January 4, 2024 • 45 mins
James and Shereen are joined by Saskia Popescu and Kaveh Hoda to discuss the huge risk of an infectious disease outbreak in Palestine.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, Hello everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen
Here podcast, returning from our holiday break to discuss the
exciting topic of infectious diseases in Gaza, and for that
we're joined by an all star cast of experts. We
have joining us today Saskia Popescu, who's an infectious disease
(00:22):
epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome Saska, Thank.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
You for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, of course, yeah, you're welcome. It's not just you.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We've also got Cave carves back, come back baby.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
It's actually my first time. This is Sharene. Also, i'm here.
This is my first time meeting cave so this is
a real trick.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, sure, I've done you wrong, Sharen, I'm sorry I
didn't introduce you.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
That's okay, it's probably in the description or something that
I'm here.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
No one, Yeah, make a valuable contributions. People will know
you're here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But yeah, it's it's all of us.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And yeah, we talked today because like I think the origin,
sorry of this particular episode is that, like a few
weeks ago, there was a very funny thing on the
internet about people in the i d F getting diarrhea,
which is funny.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Object what the d i F stands for?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Actually, all the kids are saying, but sorry, no, it's funny.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Don't you ever apologize? Yeah, you do, not apologize for.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
You any opportunity just to ship on them.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You're good.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, expect many. It's half an hour at least of this.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Don't be driving because you might laugh too much and crash.
But no, it's very funny. It's the name of our
group chat it's as Ready Diarrhea Forces. But aside from that,
like this raises a more important question, right, which is
that people in Gaza don't have access to very many
medical supplies to begin with.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Were things are.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Embargoed like torny K's which is spoken out in this
podcast before. They also have obviously a very resource constrained
environment to begin with, and then a number of their
hospitals have been bombed since then, which obviously further reduces
their access to medical care. Also, they have less acklos
to things like running water now because they're being bombed
to an incredible degree. And so Saskia has joined us
(02:22):
today to like explain the risk of the spread of
infectious disease, maybe give us an update on like what's
already happening and the risks of what could happen. So
I guess maybe we should start off with really basic
stuff and explain what infectious diseases are and like how
they're different from non communical diseases gets people aren't familiar,
would one if you like to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, I'm happy to. So infectious diseases, you know, when
we talk about diseases in general, as you mentioned, there
are chronic diseases, things like diabetes, cancer. When we talk
about infectious diseases, meaning they're communicable for the most part,
that means that they are spread through various sources human
to human, like influenza. There's things like anthrax that you
can equali Campelobacter that you can get from soil, from food,
(03:07):
and the zoonotic diseases that they are also spread through animals,
so things like Ebola mirors which is Middle East respiratory
syndrome coronavirus. So infectious diseases are viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites,
and they really love to take advantage of high stress
environments for bread and unfortunately this is one of them.
(03:28):
So this is a very what we see with infectious diseases.
A lot is that conflict and environments where people are stressed,
resources are stressed, and the environment is under a continuous bombardment.
There's densely populated spaces, no access to health, clean food,
and water, et cetera. I mean, I could probably go
(03:50):
on for five minutes about what makes an infectious disease spread,
is going to amplify it. So these are diseases that
take advantage of these environments.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I'll add that the situation is just a perfect setup
for infectious disease to run rampant. There's over one point
nine million people that have been displaced. Of that, one
point four million are living in overcrowded shelters at this point.
And in the best scenario from what I've seen, there's
(04:19):
one toilet for every two hundred and twenty people. Now,
if you ever lived in like a house of like
five people and there's like one case of diarrhea, you'll
realize how terrible that is. Now you amplify that to
two hundred and twenty at the minimum, and that's the
best case scenario. I've heard its highest one per seven
hundred people in some places. And then you know, people
have to go in the streets, they have to go
(04:40):
where there's water supplies, and you're going to be infecting
those areas. There's one shower for every like four five
hundred people again in best case scenario. So it's a
huge number of people getting concentrated into smaller and smaller
areas and without the infrastructure there to handle that in
any way. And when that happens, I mean, we are
(05:00):
going to see I am really worried about seeing in
the end of this more depth from infectious disease than
from the bombardments.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Yeah, well, that's that's like a it almost feels like
a double another weapon that they're that that they're that
they've used because they're not letting them have a chance
to recuperate or have a sanitary place to do surgeries
or anything. Because if they're doing surgery with unsanitary conditions,
they can get infect like the wounds can get it affected,
(05:29):
and that's a whole nother thing, or even just like
having waste in the street, like making it like having
it fester. It just it's it's really I think people
forget that it's not just like a building was destroyed
or people were killed. It's there's lasting effects that linger
for probably generations. You know, it's just it's just I
(05:50):
don't know. It really is infuriating.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I think the crazy part is the World Health Organization.
So the WHO recently released some data as to what
is reported to them in terms of disease, and they said,
so far not keep in mind, these are just reported numbers,
and that means it's just the tip of the iceberg.
In most cases, one hundred thousand cases of diarrhea and
those are in young children. So half of those are
(06:13):
in young children out of the age of five, which
means it can be deadly. And this number is just
twenty five percent higher than what we have seen reported
pre conflict. And in terms of respiratory infections, the things
like covid, influenza and pneumonia, one hundred and fifty thousand cases.
And that's just the numbers that we know about. But
we're also seeing cases and outbreaks of things like meningitis,
(06:36):
skin rashes, babies, LCE, chicken pox, which is highly infectious.
And you know, we worry in those cases about when
people are in these close quarters and their bodies are
already strained. Because one thing we do know is that
when your bodies physiologically under stress, meaning no sleep, malnutrition,
you know, not access to clean water to wash your hands,
(06:59):
not dehydrated, et cetera, you're at an increased risk for
disease and severe disease. So that means that people are
at higher risk to get it and then to spread
it in these environments. And that's what's really scary because
it becomes a hot spot for transmission. And you mentioned
that this feels like a secondary effect in many ways.
It's almost like a secondary conflict, if you will, and
(07:21):
one that will leave lasting implications because what we do
know is that disease and conflict go hand in hand.
And when I think about it a lot, and we've
seen this unfortunately throughout time, is that conflict can bring
disease and it can amplify disease. When I say bring disease,
we know that people in these spaces soldiers can bring
in diseases that are being spread around. But we've also
(07:42):
seen sexually transmitted diseases in the past being spread through
sexual assault and sexual violence, and that's one thing I
definitely worry about, and unfortunately we know that's happening and
it's not something we're going to see reported for a while,
but things like that can and do occur, and it's
a very scary situation.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
If I can tack on a little bit to the
diarrhea subject here, because I am a GI and liver doc,
I mean, in a typical month in Gaza, there is
about two thousand cases of diarrhea and kids under five,
and in the last month there was over forty thousand cases.
And for kids that aren't getting water, they're not getting
the recommended amount of like daily water, like it's like
(08:22):
seven to eight leaders in refugee situations is what's recommended.
