In their award-winning television documentary program, The Body Snatchers, National Geographic reported, “Parasites have killed more humans than all the wars in history”. [Season 1, episode 17]
Parasites are probably the most diverse of all biological forms and yet, by definition, they remain implacably hostile to humans.
Of the 7.8 billion acres of potential arable land on Earth, only 3.4 billion acres can be farmed; most of the rest cannot be developed because of parasites (malaria, trypanosomiasis, schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis).
That’s more than half the farmable land of our planet unavailable to us, because of these critters, at a time when humans need food resources like never before.
In Africa alone, an area the size of the USA cannot be farmed because of trypanosomes and many millions in South America have never had a healthy day in their lives because of this fiendish parasite.
But are parasites a curse of the undeveloped Third World? Not a bit of it…
Dr. Frank Nova, Chief of the Laboratory for Parasitic Diseases at the National Institute of Health, states, “In terms of numbers, there are more parasitic infections acquired in the US than in Africa.”
Even if countries in the Northern hemisphere were somehow protected in the past, all that is coming to an end. With climate change, parasite vectors are now moving north into tropical zones. A version of Trypanosomiasis (referred to above) is now endemic in the “kissing bugs” of Arizona and California.
Wake up! You need to know more—a LOT more than you do. Go here:
One of the things I most need to teach Westerners is that parasites are very common at home. It is not just a problem for the “Great Unwashed” in far off lands. We have plenty of our own!
Americans I have found are particular prone to the naive belief that “they” don’t have parasites. Yet some areas of the Unites States are so heavily infested I would joke about warning foreigners from Europe to take special precautions to protect themselves when visiting these states!
If you learn nothing else from me, learn this: we all have parasites in our bodies, permanently or from time to time. Those with stronger immune systems have less problems, that’s all…
Regular readers will know my life long maxim: the commonest cause of death is ignorance.
You can’t afford to go on sharing half your life and resources with critters running around, unhindered, inside you. It’s time to start hindering them!
Learn more about how to get to grips with this health issue, by visiting this page:
Yes, I gave it the name “911”, to commemorate the fateful events of Sept 2001. It’s appropriate: it’s a killer situation in which the world and its issues landed dangerously on the US doorstep.
There is no escaping the problem of parasites today; we are truly a global village. We share the Earth’s dangers, wherever we go—and even if we stay at home!
Thanks for reading,
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