Insect Born Diseases Have Tripled-Here's Why

Yes, ATS. INsect born diseases have tripled since 2004 according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One conclusion in the article is that warmer weather allows for insects to grow and expand their populations for longer periods of time. There's a lot of factors; warm weather isn't the only one. There's also urban sprawl which forces out wild animals but allows for mice and rats which help to spread tick and insect populations. There's also the present day increase in international travel which is another way for disease to spread.

Since 2004, the number of people who get diseases transmitted by mosquito, tick, and flea bites has more than tripled, according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. Between 2004 and 2016, about 643,000 cases of 16 insect-borne illnesses were reported to the CDC—27,000 a year in 2004 (the year in which the agency began requiring more detailed reporting), rising to 96,000 by 2016. At least nine such diseases have also been discovered or introduced into the US in that same timeframe. Most of them are found in ticks. Many of them are potentially life-threatening.

What’s to blame for the surge in reported cases? Warmer weather for one thing, said the agency’s director of vector-borne diseases, Lyle Petersen, during a media briefing. Warmer temperatures allow tick populations to expand into new ranges and set up disease reservoirs where none existed before. Earlier springs and later falls also extend the length of tick season, exposing more people to risks longer. And the warmer it gets, the faster mosquitoes can breed and the higher the viral loads they carry around; outbreaks tend to occur when temperatures are higher than normal.

I also think that warmer weather will bring an increase in mosquitoes and mosquito born illness. Now, it seems to be coming to pass. As the environment warms and there is more sitting water puddles, mosquitoes will breed and multiply in larger numbers. Food can't grow with too much water either. Now I'm waiting for the food shortages to start.

Doom and Gloom, ATS. Doom and Gloom....So, what say you?

www.wired.com...

Warmer weather? We have nothing to worry about here. It is in the thirties out there tonight, there were some mosquitoes on our screen on the patio door yesterday begging to come in so they don't freeze to death. I made a treaty with them, they can stay on the screen and keep from dying if they do not suck my blood. Yeah, that is like making an agreement with a porn star.

a reply to: lostbook

Besides warmer weather, the number of people in the world has increased as well - more potential for victims could lead to higher raw numbers. Additionally, reporting might have increased due to internet and cell phone communications allowing better reporting.

However, it is a CDC report, and they generally are pretty good about things.

The lead CDC author said this:

“I can’t comment on why there’s increasing temperatures, that’s the job of meteorologists,” Petersen told reporters on the call. “What I can tell you is increasing temperatures have a number of effects on all these vector-borne diseases.”

It is suggestive, at least.

Eat more garlic. Doesn't just work for vampires.

a reply to: lostbook

I lost my left eye to Lyme disease over a 5 year period. I still have one good eye. And that's all I need to catch bass!

Well the article does a pretty good job of explaining what is likely behind it;

Extended breeding seasons give you more bugs, warmer weather longer gives you more bugs active for longer periods of time. In the mosquito population, this translates into more chances for disease to spread from mosquito to human.

Same goes with flies and other disease carrying bugs.

Climate change ain't all about more beach days.

I´m in my 8 or 9th year eradicating every gnat-moskito-nest in my surrounding. Every 4 weeks I´m making a visit to my and our neighbors cisterns and watertanks (for gardening) and put a few drops of bacillus thuringiensis in them.

We´re living gnat free now and those gnats who survive, are so weak that they can´t even fly higher than 1m above ground it seems.

Last year I had to kill one in my bedroom. One single beast survived. The years before I´d hunt down at least 5-10 before even thinking about laying to sleep.

Love the devils-stuff.

It`s May and down in the low 40`s and even the 30`s in East Tenn,have not been bit by a mosquito all year.This has been the coolest spring I can remember at 57.I think widespread traveling has more to do with disease spreading than anything.Recently read that immigrants have spread kissing bugs into the US,which of course means Chagis(spellin?) is in the states,hope it doesn`t spread.Horrible disease.Many plant maladies have been accidently introduced over the last 100 years,humans are catching up now

a reply to: lostbook

I wonder how much disease has increased in areas like Brazil, DR, and other tropical environments..should there not be sustained increases there?

a reply to: chrismarco
Use logic. Those regions do not have freezing climate periods that will kill off the insects. That´s why insect population in those zones is so high and always was.