These people are getting like one to two leaders per
whole families, so they're not staying hydrated. And these are
kids that are most vulnerable. That's the part that is
really hard for me. And I've actually seen people sort
of downclay it like just like, well, diarrhea, you know,
that's what you get, but in these situations, it's going
to be very serious for these kids. And the other
(08:44):
thing we're seeing is cases of jaundice. They're noting that
people are becoming that, which to me suggests that there's
hepatitis A and hepatitis E, which is you know, you
get through fecal oral contamination and hepatitis E in particular
is what concerns me because there's pregnant women and when
pregnant women get hepatitis E, it's worse for them that
(09:06):
that's a really bad situation. And when that happens, I mean,
these are these are women who are already not getting support,
They're already under nourished, They're not able to produce breast milk,
They're going to be sick, They're not going to be
able to feed their kids. It's I mean, I can't
I can't imagine, honestly. I mean, I know it's funny.
We can say these things, we can talk about the numbers,
(09:28):
but it is like to actually wrap my brain around
it breaks my brain. I cannot, like imagine the numbers
of people that are sick and are in these hospitals,
not just being treated, but like the NASA Hospital, which
is one of the two hospitals in Gaza, you know,
they they are like a three hundred and fifty bed hospital.
(09:50):
They are already over like a thousand patients and not
to mention the many thousands, over seventy thousand people just
staying there, you know, for refuge. It's absolutely a nightmare.
I can't I can't write my brain around it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, Like often I know when I speak to colleagues
who are there or at the journalistic they'll go to
hospitals a in the hope that they'll be safe, which
hasn't proven to be true sadly, which is pretty messed up.
But be you know, they have many generators, right, so
they can charge and and tell the world what's happening,
or try to. It seems like some of the word
isn't listening. But yeah it there cost blows are incredibly overgrowded.
(10:26):
I wonder like if we could go back to diarrhea
and there's not like a fun topics talk about it.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Score, Yeah, it's time to shine.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, this life's work.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So like I think it was diarrhea that I read
kills more people than conflict annually.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Oh yeah worldwide sure, yeah, yeah, well, I mean Saskia
probably has better numbers on it than I do, actually,
but worldwide, yeah, it's probably the number one, number one killer.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So like let's just break that because I most of
like by the very hus being a podcast, right best,
so people listening in the in the kind of the
in the neoliberal core or the global north, whatever you
want to call it. Right, Like, they have a smartphone
and they've downloaded this, and it might be difficult to
understand how you die from diarrhea, which is like an
(11:17):
inconvenience in a lot of places. So can you just
explain that for people so they can they can understand
and how the conditions that we see in Gaza would compound.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
That Saska, Do you want me to go first?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
All you, I'll talk about spreads, you can talk, okay.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
So, I mean, the there's a couple of issues that
can happen. There's a lot, but I mean dehydration is
going to be a major one, and loss of electrolytes.
I mean, these people can get so badly dehydrated that
the circulatory system isn't working properly, or they can lose
the amount of electrolytes that they need and they're not
replacing and that can cause cardiovascular issues as well. So
(11:59):
it's a terrible way to die. I mean, you know,
cholerara and these terrible like diarrheal epidemics that you know
we think of of mostly in the past. They're terrible.
They're terrible ways to go, and especially if you don't
have the I mean it's treatable. Usually it's treatable. You know,
you get fluid rehydration, you get electrolyte management. It's it's
(12:24):
pretty manageable in the right situation. But if you don't
have that, it's gonna be a devastating thing to the
body over time, and for young kids, sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, so maybe we should explain how it spread.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, I mean the scary parts. So there's multiple pathogens
that can cause diarrheal illness, and for the most part,
we see bacteria and viruses. If you've had neurovirus, which
is the cruise ship bug, that is highly transmissible, meaning
it just goes through households and environments very very quick.
During outbreaks. You can't just use hand sanitizer and a
(13:04):
simple disinfectant. You need bleach. And if you're if we're
thinking about the best case scenario, and I've seen you know, diarre,
real illnesses go through schools, hospitals, you name it. We
still struggle to contain those. Now, put yourself in an
environment with this level of stress, and you know, the
thirty six hospitals in Gazda Gaza twenty six have been damaged,
twenty one are not functional at all, thirteen are partially functioning,
(13:27):
and two are barely functioning. So we know that access
to care is a challenge. Resources I can't even imagine.
So that means the capacity to treat patients with antibiotics,
with fluids, everything, and now contain it, which is the
disinfection you know, all the infection prevention essentially, And I
don't even want to think about contact tracing in public
(13:48):
health interventions because it doesn't exist. It's an entirely collapsed system.
You know, this is a humanitarian crisis. So when you know,
when you have people in close quarters and there's a
lot of high touch items because a lot of direal
illness is spread through touch. It's you know, contaminated hands
and objects, and then you know, you touch your mouth,
you eat with your hands, et cetera. That's how these
(14:09):
things are spread. So between the bathroom not having access,
you know, not having access to restrooms. You know, we
mentioned the toilet situation, there's also one shower for every
forty five hundred people, so we know that people are
not able to clean themselves effectively. And this is a
ripe condition for direal illness to spread, and they it
(14:29):
spreads very quickly, very efficiently, and it is exceedingly hard
to get rid of. And it worries me because a
lot of these diseases, it's not just like you get
it one time and you have immunity to it. It
can keep going around and if you have a situation
like that where you cannot clean effectively, you can't treat effectively,
then we're just going to see it continuously compound. And
that's absolutely terrifying because you know, we were talking about
(14:53):
pregnant women earlier. There's fifty thousand pregnant women right now
in Gaza and they are malnourished. That's just the tip
of the iceberg. And we see that so many children
there are malnourished, and these are very dangerous infections for
vulnerable people. And on the best of days, we struggle
to contain diarreal illness. So my big concern is this
(15:14):
and respiratory viruses. To be honest with you, because when
you have this many people in close quarters and ignore
the fact that they're extremely you know, physically strained and
stressed right now, which is when your immune system struggles,
it's going to spread and it's going to be exceedingly
hard to contain it. So this is an environment where
we're going to see diarreal illness spread and it's going
(15:35):
to unfortunately kill a lot more people then we will
even realize. It's going to take years to understand implications
of this, you know, if we even consider that access
to clean water and food. We've been talking a lot
about malnourishment, which is huge, but I'm also concerned to
the quality of food that they're getting too, and the water,
(15:55):
all of it. Everything about the situation is going to
spread disease. It's you know, I know that sounds quite dramatic,
but it's entirely true.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
No, I mean, I'm glad you're emphasizing that, because I
don't think people realize the gravity of of like a
second wave of death like that that happens like not
even not with weapons. Uh, but no, I'm glad you
emphasize that. Let's uh, let's take our first break. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And it reminds me too of when we saw U
N peacekeepers in Haiti and they introduced polera, and you know,
and that's it's an unfortunate reality when you are bringing
in groups of people to and this you know, for
in Haiti, they were trying to help the situation. In
this case, it's not surprising. I mean, there's there's a
(16:54):
really good book called Contagions and Chaos that actually talks
about how infectious diseases can amplify conflict or create it.
