Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey, everyone, welcome to Forward Thinking. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren bo and Joe McCormick and the Today we're
Speaker 1: gonna tackle something that's really sensitive and it's it's important.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to skip the goofy little song lyric
Speaker 1: that I usually inserted at the top of a show
Speaker 1: because punch they're not really not really fitting. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about disease and disease outbreaks, epidemics, pandemics, and
Speaker 1: what the future holds. And we're going to start by
Speaker 1: looking at some serious stuff that's going on right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A very present example of this sort of thing is,
Speaker 1: of course ebola, which is a disease caused by a
Speaker 1: virus that first emerged, i mean, for basically the first
Speaker 1: time that humans really noticed it in nineties six so recently.
Speaker 1: Um when a patient in then Zaire presented with malaria
Speaker 1: like symptoms at a local in a nurse gave him
Speaker 1: an injection of quinine, which is a popular drug for
Speaker 1: managing the single celled parasite that causes malaria, but she
Speaker 1: kept the needle and used it on other malaria patients
Speaker 1: that used to happen unfortunately kind of a lot, especially
Speaker 1: in that time period, which was before we knew as
Speaker 1: much about blood borne viruses like like HIV and herpes
Speaker 1: and ebola and super especially it happened in areas with
Speaker 1: our economic hardship and medical supply problems. So the patient
Speaker 1: unfortunately passed away a few weeks later. UM and when
Speaker 1: he did, his friends and family performed burial procedures that
Speaker 1: exposed them to his bodily fluids. A few weeks after that,
Speaker 1: eighteen of his friends and family members had also died,
Speaker 1: and that local clinic was flooded with patients who had
Speaker 1: been exposed to the raised needle who were experiencing similar symptoms. UM.
Speaker 1: It was a huge outbreak. It would kill over six
Speaker 1: people at the time. And so this was sort of
Speaker 1: the first time we found out about the virus that's
Speaker 1: now known as ebola, and that just had another outbreak
Speaker 1: this year, right right, Well, the disease disappeared. A couple
Speaker 1: of smaller outbreaks happened over the next three years in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, and then we managed to contain it
Speaker 1: and it basically disappeared for a stretch of like fifteen years,
Speaker 1: which was awesome, but but outbreaks do continue to happen,
Speaker 1: like this one that just started in August in the
Speaker 1: Democratic Republic of Congo. So we wanted to talk today
Speaker 1: about about what's the deal with how with all of this, Like,
Speaker 1: how can we possibly predict and prevent the spread of
Speaker 1: diseases that we don't fully understand yet, or or even
Speaker 1: the spread of emergent diseases that we've never seen before. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we focused a lot in this podcast in the
Speaker 1: past on preventing sort of chronic and congenital diseases and
Speaker 1: technology and science might help us fight those more effectively
Speaker 1: in the future, But we really haven't talked a whole
Speaker 1: lot about infectious disease, right, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of terms that we're going to have to define on this,
Speaker 1: right Yeah. So I thought one the first things we
Speaker 1: should do is clear up the main three terms you
Speaker 1: hear about infectious diseases outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic. What are
Speaker 1: these words actually mean and how are they different from
Speaker 1: each other? Um So, an outbreak, according to the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization, and outbreak basically occurs when a specific disease
Speaker 1: is found with greater prevalence than you would normally expect
Speaker 1: to find that disease in one time and place. So
Speaker 1: any given time, in particular place, a certain number of
Speaker 1: people might be expected to carry that certain disease. If
Speaker 1: suddenly twice as many people are infected, this could be
Speaker 1: called an outbreak. But the World Health Organization says that
Speaker 1: this can also apply to a really small number of
Speaker 1: occurrences as long as it's more than normal, So that
Speaker 1: they specify that even a single case of infection could
Speaker 1: be classed as an outbreak if it shows up at
Speaker 1: a time and place where that particular disease was previously
Speaker 1: not present or unknown. So so if a patient presented
Speaker 1: with a ball in a place that they that that
Speaker 1: no one had ever seen a bullet before, that could
Speaker 1: be considered an outbreak. Yes, it might be considered an outbreak.
Speaker 1: The term outbreak, I think, is one of the more
Speaker 1: loosely applied, right So, it's one of those that doesn't
Speaker 1: have hard and fast rules that you know you must
Speaker 1: meet these criteria in order to be called an outbreak.
Speaker 1: Right Well, I mean some people use it differently. I
Speaker 1: can contrast it to the word epidemic. Now, the c
Speaker 1: d c S Epidemiology glossary defines epidemic as the occurrence
Speaker 1: of more cases of disease than expected in a given
Speaker 1: area or among a specific group of people over a
Speaker 1: particular period of time. So that sounds a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like the definition the w h
Speaker 1: O gave for an outbreak. What's the deal? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people do use the terms outbreak and
Speaker 1: epidemic more or less interchangeably. In fact, the same CDC
Speaker 1: Epidemiology glossary defines the term outbreak as synonymous with epidemic.
