Katy Tur of MSNBC Interviewed Jonathan Patz about Pathogenic Diseases Worsened by Climate Change
MSNBC Reports: Jonathan Patz on Climate Health Hazards
Katy Tur, host of MSNBC Reports, sat down with Jonathan Patz to discuss a recent review on climate change exacerbating pathogenic diseases. Tur then asks about connections to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the opportunities of the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Review
Jonathan Patz co-authored a systematic review published in Nature, Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change (Mora et al. 2022), where the researchers found that 58% of human pathogenic diseases have at some point been aggravated by a climatic hazard(s). Furthermore, the researchers found over 1,000 pathways by which the climatic hazards exacerbate human pathogenic diseases.
The COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the devastating implications and human vulnerability to pathogenic disease. With the large number of pathogenic diseases and pathways of transmission outlined in this review, the solution needs to be at the source - curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
“We really haven’t examined the literature this extensively and this systematic review found over 1,000 pathways whereby climate hazards affect human diseases, so that was quite striking. ”