And ultimately, I think we're just going to see this
as a rolling in health issue until there's a ceasefire
and until there's really substantial work in there to resource
(17:14):
and to take care of people.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I mean, it's scared any Kave. You mentioned that you
had a question for Saskia I.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
Do you know you've written and you talked a lot
about the intersections of science and policy, particularly in terms
of COVID nineteen. We've seen that global threats elsewhere can
affect Americans, and I'm wondering, is there a way to
try and appeal to Westerners who aren't that interested yet
and why they should care about infectious diseases that are
(17:43):
rising or become rampant in other places. Is there an
argument you can make to these people who may not
care that much about the Palestinian people per se.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Oh, there's the political answer. I should give you. And
then there's the real answer, which is political answer saying
that you know people do care and you know we're
just having the console in your mind them. But the
real answer is, look, we just came out of three
and a half years of a pandemic and at this point,
if people don't give a shit, they're not going to.
And I know that's crude for me to say, but
(18:14):
it's I've been working in this and we've seen it
from Ebola to mers too, empocs, and in now coming
out of COVID. I think we can safely say that,
you know, it's not a matter of if, but when.
But people really like the saying that is infectious disease
knows no borders, and to a certain extent that is true.
(18:35):
Infectious diseases they don't know that, but it ignores the
fact that some countries are more equipped to handle them,
and that borders are a pores concept. So in this case,
I think from an American perspective, where it is a
very complicated relationship Americans have and I'm not getting into
(18:56):
that when it comes to Israel. The reality is that
it shouldn't matter if it's a conflict. If you see
an outbreak somewhere. You should be worried for those people,
and it shouldn't matter if it's going to impact you.
But now that we have lived through a pandemic, a
historical event, I would like to think people would see
this and realize any one of these diseases can come
(19:19):
to the States, it can strain global resources. And I'm
hopeful that with the amount of attention that's coming to
this and that the work that the WHO and the
UN have been drawing attention to it, that will change.
But I get a little nervous every time we talk
about infectious diseases and conflict areas because I find that
(19:39):
Americans and it's not just us, that people in high
income countries disassociate because that is a conflict related issue,
but it's not Conflict can mean many different things, and
it's essentially saying, this is an issue that's going to
bubble out of control. And if we were in a
situation where there was no clean food and water, we
had no access to health services, in medicine, well was
(20:00):
an issue in power, no communication and I just read
that three Palestinian internet providers went down, so they have
no way to contact outside world. They have housing, safe passes,
et cetera. Any one of those impacted US, we would
be experiencing it. And I will leave that question with
one comment. That's to say we are a very well
resourced country. The US invests so many resources into health,
(20:22):
global health, security, biopreparedness, all of the above, and we
were one of the worst performers when it came to
COVID response. And I say that having worked in health
care during that and doing epidemiology, and I think this
should be a continuous wake up call that it's we're
one disease away from an international crisis, and when we
(20:43):
see this, it should really speak to the fact that
it is global health. It's not national health, not local health,
it is global health. That's my ted talk.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
The good tech.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
I guess if I could piggyback on that, there is
not a single war that I have covered, either remotely
or in person, where I have not then seen those
people arrive our border where I live, Like I was
in Syrian Kurdistan in October. I am seeing people leaving
Turkey more and more Turkish Kurdistan, but also Syrian Kurdistan,
(21:17):
or people who went to Syria went back to Turkey
at our southern border right now. I am seeing people
from conflicts all over the world at our southern border
right now, and every single conflict, because we tend to
stick our nose into every single conflict, it ends up here,
right because we tell people we support them and then
we abandon them, and they come here thinking that we
were going to support them. I'll also add that every
(21:39):
time there is an infectious disease outbreak going forward, it
will be used in the same way that COVID was
to prevent asylum. The title forty two that was used
to like quote unquote catch and release migrants at the
southern border allowed border patrol to reject people without processing
their asylum came. That's a public health floor, it's migration law.
(22:01):
Biden's already indicated that he would love to do the
same thing again, and like, you don't even need an
excuse with this infocused disease stuff, right the laws are
already there, and it was already in place for several years,
so it's kind of stood the test of the courts.
And this will impact even if you don't give a
shit about people in Palestine, and maybe you should examine
(22:22):
what's up with your morality if you do, like, this
will impact you because people will come here, and it
will impact you because people who should come here won't
be able to and that will mean that people who
have done nothing wrong, you who trusted us when we
lie to them. You know, people Americans seem to care
about Afghanisa more than other people. Like I've spoken to
hundreds of Afghan women our border and like they were
(22:44):
stuck under Title forty two in very dangerous situations in
places like Mexico. So even if you only care about
those people, you should still care about this. I guess
can I add something to I think, please.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
You know, to avoid fueling isolationism, because I think that
happens all the time when we talk about these global
health issues. Every resource that has to be put to
helping this health crisis that is bubbling out of a
humanitarian crisis is a resource that's not back where it's
supposed to be addressing global health issues. Meaning so for example,
(23:18):
when we saw the people outbreak in West Africa in twenty fourteen,
after there were you know, we started to actually realize
the implications to malaria controlled tuberculosis HIV. So when we
have to throw a bunch of emergency resources at a crisis,
those are coming out of somewhere else. And I worry
(23:40):
too that people don't realize that we're, you know, as
the who, the un everywhere, MSS is having to help
this situation because there's no access to care and again
is a health crisis. That means we're going to start
to see other things pop up elsewhere, and that really
worries me because we are already very strained when it
comes to global health resources. We just again came out
(24:02):
of a pandemic, so everyone's tired, everyone's burnt out. We've
got health systems and a lot of and we're seeing
even in the US where a lot of funding for
like the CDC is being pulled in NIH. So now
that we're out of kind of coming back into this
panic neglect cycle, I worry that a lot of the
resources that we're having to pull to address this crisis
(24:26):
are going to then ultimately leave a lot of other
places at risk or infectious diseases for long term health implications.
So it is a lot bigger than one area or
people you know, having to flee to the US. It's
it's all of these things, and too often we approach
this with a very short sighted this and we have
we don't you know, we have finite resources when it
(24:47):
comes to global health response, and when we have to
use them because you know we're not you know, approaching
this effectively or appropriately, then we're going to see larger implications.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, even like we can just keep building off each
other stuff and it's not here from the other two.
Even recently, I was trying to buy some humanitarian daily
rations for the border, which are people aren't familiar. They're
like MRIs for refugees, and make sure we eat one
on our.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Live show once.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah it's very salty, Yeah, very salty. That it's good
for the electrolytes, but like that is a state department.
It's buying the back of surplus retailers at the minute,
which means that there's obviously like a critical lack of
supply of these things. Same with UNHCR shelters, and like
that means that someone else doesn't get to eat, right,
(25:38):
because we've just massively increased the burden of people who
desperately need to eat. Like it's not like these things
were chilling before, like there were you know, hunger is
still a massive problem in the world, despite us having
so much food here and so like they say, yeah,
the same as true of medical supplies. Like you said,
right that that means that somebody else doesn't get them,
that money doesn't go to something else very important, that
(25:58):
it could be going to.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Can I ask about something I just learned about the
past couple of days. So on December twenty fifth, the
Jerusalem Post reported that an IDF soldier died of a
fungal infection, and apparently he was hospitalized and eventually he died,
and at least ten other soldiers have been diagnosed with
(26:21):
infections of some sort. I think what kind of made
me annoyed is that there is a headline from the
Times of Israel that said, as a soldier with fungal
infection dies, fears grow of Gaza diseases spreading into Israel,
and apparently they're examining whether the infections originated from the
Hammas tunnels and all this stuff. I think, while Iel,
(26:48):
it really bothered me because I looked at all of
these articles. I mean, most of them are obviously Israeli sourced,
but it still was the same rhetoric of there's diseases
in God and our soldiers are getting them, And honestly,
the takeaway in all of these was we have to
worry about Israeli public health and the Israeli citizens. It
(27:09):
wasn't about anything about the gosins or anything like that.