Speaker 1: They say, sometimes the preferred word as it may escape
Speaker 1: sensationalism associated with the word epidemic, alternately a localized as
Speaker 1: opposed to generalized epidemic. So they're what they're saying is
Speaker 1: that the word epidemic can be emotionally charged in a
Speaker 1: way that outbreak may not be. So if you're talking
Speaker 1: about a report and you use the word epidemic, this
Speaker 1: could create a more negative reaction than what was necessarily intended. Sure,
Speaker 1: possibly because people hear the word epidemic and and think
Speaker 1: of pandemic. Well, yeah, because epidemic proportions that tends to
Speaker 1: be a phrase you hear of epidemic proportions, which makes
Speaker 1: it sound like whatever an epidemic is, it has to
Speaker 1: be though in this basic definition, as we've said, ab
Speaker 1: outbreak and epidemic, both of them are relative terms. They're
Speaker 1: they're relative to what you normally expect, not based on
Speaker 1: some specific threshold of PREVILEGCE. Right, there's no arbitrary number
Speaker 1: where ten thousand people within a given area have to
Speaker 1: have this, you know, within that population density, and then
Speaker 1: it's an epidemic. But for epidemics sometimes, in some cases
Speaker 1: officials and health organizations do make distinctions based on threshold.
Speaker 1: So not really without break, but definitely with epidemic. So
Speaker 1: for example, the CDC might wait until the morbidity rate
Speaker 1: of the flu reaches a certain percent of the overall
Speaker 1: hospital death rate before classifying it an epidemic. All right,
Speaker 1: now we're getting confusing, because yeah, but this is but
Speaker 1: so there is that weird distinction, But overall the words
Speaker 1: are basically the same, right. It's it's because we need
Speaker 1: to have certain words to describe specific circumstances. It's just
Speaker 1: so happens that this particular word can serve two different,
Speaker 1: too similar but different purposes. Another distinction I would make
Speaker 1: is that I haven't found any evidence. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you all have ever heard, but I haven't found
Speaker 1: any evidence of the word epidemic being applied in the
Speaker 1: case of a single infection the way the w h
Speaker 1: O said that outbreak, might I agree with you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have never encountered that. So basically it seems like
Speaker 1: they're they're roughly synonymous, but outbreak has a slightly more
Speaker 1: flexible definition. It can apply to more situations. All right,
Speaker 1: So what about the term pandemic That has a very
Speaker 1: specific definition in that it is widespread. So the definition
Speaker 1: from the Dictionary of Epidemiology says an epidemic occurring worldwide,
Speaker 1: over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries, and usually
Speaker 1: affecting a large number of people. So this this isn't
Speaker 1: going to be local. This is basically a world health problem,
Speaker 1: uh for for for example, Oh well, okay, so you
Speaker 1: could have the Spanish flu of nineteen eighteen, one of
Speaker 1: the worst pandemics in the history of humanity, if not
Speaker 1: the single worst. It killed about fifty million people worldwide.
Speaker 1: This was more than the number of people who died
Speaker 1: in World War One. Around the same time, there was
Speaker 1: the Black Death, the Bebonic plague. UM. There was the
Speaker 1: h one in one swine flu pandemic of two thousand
Speaker 1: nine to two thou ten. These are all instances where
Speaker 1: there's a single infection that spreads to multiple countries, usually
Speaker 1: multiple continents, and kills, kills or infects many many people
Speaker 1: over a large geographical area. Now, the stuff we're covering
Speaker 1: right now is scary by nature image obviously, it's very
Speaker 1: very scary. But one of the things I want to
Speaker 1: remind people of is that that we're going to be
Speaker 1: focusing a lot on the science and technology that helps
Speaker 1: us detect these things and prevent them from becoming worse than,
Speaker 1: uh than an outbreak, but also the the idea of
Speaker 1: a global as in a global like population killing disease
Speaker 1: is pretty tough. I mean, it's it's it's hard for
Speaker 1: that to actually happen. In fact, there's a game that
Speaker 1: that demonstrates this. It's called play Incorporated. Have you guys
Speaker 1: heard of this? So I actually got to sit on
Speaker 1: a panel with one of the developers for Plague Incorporated
Speaker 1: last year two thousand thirteen UM, and it was a
Speaker 1: game developer who worked very closely with the CDC while
Speaker 1: developing this game, and the whole purpose of it was
Speaker 1: to show how difficult it can be to actually have
Speaker 1: a pandemic event happened. Not that it's impossible, but that
Speaker 1: there are lots of different ways that it can become
Speaker 1: very difficult. And your your job in that game, you
Speaker 1: play as the disease. Your goal. Your goal is to
Speaker 1: wipe out the human population and it's really really hard
Speaker 1: to do. And the whole purpose of it, again was
Speaker 1: not to you know, scare people, but to actually demonstrate that,
Speaker 1: raise consciousness and say that there are all these different
Speaker 1: safety measures in place that when they come into play,
Speaker 1: make it very difficult for something like this to happen.
Speaker 1: And it's getting better all the time. That's that's really fabulous.
