fat to increase the sweetness and fattiness of foods. Other developments include the appearance of CDs, video games, VCR's, personal computers, AIDS and the election of Ronald Regan and George Bush. Coincidentally or not, our nation's health has been in sharp decline ever since these foods, electronic devices, viruses and politicians became part of the American landscape.

During this period the FDA and the FTC allowed the mining of the psyches of infants and children. This began a systematic onslaught on the senses, libidos and fears of kids. The goal these companies had was to enslave generations to a lifetime of drugs, diseases and addiction.

Our health care system doesn't prevent disease. Instead it treats a myriad of illnesses brought on by unhealthy products, sedentary behavior and mixed messages.

Reform oh healthcare is long overdue. However, it is not enough to just reform the method of paying for care, we need to reduce the demand for it.

Despite outcries for a single payer system from politicians seeking office, any attempt to reform healthcare without addressing behavior won’t diminish this threat.  They are playing three-card Monty with healthcare dollars

A few days ago, Associated Press told us that more women were dying in childbirth because they were too fat and because greedy lazy obstetricians like to do C-sections. Now, the U.S. Census tells us what we suspected all along--more Americans are losing their health insurance. The total number is up to 47 million and the percentage is up to 15.8%. The rise since 2005 is made up mostly of an increase in the number of African-Americans and Hispanics who are now doing without insurance. While 10.8% of Whites lack health insurance, 20.5% of Blacks and 15.3 of Hispanics do without. Children and the poor are also more likely to be without health coverage. So are people living in the South and West. So are people living in big metropolitan areas. The number of people with employer sponsored health insurance has gone down. The number of people with non-Medicare, non-Medicaid government sponsored health insurance has gone down.

All this at the same time that  public health indicators in a country that claims to have "the best health care that money can buy" are going the wrong way. Something is very, very rotten in the state of the United States health care system.