And I was just I guess I wanted to ask,
is there any truth at all to the idea that
there can be certain infections localized to that degree even
though it's like a very small country in general. And
I guess it's really I feel like it's a just
(27:31):
fear mongering tactic using health as a weapon. But I
don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Even the fungus has gone woke. I can't believe it.
They've weaponized fungus, sasky. I'll let you address it, but
I would say this, I mean, I think the fear
I just did an episode of my podcast on funguses
and talking about the last of us and seeing like
the truth that there's really a concern, especially with global
(27:59):
climate change, and it is I mean, the thought of
a fungus affecting humans in that way who were not
in some way under their body understress or immuno suppressed,
it's it's not that likely. And I definitely agree from
what I'm hearing that like this is just another way
to be like, look at these dirty people, we should
(28:19):
bomb them to them.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Everything related to Palestinians is oh, it's all the plague.
Like they're scary, they're barbaric, and also they're going to
make you sick. It's it's really infuriating. They're just going
at every angle. I just I found the quote that
made me mad. Can I read it? Okay, I'm going
to read it. Basically, it says the war between Israel
and Hamas has led to the destruction of large swaths
of Gaza and internal displacement of the vast majority of
(28:45):
its population, resulting in what is called humanitarian crisis for
the Palestinians. It is called that because it is that
body what law. These conditions have led to the outbreaks
of various diseases, which can potentially threaten the well being
of hundreds of thousands of IDF groups fighting in Gaza.
They can also ultimately spell trouble for public health in Israel.
(29:07):
I just can't believe that's the takeaway.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
All at Saskia, do you want to address the spread
of fungal infection in a situation like this.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, I mean, look again, this is a situation where
disease is going to be spread and that includes idea soldiers.
They are at risk because guess what, they all have
to go back to their bunks and sleep at night
in close quarters. Do we see diseases spread easily in militaries,
of course, I mean it would be insane not to
think that. But trying to, you know, source it in
(29:41):
Palestinians and Gazas is slightly ridiculous because there's no epidemiological
evidence of that. But it's also kind of weird to
me that they're saying a fungal infection. That's a very
specific thing, and bungle infections aren't fast infections for the
most part. You know, when we do see them, I
think from a regional perspective. If you live in Southwest
like I do, Valley fever is a fungal infection. It's
(30:04):
in the dirt though, it's a spore in the dirt,
and it's not spread between people though that's that's the
key part. It is you inhale it and you get it,
and it takes months in a lot of cases. But
you know, can you can you see fungal infections yeah,
that could be contaminated water, you know, inhalation, through showers,
things like that. I mean, there's ways for that to happen,
(30:26):
but we really just for the most part see those
infections spread from an individual source, not an individual person.
They tend to really not be they're environmentally spread, you know.
And I'm not a fungal expert. I can just speak
to the ones that I've seen, and really we don't
see them spread between people, and so I think that
it's it's a weird choice to say, and I worry
(30:48):
a little bit that they're just again to your point,
trying to say like, oh, look, our soldiers are getting sick.
You know, the sacrifice that we're making right is so much.
And here's the thing. Conflict is where we're going to
see disease spread no matter what. And I if you're
so worried about soldiers getting fungal infections from Gaza, then
(31:10):
maybe keep the people in Gauza safe and then they're
you know, either way you paint this, if you're trying
to blame it on them, they keep them safe and
they won't be able to spread disease. Very simple.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yeah, they did. They did. Cite contaminated soil.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Okay, that's a contamination thing like environmental.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Yeah, this one epdibiologist said that these soldiers have come
back with serious anti microbial resistant infections that they've picked
up through contact with contaminated soil, among other factors. Like one,
I feel like it's like a very direct statement.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
There's a lot of there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Again though if it's in the soil, it's an environmental exposure.
That is like, that's not anyone's fault from an anti
microbial perspective that I'm having a hard time believing that
value fever, as I mentioned, is really hard to treat,
so sometimes it's not responsive to some of the medications
you give. But you know you're gonna get anti microbial
infections more so from people and contaminated objects, because that
(32:08):
means that it has to have been exposed to antibiotics
and become resistant to the infections. But there's that feels
like very messy, uh, you know, reporting on their part
or communications, because not a lot of that makes sense
to me. And either way, if they're saying it's from
the environment, congratulations, you've just proven you're not getting it
from people.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, thank you for getting into that. I just the
the Hamas tunnels, the Hamas terror tunnels, sorry in their words,
their terror tunnels. They're going to investigate whether infections have
originated from there. It just it's also just that doesn't
make any sense. So I'm glad to have two doctors
here agree, and that's all I wanted.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
I mean, I will say this Coxidium micosis is value fever,
and we like, you know, she just mentioned it's we
see it here in California. It's the reason why we
used to say, if you're driving down Central Valley, California,
down the Eye five, you should roll up your window
and not breathe in the air because there's a possibility
of getting it from that. So okay, they say that, Well,
(33:11):
I don't think they do so much anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
There's a whole number of reasons why you don't want
to be breathing in.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Yeah, there's a lot of cow farms out there too.
It gets a little bit nasty out there in the
I five. But but I mean, that's what is an
endemic thing. It's like, if they don't want to be
exposed to it, stay out of that area.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, but you're not going to get it from other people.
That's the kicker. It's not spread from people.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
It is very common to attribute infect your diseases that
come from conflict to your enemy. It's like if you
look at like the nineteen eighteen pandemic flu, right, and
all the different things that people call that flu and
the people to whom they attributed it, like, you can
see that we've been doing that for more than one
hundred years. It's it's part of the process of dehumanizing
(33:56):
people who you're trying to kill.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
It happened with COVID too, No, it's.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, that was a whole different situation.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
I guess humans just don't learn. I suppose.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
So I wonder Saskia like we obviously this is a
terrible situation, and it's one that's like super easy to
feel very disempowered with because you know, as much as
you march around and do things, it doesn't seem to
be stopping. There is there anything that like people can do,
(34:36):
advocate for, like take action on, that could make this
slightly less bad.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I mean, a ceasefire. I encourage people to donate to
UNISF and obviously you know MSF A lot of the
wonderful organizations doing work there, and probably my my biggest
one right now, especially since we're around the holidays and
people are spending a lot of time with family and
likely getting into some heavy conversations around the dinner tables.
Make sure you're well informed and you're not spreading misinformation
(35:04):
and disinformation online because that's been a huge aspect of this.