Speaker 1: The board game that I was first thinking of when
Speaker 1: you mentioned that is called Pandemic, right, and and you're
Speaker 1: playing is the team of research scientists who have a
Speaker 1: great number of factors working against them. They all have
Speaker 1: very specific moves that they can make and and so
Speaker 1: it's a collaborative board game in which you're trying to
Speaker 1: to control a number of diseases. And it is also
Speaker 1: very tough to play, but but it's it's also not realistic,
Speaker 1: like it's it's meant to be fun, and the one
Speaker 1: time I played it, we won, So I had an
Speaker 1: unrealistic playing experience. Sure, but but I mean I do
Speaker 1: think that that unrealistic things like that, or UM or
Speaker 1: or just general panic through lack of scientific knowledge, or
Speaker 1: things like very dynamic media like zombie movies or or
Speaker 1: movies about the spread of disease can cause an unrealistic
Speaker 1: concept in in the mind of the general public about
Speaker 1: exactly how much danger we are currently sitting here at
Speaker 1: our desks. In UM we call it fear, uncertainty, and
Speaker 1: doubt or FUD for short. That's coming to play again later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but people are are absolutely working on these kind of problems,
Speaker 1: and they're working on them in a great number of ways.
Speaker 1: One way in which we can help prevent the spread
Speaker 1: of these diseases is early detection of outbreaks. Exactly right.
Speaker 1: So detection of a disease outbreak is one of the
Speaker 1: most important parts of fighting the disease outbreak because in
Speaker 1: many cases, the sooner we know what's going on, the
Speaker 1: easier it is to contain. Because health organizations can communicate
Speaker 1: prevention measures to the general public doctors and hospitals can
Speaker 1: know what to watch out for, so they know, okay,
Speaker 1: here's a list of symptoms you need to keep your
Speaker 1: eye on. Uh, and if a new vaccine or treatment
Speaker 1: needs to be developed, research can start right away before
Speaker 1: many people are sick. Right. The longer it takes public
Speaker 1: health organizations and doctors and researchers to know that an
Speaker 1: outbreak is underway, the more people suffer and the more
Speaker 1: people are ultimately at risk. And so I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about one particular example that I think is really
Speaker 1: interesting and how we might change the way we detect
Speaker 1: disease outbreaks. So earlier this year we already mentioned Ebola.
Speaker 1: The twenty fourteen Ebola outbreak was spreading for months, obviously
Speaker 1: before there was any formal recognition of it. But nine
Speaker 1: days before the w h O released its first public
Speaker 1: announcement about the outbreak, an app called health Map detected
Speaker 1: the presence of a quote mystery hemorrhagic fever in West Africa.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. How does it work? Okay, So there
Speaker 1: are a couple of different types of reporting you can
Speaker 1: refer to. There's formal reporting in health agencies, so that
Speaker 1: would be going specifically through an agency like the CDC
Speaker 1: or the w h O, a public health organization that's
Speaker 1: set up to recognize when an outbreak is taking place,
Speaker 1: and those types of reports tend to be very accurate,
Speaker 1: but they can be slow to pick up on trends
Speaker 1: on the ground. But you could also look at informal reporting,
Speaker 1: which gathers through the Internet. So this informal reporting could
Speaker 1: include not just the formal notices from health agencies, but
Speaker 1: also things like local news media that it can get
Speaker 1: in real time straight from Google News. I watched a
Speaker 1: Google tech talk from years ago with one of the
Speaker 1: people behind health Map pointing out also that informal reporting
Speaker 1: is less subject to political pressure than some formal health
Speaker 1: agency reporting would be. So a system like this obviously
Speaker 1: isn't going to be able to pinpoint outbreaks with perfect accuracy, because,
Speaker 1: for example, this particular app, the health Map, it's sort
Speaker 1: of misidentified and uh some cases of hibola in New
Speaker 1: York when there actually weren't any, but it was because
Speaker 1: it was basing it on some popular media reporting that
Speaker 1: turned out to be false. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it was very good at detecting early that there was
Speaker 1: something might be abola before we had the widespread formal announcement,
Speaker 1: and so using things like this, a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the public health field are saying, yeah, looking at
Speaker 1: the Internet might actually be a good way to get
Speaker 1: the earliest possible warning about when something dangerous is on
Speaker 1: the rise. It started. I mean not to be flip
Speaker 1: about it, but but sort of the same way that
Speaker 1: that algorithms are watching the stock market on you know,
Speaker 1: via Twitter. Actually, that's that's incredibly accurate because Google does
Speaker 1: just that. So we we've talked a lot about big data, right,
Speaker 1: We've talked about how we've also talked about how it
Speaker 1: doesn't take very much data to get some good conclusions
Speaker 1: about the person who's typing stuff in. Right, you can
Speaker 1: type in a few things that you think have no
Speaker 1: real direct correlation to you. But it's amazing what a
Speaker 1: good algorithm can do by you know, saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: based upon the search terms, I draw the conclusion that
Speaker 1: this person is in this particular kind of life situation. Well,
Speaker 1: one of those things is being sick. Right. What happens
Speaker 1: if suddenly in a certain geographic location, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are googling the symptoms of the flu. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's where the Google flu uh tool came in. It's
Speaker 1: actually pretty cool. It's called Flu Trends, and it's based
Speaker 1: upon the fact that Google aggregates tons of data from
Speaker 1: search engine, just search engine activity as people are searching
Speaker 1: for stuff in Google. And because part of that involves
Speaker 1: kind of tagging the location of where people are when
Speaker 1: they are searching for things, Google can start to draw
Speaker 1: some conclusion. So if it sees like we all live
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, if it sees that a larger than normal
Speaker 1: population of people are searching for things that are FLU
Speaker 1: related in Atlanta, then that might be an indication that
Speaker 1: there's the beginning of an outbreak here in Atlanta. And
Speaker 1: so you can go to Flu Trends and take a look,
Speaker 1: and it will actually show you what the um what
Speaker 1: the activity level is, not just in general, but for
Speaker 1: you know, your your particular region, and it a our
Speaker 1: codes a map and shows you, you know, how how
Speaker 1: many people have been searching for this. When I checked
Speaker 1: this morning for the purposes of this podcast, the United
Speaker 1: States was in yellow, which means we're fine. We're not
Speaker 1: like yellow as in baseline. It's when it starts getting
Speaker 1: read that you start to really start worrying about different areas.
