On 8/13/2011 12:12 AM, Robert Miles wrote:
On 8/8/2011 4:00 AM, Chris Malcolm wrote:
In alt.support.diabetes wrote:
[snip]
But it seems that humans are not developing an immunity to the
infections dispensed by mosquitoes.

You've not heard of sickle cell anemia?

For the few people in this thread interested in seeing
citations, here's one:

http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/malaria_sickle.html

While the article correctly depicts the life cycle of the
parasite(s) it only discusses one small part of that life
cycle, that being within the human host.

Smallpox was eradicated by breaking the transmission chain
in the human being because there were no intermediaries
where it could be attacked. That's not true for malaria
where intervention, and destruction, can achieved at many
points.

"The result of this malaria program was eradication of
yellow fever and a dramatic decrease in malaria deaths.
The death rate due to malaria in employees dropped from
11.59 per 1,000 in November 1906 to 1.23 per 1,000 in
December 1909. It reduced the deaths from malaria in
the total population from a maximum of 16.21 per 1,000
in July 1906 to 2.58 per 1,000 in December 1909."

http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/his...ama_canal.html

We are a century downstream of the Panama Canal project.
We can do much better than we are doing now. Loss of
effectiveness of DDT doesn't mean much since other
effective toxins can be created.