You know, we saw with the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
You know, Russia took direct action to spread misinformation and disinformation,
and we're struggling with that in the United States right
now with this. So I encourage people to stay informed
of this, to really utilize good resources and not pull
(35:28):
things from social media. If you're going to share something,
you know, do so from an accurate source. I really,
you know, the who un have been really good at
doing continuous updates and sharing that information. Human Rights Watch
at all of the above, and on top of again,
donating and really being an advocate for a ceasefire, to
(35:51):
me is the biggest thing because also reminding people, hey,
this is currently a localized crisis, but infectious diseases and
a humanitarian crises, excuse me, rarely stay that way.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
I would also plug the Palestinian Medical Relief Society the PMRS.
They're the on the ground people. They've been there since
nineteen seventy nine. They are founded by Palestinian doctors. It's
mostly a Palestinian run and they're doing I think, really
good work down there as best they can. And they're
where actually the who gets most of their information or
(36:26):
a lot of it at least it's coming from their
updates from the PMRS people on the ground, So that's
another local source to look at if people are interested
in getting involved.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Perfect, you got to do.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Sure, I'm not going to wrap it up yet. I
was just thinking how unfortunate it is that people don't
care enough. So you have to be like, it's not
only going to stay localized, Like it's not just that
probably you know what I mean. I hate that we
have to go there because, especially after going through a
pandemic yourself, if that is still not enough for you
(36:59):
to have any kind of empathy, that's that's just insane
to me. That's uh.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
The one consistent thing I've seen is a lot of
people say, oh, this conflict is you know, very There's
a lot of history and I don't really want to
get involved and yeah, and you know, to us, I
do understand that there is a long, complicated history that
not a lot of people are well informed of. But
inform yourself. And that doesn't mean you can't have empathy.
(37:25):
You can you know, denounce the Moss and also denounced
anti Semitism. These things are not really intrusive. And it's
it's impressive to me that we're still after you know,
it's not even been three months and we've lost twenty
thousand people that we know of a this. We're seeing
journalists held left and right as well. It's it's impressive
to me that people are still saying, oh, I don't
(37:46):
I don't really want to comment on that, or you know,
it's it's it's very messy.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
It is, and it's not though in the medical I'm sorry, James.
In the medical world, i've seen doctors complain about more
about the word provider and how it's used. Then the
fact that three hundred medical professionals have been killed, some
of them while doing their duty in the hospital, Like,
that's a part that kind of surprised me from a
(38:12):
medical perspective. And you know, I think I mentioned it
to you before. I'm grateful for coming on your show,
because I think a lot of the overlap between doctors
who listen to our show and they listen to yours,
and they're very vocal and they're online, and they are
the ones who are really giving me hope in these
situations because and there's a lot of people in medicine,
(38:34):
this is a medical issue. I mean, I'm not even
talking about any of the history. That's nothing. That's not
what I'm that's not what it's important to me right now.
It's about this healthcare crisis that is worsening and progressively worsening,
and it is a bit of a bummer that I'm
not seeing a little bit more interest in addressing it.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, I would hope also that most people, like insider
outside of medical community could maybe agree that like the
correct number of hospitals to bomb is zero hospitals, and
that yeah, there isn't a reason why you bomb a hospitalities, shouldn't.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Anthony Blincoln said like a year or about Ukraine and Russia.
Russia bombed hospitals and schools. There's no way that's normal.
And then like there's a video where it's like cross
sectioning into like right now, how it's like we're always
going to support Israel. So it's like, no, it's not normal.
Bombing hospitals and schools is never normal or okay, it's
crazy that Israel went from being like we would never
(39:30):
bomb a hospital to bombing dozens of them and nothing happening.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, but like yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I guess just felt like like completion. Again, it's not
okay when Turkey bomb's hospitals in Northeast area either, like
I was there when they bombed one, they bombed another one.
Since it's not okay when the Hunter and Meanmile bombs
hospitals and at this one hospital left standing in the
whole of Kerny State right now, and like this is
happening there too, not like not caring about those people
(40:02):
because it's just a topic of the day or whatever.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Like it's also not okay to use white phosphorus on
armed civilians across the board were Yeah, like in general,
it's horrific, and I just I think it's it's you know,
and there was there were a couple of reports and
I think that there's still data coming out about it
that bodies had organs stolen from them, Yeah, which is
(40:26):
just horrific.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
And yeah, it doesn't really practice what Israel has done
for a while though. Israel's uh, they said they stopped
it and then they're continue to do it. But it's
like they're notorious for bringing to returning bodies that have
been like autopsied or having all their organs removed. And
I want to just point out that for Muslim burials,
(40:48):
the body is like it's very important that the body
is whole, and the same for Jewish burials. But it's
just really disgusting, just point blank and then also really disrespectful. Yeah,
sorry interrupted, No, no, I mean it's and again, you know,
I think there's still a lot of information coming out
about that and how many that cret etc. Because I,
(41:10):
like I mentioned before, I think information right now is
really challenging. Accurate information, of course, is exceedingly difficult, so
I'm always very careful, you know what we say. But
to me, you know, the Washington Post just released a
really good article and in death analysis of the attacks
on the Al Shifa hospital, because that's the biggest hospital
(41:30):
in Gaza. And for a while, you know, IDF was saying, well,
this is where Hamas has been operating. They have a
tunnel networks and there was there was a good breakdown
of why this is int accurate and at the end
of the day, now there's no acceptable reason to bomb
a hospital, and drawing attention to the fact that this
was occurring and misinformation is being shared is huge. So
(41:52):
I'm hopeful that you know and very grateful to be
on this podcast and talk with you all because the
more information we can communicate about this situation, but also
about the fact that there are much larger consequences of
this from just even an infectious disease perspective is so
critical because I don't think people realize that, and again
they disassociate when they hear it's the conflict, it's a
result of conflicts. It is so much larger than that.
(42:15):
It will you know, we will see it in the States,
we will see the ramifications of this and if nothing
else again coming out as COVID, I'd like to think
that we realize that we are part of a much larger,
interconnected world and infectious diseases are simply a plane flight away.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah, very true.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Thank you both so much for your brains and your
knowledge of we're coming on the show.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
It's thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, thank you so much for having us, of course,
and before we go, I'd like to ask you guys
if you have anything you'd like to plug, like white
people can find you good. You've mentioned a couple of
good resources, but other information resources, that kind of thing
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
So in terms of the resources, I I am following
a couple members of the pm RS. They have a
Twitter feed but it's not very active, but the who
gets a lot of the same information and they do
a good job of updating in terms of where you
could learn more. I just did an episode on the
(43:24):
healthcare crisis in Gaza on my podcast, The House of Pod,
which James has been on and stream. I'm trying to
get you to come on so I'm down. I'm going
to keep working on you in Saskia too. I mean
you're all invited.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I'm recording this.
Speaker 5 (43:39):
I'm just gonna release it on my podcast as well,
and uh yeah, so listen to us there. I'll be
doing more episodes on this topic as well in the
in the coming months.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Perfect, How about.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
All of those resources I really been looking to of course,
on the public health parents so w h O and
writes watch and my big go tos as you know
again as all the sources we've already mentioned, and I
really I want to give a shout out to a
colleague of mine, Jessica Alti Rivera, who is really really
wonderful in this space and has been doing a lot
of science communication on her Instagram. I tend to be
(44:16):
a little bit more on the cesspool that is formally Twitter,
but you know, I'm I think there's some really wonderful
people out there, this entire group included, that are actively
working to share information but also how people can get
engaged and involved. So shout out to her and just
all of the hard work that a lot of key
journalists are doing in this space, because again, if you
(44:39):
have no communication out it's really hard to get accurate information.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Well, thanks guys for listening. Why are you laughing? James?