Speaker 1: But we're not currently in flu season as we record this,
Speaker 1: so it's not a huge surprise, right. So Google search
Speaker 1: terms aren't the only place you could look for this.
Speaker 1: This might show up in all kinds of places in
Speaker 1: publicly available data on the Internet. So another one I
Speaker 1: thought of would be Twitter. Yeah, I mean, if people
Speaker 1: are tweeting about oh, my running nose and my which
Speaker 1: people do exactly. Yeah, So it gets to be one
Speaker 1: of those things that if it's something that can be indexed,
Speaker 1: then it's possible to create a tool that gathers that
Speaker 1: information and plots it against a map and shows you
Speaker 1: in real time what those kind of features are. So
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to be just related to the flu.
Speaker 1: The fact that Google has this flu one makes sense
Speaker 1: because that's a common ailment that that happens to have
Speaker 1: a season every single year some years, pretty widespread, it's
Speaker 1: relatively easy to track. Yeah, So that that's one of
Speaker 1: those where I mean, some of the diseases may be
Speaker 1: more subtle, or they may have enough overlapping symptoms with
Speaker 1: other diseases that you can't make any kind of conclusion
Speaker 1: or more personal I mean, I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: know herpies patients would necessarily want that kind of information
Speaker 1: being tracked by Google. I am certain that tourism boards
Speaker 1: wouldn't want that kind of information tracked, right. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about privacy again in a minute, because
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask the question about how good could
Speaker 1: technology like this get. I mean, one thing, obviously, is
Speaker 1: if this is what we can do today, I think
Speaker 1: the sort of the text mining data gathering apps will
Speaker 1: get even better at predicting and detecting, especially as stuff
Speaker 1: gets increasingly online and right. And all of that is
Speaker 1: indirect exactly, because it's just it's just harvesting text from
Speaker 1: the Internet to look for But what if we go
Speaker 1: beyond text. Let's say you combine big databased outbreak detection
Speaker 1: with another technology we talked about just recently, tricorders. So
Speaker 1: now you're looking at red shirts getting well or tricorders
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call them, home health monitoring devices.
Speaker 1: I think these may very well become a big thing
Speaker 1: in the coming years. So the device might be probably
Speaker 1: not something that's able to diagnose every disease you could contract,
Speaker 1: especially rare or previously unknown diseases. But let's say we
Speaker 1: reach a world where most households have some kind of
Speaker 1: Internet enabled medical scanner. So you do your thing, you
Speaker 1: give a blood sample, or you touch it to your
Speaker 1: finger in your forehead or whatever whatever it is you
Speaker 1: have to do to um. And if you if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about this, you can listen to
Speaker 1: our podcast from the previous week or I guess two
Speaker 1: weeks ago. When this podcast goes out about the real
Speaker 1: star Trek tric order, people are working on it. It's
Speaker 1: it's going to be the real thing. So let's say
Speaker 1: it detects that you have a high fever and low
Speaker 1: blood pressure and maybe three or four other unique symptoms. Anonymously,
Speaker 1: it uploads this data to a CDC database. Now, if
Speaker 1: the CDC database notices that devices all within one geographical
Speaker 1: area are logging the same collection of symptoms, it can
Speaker 1: raise a red flag for human doctors to immediately investigate.