Because of that you won´t see much on top of it, or it would not be recognizeable as much as where those freezing periods are now slowly start missing out.

a reply to: rickymouse

Mosquitos don't seem to mind the cold as long as it's above freezing. They are in my yard until mid December here in Virginia. They just started showing up a few days ago.
Up til then I was safe out there. Then on Tuesday I was turning over the veggy plot and they got my legs.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: rickymouse

Mosquitos don't seem to mind the cold as long as it's above freezing. They are in my yard until mid December here in Virginia. They just started showing up a few days ago.
Up til then I was safe out there. Then on Tuesday I was turning over the veggy plot and they got my legs.

Yeah, I got bit by a mosquito while working on putting a new sway bar link on her Honda crv on monday. She likes to work on cars, she is nineteen years old and likes doing brakes and minor jobs on vehicles. I had just greased the sway bar link and my hands were full of grease, she had to swat the mosquitos off. We have to do the front brakes next week, we did the back brakes a week ago. It has been cold and her husband uses the car to go work so we have to plan around that. That sway bar link that should have taken twenty minutes to change took four hours, most of that time was trying to take off one nut. I have torches but tend to catch things on fire when they are undercoated, the air chissel won't work on a sway bar link on the sway bar side, the sawsall would not work, sway bars just bounce and vibrate. I had to cut it off with an air die grinder with a wheel. I just hurt my back two nights before too. Her car will not fit on my lift because of the way it is constructed, I might have to invest fifteen grand into a new lift to get one that works on all cars, that way I will feel better if my kids and grandkids use the lift for working on cars.

We got her when she was young, she changed her first tire on a car when she was six years old. Using a commercial floor jack and impact tools of course. I had to lower the car height so she could slip the tire right on, she could not lift it onto the axle.

originally posted by: Greven
a reply to: lostbook

Besides warmer weather, the number of people in the world has increased as well - more potential for victims could lead to higher raw numbers. Additionally, reporting might have increased due to internet and cell phone communications allowing better reporting.

However, it is a CDC report, and they generally are pretty good about things.

The lead CDC author said this:

“I can’t comment on why there’s increasing temperatures, that’s the job of meteorologists,” Petersen told reporters on the call. “What I can tell you is increasing temperatures have a number of effects on all these vector-borne diseases.”

It is suggestive, at least.

Good point.

The good news is that there will be fewer bugs this summer and if we have an early winter this year it will help greatly with the bugs. If it is all dictated by weather.

a reply to: lostbook

Might be something to this.

I know that the mosquito population stays around all winter here in florida now.

I have been here for 40 years and that's new to me.

Also the ticks. They used die back during the winter months here but not any more.

It has gotten so bad that a friend of mine caught lime disease from a tick in january. january!

a reply to: lostbook

Another culprit for the insect explosion and increased dispersion that I've seen first hand is store-bought bagged soils for gardens. My Mom, sister, and I all have gardens and every March we'll buy a lot of bagged soils, like composted cow manure, potting soil, top soil, etc. I'm the one in charge of mixing the new soils with the old soils for my self and my Mom and it usually ends up around 1,000 lbs or so of new soils.

Well every year, I've noticed that some bags will have mosquitoes, stink bugs, gnats, spiders, and/or all kinds of bugs that I'd never seen before in them (like terrestrial flatworms). Some of the companies say they deliberately don't sterilize the soil because they don't want to kill the helpful microbes in them. That's nice in theory, but it also means that the other insects and/or their eggs/larvae will survive, as well.

Every year, the mosquitoes would get so bad that we'd have to use both insect repellant sprays and wearable mosquito repellers (sp?) every single time anyone went into the gardens. We've tried to be completely organic, but that has resulted in a stinkbug infestation on the cucumber & okra plants one year, some type of tomato caterpillars another year (tomato hornworms), and of course, those wretched mosquitoes everywhere.

Well this year, I decided to throw out the "organic" mindset and sprayed the crap out of the soil. I ruthlessly sprayed the soil at least twice when mixing each batch (w/a plant friendly insecticide) and then sprayed the soil again after putting it into the totes, buckets, and other containers for the gardens. And each month, I spray almost everything except the plants/vegetation itself (and obviously I don't spray my compost). Well, it's worked so far!


There are still a lot of gnats in a few of the containers and our berry bushes still get a lot of insect visitors. But the mosquitoes and stinkbugs are nowhere to be found yet even though it's in the 80s right now. And surprisingly, we're still getting at least 2 different kinds of bees, though one (the carpenter bees) is trying my patience.