Can I wrap this out? Or is this too monotone?
Send it now? That's the show again, Thanks again for
both of you being so outspoken, and I think especially
reminding everyone that it's actually not complicated, because it's also
(45:06):
like a medical issue. It's not exactly when you just
look at the numbers, look at BodyCount, look at families.
That's I think what our main focus should be and
I appreciate you both because I know it's a tricky
out there to be outspoken.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
So thank you, thank you guys, thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (45:28):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
One more podcasts from the cool Zone Media. Visit our
website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Thanks for listening,
Also media, Hello everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen
Here podcast, returning from our holiday break to discuss the
exciting topic of infectious diseases in Gaza, and for that
we're joined by an all star cast of experts. We
have joining us today Saskia Popescu, who's an infectious disease
(00:22):
epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome Saska, Thank.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
You for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, of course, yeah, you're welcome. It's not just you.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We've also got Cave carves back, come back baby.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
It's actually my first time. This is Sharene. Also, i'm here.
This is my first time meeting cave so this is
a real trick.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, sure, I've done you wrong, Sharen, I'm sorry I
didn't introduce you.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
That's okay, it's probably in the description or something that
I'm here.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
No one, Yeah, make a valuable contributions. People will know
you're here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But yeah, it's it's all of us.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And yeah, we talked today because like I think the origin,
sorry of this particular episode is that, like a few
weeks ago, there was a very funny thing on the
internet about people in the i d F getting diarrhea,
which is funny.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Object what the d i F stands for?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Actually, all the kids are saying, but sorry, no, it's funny.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Don't you ever apologize? Yeah, you do, not apologize for.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
You any opportunity just to ship on them.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You're good.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, expect many. It's half an hour at least of this.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Don't be driving because you might laugh too much and crash.
But no, it's very funny. It's the name of our
group chat it's as Ready Diarrhea Forces. But aside from that,
like this raises a more important question, right, which is
that people in Gaza don't have access to very many
medical supplies to begin with.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Were things are.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Embargoed like torny K's which is spoken out in this
podcast before. They also have obviously a very resource constrained
environment to begin with, and then a number of their
hospitals have been bombed since then, which obviously further reduces
their access to medical care. Also, they have less acklos
to things like running water now because they're being bombed
to an incredible degree. And so Saskia has joined us
(02:22):
today to like explain the risk of the spread of
infectious disease, maybe give us an update on like what's
already happening and the risks of what could happen. So
I guess maybe we should start off with really basic
stuff and explain what infectious diseases are and like how
they're different from non communical diseases gets people aren't familiar,
would one if you like to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, I'm happy to. So infectious diseases, you know, when
we talk about diseases in general, as you mentioned, there
are chronic diseases, things like diabetes, cancer. When we talk
about infectious diseases, meaning they're communicable for the most part,
that means that they are spread through various sources human
to human, like influenza. There's things like anthrax that you
can equali Campelobacter that you can get from soil, from food,
(03:07):
and the zoonotic diseases that they are also spread through animals,
so things like Ebola mirors which is Middle East respiratory
syndrome coronavirus. So infectious diseases are viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites,
and they really love to take advantage of high stress
environments for bread and unfortunately this is one of them.
(03:28):
So this is a very what we see with infectious diseases.
A lot is that conflict and environments where people are stressed,
resources are stressed, and the environment is under a continuous bombardment.
There's densely populated spaces, no access to health, clean food,
and water, et cetera. I mean, I could probably go
(03:50):
on for five minutes about what makes an infectious disease spread,
is going to amplify it. So these are diseases that
take advantage of these environments.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I'll add that the situation is just a perfect setup
for infectious disease to run rampant. There's over one point
nine million people that have been displaced. Of that, one
point four million are living in overcrowded shelters at this point.
And in the best scenario from what I've seen, there's
(04:19):
one toilet for every two hundred and twenty people. Now,
if you ever lived in like a house of like
five people and there's like one case of diarrhea, you'll
realize how terrible that is. Now you amplify that to
two hundred and twenty at the minimum, and that's the
best case scenario. I've heard its highest one per seven
hundred people in some places. And then you know, people
have to go in the streets, they have to go
(04:40):
where there's water supplies, and you're going to be infecting
those areas. There's one shower for every like four five
hundred people again in best case scenario. So it's a
huge number of people getting concentrated into smaller and smaller
areas and without the infrastructure there to handle that in
any way. And when that happens, I mean, we are
(05:00):
going to see I am really worried about seeing in
the end of this more depth from infectious disease than
from the bombardments.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Yeah, well, that's that's like a it almost feels like
a double another weapon that they're that that they're that
they've used because they're not letting them have a chance
to recuperate or have a sanitary place to do surgeries
or anything. Because if they're doing surgery with unsanitary conditions,
they can get infect like the wounds can get it affected,
(05:29):
and that's a whole nother thing, or even just like
having waste in the street, like making it like having
it fester. It just it's it's really I think people
forget that it's not just like a building was destroyed
or people were killed. It's there's lasting effects that linger
for probably generations. You know, it's just it's just I
(05:50):
don't know. It really is infuriating.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I think the crazy part is the World Health Organization.
So the WHO recently released some data as to what
is reported to them in terms of disease, and they said,
so far not keep in mind, these are just reported numbers,
and that means it's just the tip of the iceberg.
In most cases, one hundred thousand cases of diarrhea and
those are in young children. So half of those are
(06:13):
in young children out of the age of five, which
means it can be deadly. And this number is just
twenty five percent higher than what we have seen reported
pre conflict. And in terms of respiratory infections, the things
like covid, influenza and pneumonia, one hundred and fifty thousand cases.
And that's just the numbers that we know about. But
we're also seeing cases and outbreaks of things like meningitis,
(06:36):
skin rashes, babies, LCE, chicken pox, which is highly infectious.
And you know, we worry in those cases about when
people are in these close quarters and their bodies are
already strained. Because one thing we do know is that
when your bodies physiologically under stress, meaning no sleep, malnutrition,
you know, not access to clean water to wash your hands,
(06:59):
not dehydrated, et cetera, you're at an increased risk for
disease and severe disease. So that means that people are
at higher risk to get it and then to spread
it in these environments. And that's what's really scary because
it becomes a hot spot for transmission. And you mentioned
that this feels like a secondary effect in many ways.
It's almost like a secondary conflict, if you will, and
(07:21):
one that will leave lasting implications because what we do
know is that disease and conflict go hand in hand.
And when I think about it a lot, and we've
seen this unfortunately throughout time, is that conflict can bring
disease and it can amplify disease. When I say bring disease,
we know that people in these spaces soldiers can bring
in diseases that are being spread around. But we've also
(07:42):
seen sexually transmitted diseases in the past being spread through
sexual assault and sexual violence, and that's one thing I
definitely worry about, and unfortunately we know that's happening and
it's not something we're going to see reported for a while,
but things like that can and do occur, and it's
a very scary situation.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
If I can tack on a little bit to the
diarrhea subject here, because I am a GI and liver doc,
I mean, in a typical month in Gaza, there is
about two thousand cases of diarrhea and kids under five,
and in the last month there was over forty thousand cases.
