Infinite loops and better choices
integrating geospatial analysis with health outcomes
Lots of thoughts as I begin thinking about how I plan on opening my next keynote.
In my mind I easily make the connection between health and our environment. Traveling the world as a medical writer for a few decades challenged me to do a better job of communicating potential solutions to many of the intractable diseases targeted by pharmaceutical companies.
Industries depend on pharmaceuticals being the panacea for global health.
But what are we really selling?
Randomized controlled clinical trials focus on narrow groups of people for the ease of controlling for variables and to be better at predicting outcomes. Our big mistake is thinking that if an intervention reduces harmful outcomes at the population level, then if you are prescribed the medicine, you also will benefit in a similar manner.
Consider the absurdity of dividing the bodies into organ systems and aligning our healthcare model for specialization according to whether your disease is of the eye, heart, reproductive system, or lung for example. Medicine certainly knows these systems are all related. But again, we pretend it doesn’t matter.
it's the phenomenon of an isolated cell and when you expose a cell that is part of a large system to a toxin it immediately begins to journey into cancer. In the end a cancer cell is an isolated cell that's remained that way long enough to accumulate injuries because a single cell can't be fully responsible for its own energy source. It has to be connected to the greater organism for energetics of repair and regeneration to happen at the macro level — ZACH BUSH, MD
Years ago I discovered the research of Zach Bush MD, a triple board certified physician. I will leave you to research what he is all about but after listening to one podcast interview with Rich Roll I disposed of the Round-Up in the garage. For starters, Round-up isn’t an insecticide. It is chemically an antibiotic and just like the problems we face with prescribed antibiotics and gut depletion of nutrients — we are doing the same to the earth. Only 1/10th of 1% of the glyphosate in the world is in weeds. The rest is in our air, soil and water as run-off.
I hope you watched the video because the connection to the Dust Bowl and the Green Revolution all the way to upticks in neurologic dysregulation aligning perfectly with the end of World War II and the desire to use the petroleum products we manufactured but no longer needed as fertilizer.
I include geospatial analysis and location whenever I talk about health outcomes and community.
Would love to meet you if you are attending any of these events — I will continue to update:
May 9-11 Open Data Science Conference Boston Hynes Convention Center
May 12th Data Science Expo Encouraging Data Literacy Durham, NC Invited to be a judge
June 8th -11th State of the Map US 2023 Richmond, Virginia
June 24th FOSS4G (biggest open geospatial conference) Prizren, Kosovo Keynote
July 10-16 Scientific Computing with Python Austin, TX Diversity Co-chair and workshop leader