I'm normally a softie when it comes to killing insects and my normal motto is to let them live as long as they're outside. I've even tried to compromise on my current insect massacre campaign by sparing half of the lawns and all of the trees, meaning that they can live as long as they stay by the trees or by the yards that are nearest to the road. But I've simply had it with the mosquitoes and I truly wish that every mosquito on the planet would disappear. And it feels so good to be able to go out in the garden in shorts without having to scratch 3-8 new mosquito bites!

Try thuringensis..(see above post of mine for the correct species). A few drops into the water and there will be no more gnats. But you need to do it big. If you have close neighbors with water tanks that won´t let you do this, success will not be great. Ask before you pour stuff into their watertanks or let them do it themself regulary. It´s not harmful for the plants or to humans, it´s just a bacterium that kills the larvae.

You can water your edible plants with water that is treated with it, no problem. It´s so nice to be able to air out the house in the summer without getting gnats everywhere. Gnat screens are good and all that but they won´t let enough air flow through to cool down the house at night. And they will find a spot or make noises outside.

Nothing of that, anymore

a reply to: verschickter

Thanks. I'll definitely look into that because so far, gnats are the only unwanted ones that keep hanging around.

My Mom didn't want me to directly spray any of the actual plants or fruits/vegetables because she gives away most of the stuff that she grows to a local mosque. But she'll eventually get sick of insects, will turn on the "exterminate them all" switch, and then will spray down everything, including the stuff that has nothing to do with the initial problem. That's one reason I like to handle it before she gets involved. At least with me, some of them will be spared. lol

My sister's too unpredictable for me to know if I should use it in her garden. She's so up-to-date on the latest gardening, organic, and whatever fads that I can't really preemptively do anything in her yard because it might clash with some new project she's working on. I should be planting some trees over there sometime in the next few days, so I'll ask her if it's ok to try that substance with her stuff.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
a reply to: lostbook

Another culprit for the insect explosion and increased dispersion that I've seen first hand is store-bought bagged soils for gardens. My Mom, sister, and I all have gardens and every March we'll buy a lot of bagged soils, like composted cow manure, potting soil, top soil, etc. I'm the one in charge of mixing the new soils with the old soils for my self and my Mom and it usually ends up around 1,000 lbs or so of new soils.

Well every year, I've noticed that some bags will have mosquitoes, stink bugs, gnats, spiders, and/or all kinds of bugs that I'd never seen before in them (like terrestrial flatworms). Some of the companies say they deliberately don't sterilize the soil because they don't want to kill the helpful microbes in them. That's nice in theory, but it also means that the other insects and/or their eggs/larvae will survive, as well.

Every year, the mosquitoes would get so bad that we'd have to use both insect repellant sprays and wearable mosquito repellers (sp?) every single time anyone went into the gardens. We've tried to be completely organic, but that has resulted in a stinkbug infestation on the cucumber & okra plants one year, some type of tomato caterpillars another year (tomato hornworms), and of course, those wretched mosquitoes everywhere.

Well this year, I decided to throw out the "organic" mindset and sprayed the crap out of the soil. I ruthlessly sprayed the soil at least twice when mixing each batch (w/a plant friendly insecticide) and then sprayed the soil again after putting it into the totes, buckets, and other containers for the gardens. And each month, I spray almost everything except the plants/vegetation itself (and obviously I don't spray my compost). Well, it's worked so far!

There are still a lot of gnats in a few of the containers and our berry bushes still get a lot of insect visitors. But the mosquitoes and stinkbugs are nowhere to be found yet even though it's in the 80s right now. And surprisingly, we're still getting at least 2 different kinds of bees, though one (the carpenter bees) is trying my patience.

I'm normally a softie when it comes to killing insects and my normal motto is to let them live as long as they're outside. I've even tried to compromise on my current insect massacre campaign by sparing half of the lawns and all of the trees, meaning that they can live as long as they stay by the trees or by the yards that are nearest to the road. But I've simply had it with the mosquitoes and I truly wish that every mosquito on the planet would disappear. And it feels so good to be able to go out in the garden in shorts without having to scratch 3-8 new mosquito bites!

"insect massacre campaign..." priceless! lol

Hmmmmnn. Nothing here about the Environmental wackos using junk science to ban DDT. What a shame.