Speaker 1: On one hand, that would be really great for disease prevention,
Speaker 1: but I do want to caution on the other hand
Speaker 1: that that would that might be a serious concern about privacy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if you have anything that's going to be directly
Speaker 1: linked to a specific individual or even a group of individuals,
Speaker 1: then that is a big that's a big problem. Sure,
Speaker 1: And I mean I I do want to put in
Speaker 1: that you know any that your your doctor. If you
Speaker 1: go to your doctor and for example, you have herpes,
Speaker 1: your your doctor is required to report that kind of
Speaker 1: disease to the CDC. So so this kind of reporting
Speaker 1: does already happen, just not from your own home. People
Speaker 1: have a nervousness about electronic devices. Sure, Sure, it's understandable,
Speaker 1: maybe with good reason, because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons you don't want this information getting out. I mean,
Speaker 1: in a world with private health insurance companies and the
Speaker 1: possibility of hiring discrimination based on health conditions, I think
Speaker 1: it's a really valid concern. Um. So I think it
Speaker 1: would be imperative that a scanner has a built in
Speaker 1: system somehow for ensuring the anonymity of data collected. The
Speaker 1: only problem I can see there was that this might
Speaker 1: be difficult once it comes into conflict with the need
Speaker 1: to geotag the health data. Because geographically locating where each
Speaker 1: case occurs is going to be one of the most
Speaker 1: important parts of this kind of automatic You would want
Speaker 1: it to be generalized to the point where it could
Speaker 1: not identify specifically who the individual is, but not so
Speaker 1: generalized that it becomes useless. So maybe it's not your
Speaker 1: home address, but it's your zip code or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or even even something more general than that, although of course,
Speaker 1: the again, the more general you get, the less helpful
Speaker 1: that information is. So I've got a horror movie scenario
Speaker 1: based upon this idea to really kind of drive home
Speaker 1: the point of how important privacy is. All Right, So
Speaker 1: we're in the future with the Internet of things, so
Speaker 1: we're surrounded at all times by sensors that can detect
Speaker 1: detect the most subtle of changes, and that group of
Speaker 1: sensors detects that one of us has has contracted a
Speaker 1: terrible and extremely contagious disease, and it lets them know
Speaker 1: who are They are mysterious people who wear maybe has
Speaker 1: mat suits. Yeah, yes, yes, two by two with the
Speaker 1: hands of blue, and they show up at your door.
Speaker 1: They kick the door open, and they drag you, kicking
Speaker 1: and screaming into a black van and then they drive
Speaker 1: you off and you're never seen from or heard from again. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is obviously a ridiculous, over the top, you know,
Speaker 1: dystopian view of the future, but it does illustrate that
Speaker 1: if we have systems involved that are incredibly subtle that
Speaker 1: can detect diseases. There's the other side of the coin
Speaker 1: where we want to make sure we handle that kind
Speaker 1: of technology responsibly to ensure as much privacy as is relevant,
Speaker 1: while still balancing out the fact that we want to
Speaker 1: protect the general public too. So it's a balancing act
Speaker 1: between the individuals right to privacy and the public's need
Speaker 1: for safety. And that's always going to be an issue,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we're going to see stories in the
Speaker 1: future that air on one side or the other and
Speaker 1: will constantly be playing the balancing act to find out
Speaker 1: what's the right role for this kind of approach. But
Speaker 1: it's one that's really important and I think, um, I
Speaker 1: think there are going to be ways to uh add
Speaker 1: some anonymity with the reporting to to at least for
Speaker 1: the purposes of gathering information for statistical analysis that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, even even if it just means the communication
Speaker 1: of information to the public, that that will be possible.
Speaker 1: When it comes to actual actionable items where we are
Speaker 1: coming in and trying to administer medicine to a person
Speaker 1: who is afflicted with this, that's where it really gets complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think It's interesting you said communication, because I think
Speaker 1: another one of the most important things about how we're
Speaker 1: going to help fight the spread of infectious diseases in
Speaker 1: the future isn't just the science and technology, though there's
Speaker 1: plenty more of that for us to talk about in
Speaker 1: a bit, I think it's communication with the public. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This goes back to that fear, uncertainty, and doubt I
Speaker 1: was saying before. When you have a lack of communication,
Speaker 1: or you have a surplus of bad communication, you get
Speaker 1: misinformation out there. People either fill in the gaps of
Speaker 1: stuff they don't know with the worst case scenario or
Speaker 1: sometimes a an idealist stick approach that doesn't really take
Speaker 1: into account the actual problems that are there. Uh, they
Speaker 1: ignore things that would be helpful, and they pay way
Speaker 1: too much attention to things that aren't really relevant. We've
Speaker 1: seen that here in Atlanta with the Ebola case. Now
Speaker 1: we had the people brought over and taken to a
Speaker 1: hospital here in Atlanta. Yeah, and this was you know,
Speaker 1: what's ostensibly one of the best, if not the best,
Speaker 1: virus experts in the world. We're bringing like two or
Speaker 1: three Abola patients into their home base in Atlanta. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and the reaction I saw, like the knee jerk
Speaker 1: reaction I saw, which was largely based on ignorance, was
Speaker 1: this is going to turn Atlanta into ground zero for
Speaker 1: an Ebola outbreak in the United States. Right. You get
Speaker 1: emails from your relatives that know you live in Atlanta
Speaker 1: and they're like, did you get I mean, I really
Speaker 1: did see statements on Facebook that filled me with dismay
Speaker 1: from people, from people that I I genuinely like. And
Speaker 1: the fear comes from an understandable place, but it also
Speaker 1: comes from the ignorance. And it's through educating yourself that
Speaker 1: you learn more about the nature of the disease, how
Speaker 1: it is transmitted, and the way that it's being taken
Speaker 1: care of, that you realize this is actually the course
Speaker 1: of action that's being taken is is incredibly positive, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, these people have real lives, that these are
Speaker 1: American citizens who have come who have been exposed to
Speaker 1: this terrible disease in the course of their work and research. Right.
Speaker 1: So this was something that ended up being with a
Speaker 1: little research, not the hot item that everyone thought it was.
