A catastrophic loss in biodiversity, reckless destruction of wildland and warming temperatures have allowed disease to explode. Ignoring the connection between climate change and pandemics would be “dangerous delusion,” one scientist said.
diseases
Facts Vs. Fears: Five Things To Help Weigh Your Coronavirus Risk
Scientists have more questions than answers about important issues surrounding the coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19. Here’s some help in understanding the unknowns and evaluating the risks.
After Estimated 80,000 Americans Died of Flu Last Winter, Flagler Health Department
Alerts To Early Flu Shots
The grim numbers reinforce the importance of a flu shot each year, the Florida Department of Health in Flagler stresses, recommending a flu vaccine before Halloween and the start of flu season in November.
Flagler Beach’s Mary Ann Dominessy Reese, Who’d Made Her Battle With ALS Unsparingly Public, Dies at 63
For more than two years Mary Ann Dominessy Reese, a retired teacher, had painstakingly chronicled her decline through ALS on a widely read Facebook page, organizing campaigns and fund-raisers, along the way.
Zika Virus In Flagler: Preparations In Place But Response Limited to Education and Prevention
The Flagler County Health Department says it’s prepared for an outbreak of Zika virus in the county, which has so far been spared, but the focus is on the only thing officials can do: education, elimination of standing water where possible, and limited travel for pregnant women.
Childhood Cancer Clusters in Florida and The Department of Health’s Lethal Silence
Five years have passed since the University of West Florida’s Dr. Raid Amin and his team alerted the state to the presence of cancer clusters in Florida, the state Department of Health remains mum, seemingly uninterested in investigating the issue.
Misleading TV Report Raises Overblown Fears About “Flesh-Eating” Bacteria on Beaches
Flagler County Health Department Director Patrick Johnson and his staff have been fielding calls from tourists worried about reports of “flesh-eating” bacteria on local beaches. And they’ve been telling them to relax: the reports are misleading and outright false.
Death Toll From Preventable Hospital Mistakes Ranges Between 210,000 and 440,000
A new study finds that preventable hospital mistakes that lead to patients’ death are far higher than previous estimates, making medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.
Calculating One’s Risk for Alzheimer’s: Most People Want To Know
Alzheimer’s disease can’t be prevented or cured, and it ranks second only to cancer among diseases that people fear. Yet about two-thirds of respondents would want to know if they were destined to get the disease.
Mosquito-Borne Encephalitis May Be On the Rise in Flagler, Health Department Cautions
The disease is rare but has severe consequences, and the department’s “sentinel” chickens have shown an increase in symptoms of the Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus.