And for kids that aren't getting water, they're not getting
the recommended amount of like daily water, like it's like
(08:22):
seven to eight leaders in refugee situations is what's recommended.
These people are getting like one to two leaders per
whole families, so they're not staying hydrated. And these are
kids that are most vulnerable. That's the part that is
really hard for me. And I've actually seen people sort
of downclay it like just like, well, diarrhea, you know,
that's what you get, but in these situations, it's going
to be very serious for these kids. And the other
(08:44):
thing we're seeing is cases of jaundice. They're noting that
people are becoming that, which to me suggests that there's
hepatitis A and hepatitis E, which is you know, you
get through fecal oral contamination and hepatitis E in particular
is what concerns me because there's pregnant women and when
pregnant women get hepatitis E, it's worse for them that
(09:06):
that's a really bad situation. And when that happens, I mean,
these are these are women who are already not getting support,
They're already under nourished, They're not able to produce breast milk,
They're going to be sick, They're not going to be
able to feed their kids. It's I mean, I can't
I can't imagine, honestly. I mean, I know it's funny.
We can say these things, we can talk about the numbers,
(09:28):
but it is like to actually wrap my brain around
it breaks my brain. I cannot, like imagine the numbers
of people that are sick and are in these hospitals,
not just being treated, but like the NASA Hospital, which
is one of the two hospitals in Gaza, you know,
they they are like a three hundred and fifty bed hospital.
(09:50):
They are already over like a thousand patients and not
to mention the many thousands, over seventy thousand people just
staying there, you know, for refuge. It's absolutely a nightmare.
I can't I can't write my brain around it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, Like often I know when I speak to colleagues
who are there or at the journalistic they'll go to
hospitals a in the hope that they'll be safe, which
hasn't proven to be true sadly, which is pretty messed up.
But be you know, they have many generators, right, so
they can charge and and tell the world what's happening,
or try to. It seems like some of the word
isn't listening. But yeah it there cost blows are incredibly overgrowded.
(10:26):
I wonder like if we could go back to diarrhea
and there's not like a fun topics talk about it.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Score, Yeah, it's time to shine.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, this life's work.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So like I think it was diarrhea that I read
kills more people than conflict annually.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Oh yeah worldwide sure, yeah, yeah, well, I mean Saskia
probably has better numbers on it than I do, actually,
but worldwide, yeah, it's probably the number one, number one killer.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So like let's just break that because I most of
like by the very hus being a podcast, right best,
so people listening in the in the kind of the
in the neoliberal core or the global north, whatever you
want to call it. Right, Like, they have a smartphone
and they've downloaded this, and it might be difficult to
understand how you die from diarrhea, which is like an
(11:17):
inconvenience in a lot of places. So can you just
explain that for people so they can they can understand
and how the conditions that we see in Gaza would compound.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
That Saska, Do you want me to go first?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
All you, I'll talk about spreads, you can talk, okay.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
So, I mean, the there's a couple of issues that
can happen. There's a lot, but I mean dehydration is
going to be a major one, and loss of electrolytes.
I mean, these people can get so badly dehydrated that
the circulatory system isn't working properly, or they can lose
the amount of electrolytes that they need and they're not
replacing and that can cause cardiovascular issues as well. So
(11:59):
it's a terrible way to die. I mean, you know,
cholerara and these terrible like diarrheal epidemics that you know
we think of of mostly in the past. They're terrible.
They're terrible ways to go, and especially if you don't
have the I mean it's treatable. Usually it's treatable. You know,
you get fluid rehydration, you get electrolyte management. It's it's
(12:24):
pretty manageable in the right situation. But if you don't
have that, it's gonna be a devastating thing to the
body over time, and for young kids, sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, so maybe we should explain how it spread.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, I mean the scary parts. So there's multiple pathogens
that can cause diarrheal illness, and for the most part,
we see bacteria and viruses. If you've had neurovirus, which
is the cruise ship bug, that is highly transmissible, meaning
it just goes through households and environments very very quick.
During outbreaks. You can't just use hand sanitizer and a
(13:04):
simple disinfectant. You need bleach. And if you're if we're
thinking about the best case scenario, and I've seen you know, diarre,
real illnesses go through schools, hospitals, you name it. We
still struggle to contain those. Now, put yourself in an
environment with this level of stress, and you know, the
thirty six hospitals in Gazda Gaza twenty six have been damaged,
twenty one are not functional at all, thirteen are partially functioning,
(13:27):
and two are barely functioning. So we know that access
to care is a challenge. Resources I can't even imagine.
So that means the capacity to treat patients with antibiotics,
with fluids, everything, and now contain it, which is the
disinfection you know, all the infection prevention essentially, And I
don't even want to think about contact tracing in public
(13:48):
health interventions because it doesn't exist. It's an entirely collapsed system.
You know, this is a humanitarian crisis. So when you know,
when you have people in close quarters and there's a
lot of high touch items because a lot of direal
illness is spread through touch. It's you know, contaminated hands
and objects, and then you know, you touch your mouth,
you eat with your hands, et cetera. That's how these
(14:09):
things are spread. So between the bathroom not having access,
you know, not having access to restrooms. You know, we
mentioned the toilet situation, there's also one shower for every
forty five hundred people, so we know that people are
not able to clean themselves effectively. And this is a
ripe condition for direal illness to spread, and they it
(14:29):
spreads very quickly, very efficiently, and it is exceedingly hard
to get rid of. And it worries me because a
lot of these diseases, it's not just like you get
it one time and you have immunity to it. It
can keep going around and if you have a situation
like that where you cannot clean effectively, you can't treat effectively,
then we're just going to see it continuously compound. And
that's absolutely terrifying because you know, we were talking about
(14:53):
pregnant women earlier. There's fifty thousand pregnant women right now
in Gaza and they are malnourished. That's just the tip
of the iceberg. And we see that so many children
there are malnourished, and these are very dangerous infections for
vulnerable people. And on the best of days, we struggle
to contain diarreal illness. So my big concern is this
(15:14):
and respiratory viruses. To be honest with you, because when
you have this many people in close quarters and ignore
the fact that they're extremely you know, physically strained and
stressed right now, which is when your immune system struggles,
it's going to spread and it's going to be exceedingly
hard to contain it. So this is an environment where
we're going to see diarreal illness spread and it's going
(15:35):
to unfortunately kill a lot more people then we will
even realize. It's going to take years to understand implications
of this, you know, if we even consider that access
to clean water and food. We've been talking a lot
about malnourishment, which is huge, but I'm also concerned to
the quality of food that they're getting too, and the water,
(15:55):
all of it. Everything about the situation is going to
spread disease. It's you know, I know that sounds quite dramatic,
but it's entirely true.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
No, I mean, I'm glad you're emphasizing that, because I
don't think people realize the gravity of of like a
second wave of death like that that happens like not
even not with weapons. Uh, but no, I'm glad you
emphasize that. Let's uh, let's take our first break. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And it reminds me too of when we saw U
N peacekeepers in Haiti and they introduced polera, and you know,
and that's it's an unfortunate reality when you are bringing
in groups of people to and this you know, for
in Haiti, they were trying to help the situation. In
this case, it's not surprising. I mean, there's there's a
(16:54):
really good book called Contagions and Chaos that actually talks
about how infectious diseases can amplify conflict or create it.