Speaker 1: But that's that's that's the role of responsible journalism as
Speaker 1: well as just responsible science communication. So The thing about ebola, y'all,
Speaker 1: is that it is not airborne. Um. You'd have to
Speaker 1: come into direct living cell contact with an ebola patient's
Speaker 1: bodily fluids in order to catch it. By that, I
Speaker 1: mean that stuff from inside their body would have to
Speaker 1: get in your mouth, nose, eyes, genitals, or an open wound. Um.
Speaker 1: Human skin is, as it turns out, as a really
Speaker 1: good protector against viruses because the outer layer is dead
Speaker 1: and viruses are dormant until they come into contact with
Speaker 1: a living cell and a bowl of patients are not zombies.
Speaker 1: They're they're not looking to bite you. So you would
Speaker 1: have to be trying pretty hard to get infected by
Speaker 1: one of these patients. Like you would have to go
Speaker 1: to where they are and get through the guards and
Speaker 1: security and like bring them a bottle of wine and
Speaker 1: make out with them. Well, I mean, it's easy to
Speaker 1: see how something like this can spread in certain situations
Speaker 1: where like is, say, if you're handling the dead body
Speaker 1: of someone who died, If you are if there's, say,
Speaker 1: is a sanitation problem and there's water contamination that that
Speaker 1: obviously you can understand why it happens. If you have
Speaker 1: somebody in hospital conditions, yes, this is really not. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously it's important to take precautions, but this is what
Speaker 1: medical professionals do, right, right, And and it is true
Speaker 1: that some viruses are airborne um and there is in
Speaker 1: fact some amount of discussion among some virologists about the
Speaker 1: potential capacity for a bola to mutate and become airborne,
Speaker 1: but it is an entire industries job to watch for
Speaker 1: that and let us know about about it if if
Speaker 1: it does happen. So I mean, basically my conclusion of
Speaker 1: this rant is that I think the Internet should should
Speaker 1: probably come with a cover stating in large friendly letters,
Speaker 1: don't panic. Uh, but education is your friend. Yes, researches
Speaker 1: all of our friend. Yeah, it's it's important to to
Speaker 1: actually look at what the leading experts have to say
Speaker 1: about the matter and and really take time to understand that.
Speaker 1: And don't you know, I don't think it's necessary to
Speaker 1: landbast someone who has perhaps come to the wrong conclusion,
Speaker 1: but certainly to gently say, like, I understand this is scary.
Speaker 1: I don't want to dismiss your fear because it comes
Speaker 1: from a anuine place. However, we should educate ourselves so
Speaker 1: that we know exactly what we're dealing with rather than
Speaker 1: just react without that knowledge, right right, and and okay,
Speaker 1: like it's it's also true that we don't know everything
Speaker 1: about even relatively common outbreak vectors, like like you could
Speaker 1: unfortunately say that a bola is relatively common. Um, And
Speaker 1: new research is indicating that it's fruit bats that might
Speaker 1: be the reservoir animals for for viruses like a bola.
Speaker 1: That's ah, they spread the diseases without getting sick themselves. Um.
Speaker 1: There's an interesting hypothesis, by the way, if I can
Speaker 1: make a small tangent that because they're flying mammals, the
Speaker 1: only flying mammals in fact, that their flight and the
Speaker 1: metabolism and internal body temperature that they need to maintain
Speaker 1: it makes them singularly able to coexist with viruses that
Speaker 1: seriously mess up other mammals and birds. Um, And that
Speaker 1: bats might have co evolved with these viruses. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not genetically worthwhile for a virus to kill its host, right,
Speaker 1: um so, but so you know bats can handle it.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that bats live basically everywhere in
Speaker 1: the world other than humans. They're the most populous mammal
Speaker 1: on the planet. But we're basically only figuring this out
Speaker 1: like this year. Uh, that's where that interesting research thing
Speaker 1: comes in. And now these diseases that can be spread
Speaker 1: from from animals to humans, they're called zoonotic diseases, which
Speaker 1: always sounds hypnotic, like hypnotic to me, which is an
Speaker 1: entirely different word. And I don't know why my brain
Speaker 1: always does that. Um. There's you know, there's there's zoonotic
Speaker 1: diseases that the animals will present with symptoms of, like rabies. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's things like like a bola and then
Speaker 1: stars for example that uh, that the animals do not
Speaker 1: get sick from, like I was just talking about to
Speaker 1: to the animals immune system can't tell just by looking
Speaker 1: at them and their behaviors that they are in fact
Speaker 1: carrying the disease, right, which makes it a lot scarier. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, these are situations in which basic sanitation
Speaker 1: and education about sanitation is helped a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: making sure that people wash their hands and their food,
Speaker 1: cook food to appropriate temperatures, control populations of pests like
Speaker 1: bats and rodents, or or keep bats. You know, when
Speaker 1: you can't control a bat population or don't want to
Speaker 1: because they're doing useful things like pollinating your crops, just
Speaker 1: keeping them out of contact with your farm animals. All
Speaker 1: of that's great, um, but as human civilization expands, which
Speaker 1: it is always doing, we encroach on the territory of
Speaker 1: animals that can carry these unknown zoonoses, and those diseases
Speaker 1: can transfer when the wild animals come into direct contact
Speaker 1: with people in farm animals through bites, shared food sources,
Speaker 1: use of the animals themselves as a food source, and
Speaker 1: contamination by the animals waste. So that's terrifying. That's a
Speaker 1: scary story. Yeah, it would seem to me that it's
Speaker 1: possible that by better understanding the relationship between the animals
Speaker 1: that carried these zoonotic diseases in the way we eventually
Speaker 1: get them, we may be able to prevent them better. Right, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally is. Science is absolutely working on this. There's a
Speaker 1: team based out of the School of Veterinary Medicine at
Speaker 1: UC Davis that's paired up with the US Agency for
Speaker 1: International Development to study animals that live on on these
Speaker 1: borders of human settlements. Since they've been to twenty countries
Speaker 1: testing animals for viruses, and they have found more than
Speaker 1: eight hundreds so far. The vast majority of which were
Speaker 1: previously undiscovered, So it's like sort of like creating a
Speaker 1: Facebook of the dangerous viruses that are on the edge,
Speaker 1: so we know what they are before they attack. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the next step after after this this data collection,
Speaker 1: which the team they're calling themselves Predict among others, are
Speaker 1: working on is to improve the diagnostic measures and education
Speaker 1: about sanitation and disease containment, So like making it easy
Speaker 1: and affordable for local doctors to test for entire families
Speaker 1: of viruses, like, for example, they're there are five known
Speaker 1: strains of ebola, and giving them data on these new
Speaker 1: viruses to possibly watch out for, and making genetic sequencing
Speaker 1: available to confirm diagnoses. Right, So that seems like it
Speaker 1: goes right back into that very important early detection thing. Right.
Speaker 1: So we've talked a lot about detection, we've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about treatment, but what about preventing an outbreak from happening,
Speaker 1: so there's no detection needed because there's no outbreak in
Speaker 1: the first place. It sounds like science fiction. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: you know it's science fact, Joe, science fact. I'm here
Speaker 1: to tell you about it. So to be fair, it's
Speaker 1: really kind of in the realm of prototypes. The science
Speaker 1: fiction maybe about as accurate as science fact, but it's
Speaker 1: really promising stuff. So IBM research has been on the
Speaker 1: forefront of uh, looking into ways of using polymers. Now,
Speaker 1: polymers are long chain molecules that are made up of
Speaker 1: repeating patterns of individual atoms linked together. Right. Plastics, Yeah,
Speaker 1: plastics are an example of polymers. There are natural polymers,
Speaker 1: they're synthetic polymers. IBM has led the way in many
Speaker 1: areas for synthetic polymer development, largely for what you would expect,
Speaker 1: things like semiconductors, right, I mean that's kind of IBM
Speaker 1: s realm that makes sense. But they've also started to
Speaker 1: look into using polymers for other things like nano medicine. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so there's this one type of polymer they've developed
Speaker 1: that has been dubbed Ninja particle. Yeah. I wish there
Speaker 1: were also pirate particles because on the Ninja versus pirate
Speaker 1: great debate. I I stand on my peg leg with
Speaker 1: my pirate brethren. But I'm sure a competing company will
Speaker 1: come up with some particles. He has probably just like
Speaker 1: a hand that's on the deck of a ship, or
Speaker 1: a hook, maybe a parrot, But at any rate, ninja particles.
Speaker 1: The you know, I was reading an article from engadget
Speaker 1: and I thought at first that was just Engadget being
Speaker 1: kind of you know, engadgety saying ninja particles. But it
Speaker 1: turns out that's actually what the folks over at IBM
Speaker 1: have started to kind of refer to them as two.
Speaker 1: And it turns out scientists have senses of humor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the reason why they call them that. So these
Speaker 1: polymers are essentially synthetic counterparts to anti microbial peptides. This
Speaker 1: is something that our immune systems will generate on their
Speaker 1: own in order to fight off microbes. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: it's kind of trying to copy what already happens in
Speaker 1: our our immune systems, but make it from a synthetic material.
Speaker 1: So what these polymers do is they seek out microbes
Speaker 1: based upon the charge of those microbes. There's like an
Speaker 1: attraction charge, so you know, opposite uh, opposite charges attract
Speaker 1: one another. So it really comes down to just that
Speaker 1: basic law. And so these these polymers have been engineered
Speaker 1: to be attracted to specific types of microbes. Then what
Speaker 1: they do is, once they're attracted to them, they buddy
Speaker 1: on up to the microbe they get nice and close.
Speaker 1: Then they inject part of the polymer into the microbe
Speaker 1: and then they explode the diehard of polymers. No, that's
Speaker 1: really what they say. They explode in the sense that
Speaker 1: it breaks the microbe apart. But that's the that is
Speaker 1: specifically the word the IBM researcher used. This is a
Speaker 1: horror movie for microbes. So they have a they have
Speaker 1: a robot that comes up to them. It's the terminated
Speaker 1: abs them and inserts a chain into their body and
Speaker 1: which breaks them apart kills them. This is actually cool
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what
Speaker 1: kind of microbes they're they're looking at because I haven't
Speaker 1: read this research, but a lot of the times with
Speaker 1: with viruses at any rate, it is your immune systems
Speaker 1: over response to trying to control the invasion that causes
Speaker 1: the really nasty side effects like hemorrhaging or you're running
Speaker 1: nose or like a fever. Is the body's defense mechanism,
Speaker 1: right well, and and we've seen things like you know,
Speaker 1: allergies is just your your body's immune system reacting, uh
Speaker 1: with gusto to something that is not actually a harmful microbe.
Speaker 1: So so the so the body can do some stuff
Speaker 1: that that is unpleasant and sometimes harmful to us in
Speaker 1: the attempt to save the overall organism. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, you know, sacrificing stuff in order
Speaker 1: to stay alive. Um, well, these microbes would not go
Speaker 1: they're not transdermal, we would not get them injected into us.
Speaker 1: There would be no point where we would have these
Speaker 1: things put into our bodies. Rather, they would be incorporated
Speaker 1: into things like deodorant or detergent or soap that would
Speaker 1: end up having these microbes beyond our skin, which, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, Lauren, it's not going to interact with
Speaker 1: our our systems at all, so you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry as much about toxicity. Uh. And it will block
Speaker 1: microbes incoming microbes from infecting us in the first place.
Speaker 1: It's obviously not going to be something that would be
Speaker 1: perfectly a perfect shield. Anything that's airborne is another issue. Right,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna that's not gonna necessarily protect you, right right,
Speaker 1: And if you if you you know, touch the door
Speaker 1: knob and then put your hand in your mouth or yeah,
Speaker 1: rub your eyes. Yeah, No, So that it's probably a
Speaker 1: better example of actually I want to say on the
Speaker 1: same podcast we've warned before about the overuse of antimicrobial soap.
Speaker 1: Does Does this come with the same kind of danger. No,
Speaker 1: it does not, because it's not going to encourage resistant
Speaker 1: bacteria because it's all based on that charge. It is
Speaker 1: not based on any sort of chemical reaction. It's a
Speaker 1: physical reaction of it breaking apart the microbe. So I
Speaker 1: think of it as a physical attack, not a chemical attack.
Speaker 1: So there's no way to have the microbe mutate in
Speaker 1: such a way that it no longer has uh that
Speaker 1: that or now has resistance to that particular chemical attack.
Speaker 1: It's that physical attack. So according to the IBM researchers,
Speaker 1: it is not prone to the same problems as gaining
Speaker 1: that like a microbe's ability to become resistant to antibiotics,
Speaker 1: for example. So this would be more like, um, Joe,
Speaker 1: you might be able to take a magic potion that
Speaker 1: makes you immune to the flu. But the hammer I
Speaker 1: have that I'm going to hit you in the head
Speaker 1: with that one. You know, you're just stuck. You're gonna
Speaker 1: take it. Um And the microbes are not going to
Speaker 1: be getting any magic football helmets anytime soon. So that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of the the analogy. There's no need to
Speaker 1: find the cure for seventeen stab wounds in the back.
Speaker 1: We're up. Um, yeah, no, it's it's this. This is
Speaker 1: really exciting. Again, It's one of those things that I
Speaker 1: think would be great at helping prevent outbreaks from happening,
Speaker 1: because it would it would cut down on the level
Speaker 1: of infection within an area. Obviously, this is not a
Speaker 1: magic pill that would make us immune from everything forever
Speaker 1: and ever. It's not that. But it is really cool
Speaker 1: that something as unrelated as semiconductor research could ultimately end
Speaker 1: up becoming a boon in nano medicine. So I think
Speaker 1: that's pretty exciting stuff. That's great. I mean, yeah, we
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot of really grim topics today,
Speaker 1: but but it is so exciting that these researchers are
Speaker 1: coming up with these varied and terrific ways to help
Speaker 1: prevent outbreaks and keep everyone safer. Yeah. So, I think
Speaker 1: if we're going to have a message to send to
Speaker 1: you guys out there, it really is to take the
Speaker 1: time to look into these matters and to learn about
Speaker 1: them and and try to you know, acknowledge the fact
Speaker 1: that yes, this is a scary subject, but that it's
Speaker 1: it's something that if you educate yourself about it, it it
Speaker 1: becomes less scary. That ignorance plays a huge role. And
Speaker 1: we're all guilty of this at some point or another.
Speaker 1: I know. I mean, I've certainly had that kind of
Speaker 1: visceral reaction when you first hear something and then as
Speaker 1: you learn more about it, you realize you know, that
Speaker 1: reaction wasn't really warranted. It doesn't mean that I go
Speaker 1: about whistling happy tune and never worry about it again.
Speaker 1: But I have a context for it. So, uh, context
Speaker 1: is good. Research is great, um, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: polymers that have ninja skills are awesome. So I think
Speaker 1: that's what we can conclude here. Good ninjas are good.
Speaker 1: They're not as good as pirates, but they're pretty pretty.
Speaker 1: They don't get their own day, but pirates do. And
Speaker 1: it's coming up. You're still gonna be here when it happens, too,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna be talking like a pirate all day long.
Speaker 1: There is no talk like a ninja day, no, because
Speaker 1: ninjas just they're just yes and be. They're just quiet.
Speaker 1: They're just quiet. They don't talk. I mean, Also, Japanese
Speaker 1: is really difficult to master. So that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: So Sionara friends, we are going to sign off today
Speaker 1: for Forward Thinking. If you have any suggestions for future episodes,
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