And ultimately, I think we're just going to see this
as a rolling in health issue until there's a ceasefire
and until there's really substantial work in there to resource
(17:14):
and to take care of people.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I mean, it's scared any Kave. You mentioned that you
had a question for Saskia I.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
Do you know you've written and you talked a lot
about the intersections of science and policy, particularly in terms
of COVID nineteen. We've seen that global threats elsewhere can
affect Americans, and I'm wondering, is there a way to
try and appeal to Westerners who aren't that interested yet
and why they should care about infectious diseases that are
(17:43):
rising or become rampant in other places. Is there an
argument you can make to these people who may not
care that much about the Palestinian people per se.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Oh, there's the political answer. I should give you. And
then there's the real answer, which is political answer saying
that you know people do care and you know we're
just having the console in your mind them. But the
real answer is, look, we just came out of three
and a half years of a pandemic and at this point,
if people don't give a shit, they're not going to.
And I know that's crude for me to say, but
(18:14):
it's I've been working in this and we've seen it
from Ebola to mers too, empocs, and in now coming
out of COVID. I think we can safely say that,
you know, it's not a matter of if, but when.
But people really like the saying that is infectious disease
knows no borders, and to a certain extent that is true.
(18:35):
Infectious diseases they don't know that, but it ignores the
fact that some countries are more equipped to handle them,
and that borders are a pores concept. So in this case,
I think from an American perspective, where it is a
very complicated relationship Americans have and I'm not getting into
(18:56):
that when it comes to Israel. The reality is that
it shouldn't matter if it's a conflict. If you see
an outbreak somewhere. You should be worried for those people,
and it shouldn't matter if it's going to impact you.
But now that we have lived through a pandemic, a
historical event, I would like to think people would see
this and realize any one of these diseases can come
(19:19):
to the States, it can strain global resources. And I'm
hopeful that with the amount of attention that's coming to
this and that the work that the WHO and the
UN have been drawing attention to it, that will change.
But I get a little nervous every time we talk
about infectious diseases and conflict areas because I find that
(19:39):
Americans and it's not just us, that people in high
income countries disassociate because that is a conflict related issue,
but it's not Conflict can mean many different things, and
it's essentially saying, this is an issue that's going to
bubble out of control. And if we were in a
situation where there was no clean food and water, we
had no access to health services, in medicine, well was
(20:00):
an issue in power, no communication and I just read
that three Palestinian internet providers went down, so they have
no way to contact outside world. They have housing, safe passes,
et cetera. Any one of those impacted US, we would
be experiencing it. And I will leave that question with
one comment. That's to say we are a very well
resourced country. The US invests so many resources into health,
(20:22):
global health, security, biopreparedness, all of the above, and we
were one of the worst performers when it came to
COVID response. And I say that having worked in health
care during that and doing epidemiology, and I think this
should be a continuous wake up call that it's we're
one disease away from an international crisis, and when we
(20:43):
see this, it should really speak to the fact that
it is global health. It's not national health, not local health,
it is global health. That's my ted talk.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
The good tech.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
I guess if I could piggyback on that, there is
not a single war that I have covered, either remotely
or in person, where I have not then seen those
people arrive our border where I live, Like I was
in Syrian Kurdistan in October. I am seeing people leaving
Turkey more and more Turkish Kurdistan, but also Syrian Kurdistan,
(21:17):
or people who went to Syria went back to Turkey
at our southern border right now. I am seeing people
from conflicts all over the world at our southern border
right now, and every single conflict, because we tend to
stick our nose into every single conflict, it ends up here,
right because we tell people we support them and then
we abandon them, and they come here thinking that we
were going to support them. I'll also add that every
(21:39):
time there is an infectious disease outbreak going forward, it
will be used in the same way that COVID was
to prevent asylum. The title forty two that was used
to like quote unquote catch and release migrants at the
southern border allowed border patrol to reject people without processing
their asylum came. That's a public health floor, it's migration law.
(22:01):
Biden's already indicated that he would love to do the
same thing again, and like, you don't even need an
excuse with this infocused disease stuff, right the laws are
already there, and it was already in place for several years,
so it's kind of stood the test of the courts.
And this will impact even if you don't give a
shit about people in Palestine, and maybe you should examine
(22:22):
what's up with your morality if you do, like, this
will impact you because people will come here, and it
will impact you because people who should come here won't
be able to and that will mean that people who
have done nothing wrong, you who trusted us when we
lie to them. You know, people Americans seem to care
about Afghanisa more than other people. Like I've spoken to
hundreds of Afghan women our border and like they were
(22:44):
stuck under Title forty two in very dangerous situations in
places like Mexico. So even if you only care about
those people, you should still care about this. I guess
can I add something to I think, please.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
You know, to avoid fueling isolationism, because I think that
happens all the time when we talk about these global
health issues. Every resource that has to be put to
helping this health crisis that is bubbling out of a
humanitarian crisis is a resource that's not back where it's
supposed to be addressing global health issues. Meaning so for example,
(23:18):
when we saw the people outbreak in West Africa in twenty fourteen,
after there were you know, we started to actually realize
the implications to malaria controlled tuberculosis HIV. So when we
have to throw a bunch of emergency resources at a crisis,
those are coming out of somewhere else. And I worry
(23:40):
too that people don't realize that we're, you know, as
the who, the un everywhere, MSS is having to help
this situation because there's no access to care and again
is a health crisis. That means we're going to start
to see other things pop up elsewhere, and that really
worries me because we are already very strained when it
comes to global health resources. We just again came out
(24:02):
of a pandemic, so everyone's tired, everyone's burnt out. We've
got health systems and a lot of and we're seeing
even in the US where a lot of funding for
like the CDC is being pulled in NIH. So now
that we're out of kind of coming back into this
panic neglect cycle, I worry that a lot of the
resources that we're having to pull to address this crisis
(24:26):
are going to then ultimately leave a lot of other
places at risk or infectious diseases for long term health implications.
So it is a lot bigger than one area or
people you know, having to flee to the US. It's
it's all of these things, and too often we approach
this with a very short sighted this and we have
we don't you know, we have finite resources when it
(24:47):
comes to global health response, and when we have to
use them because you know we're not you know, approaching
this effectively or appropriately, then we're going to see larger implications.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, even like we can just keep building off each
other stuff and it's not here from the other two.
Even recently, I was trying to buy some humanitarian daily
rations for the border, which are people aren't familiar. They're
like MRIs for refugees, and make sure we eat one
on our.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Live show once.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah it's very salty, Yeah, very salty. That it's good
for the electrolytes, but like that is a state department.
It's buying the back of surplus retailers at the minute,
which means that there's obviously like a critical lack of
supply of these things. Same with UNHCR shelters, and like
that means that someone else doesn't get to eat, right,
(25:38):
because we've just massively increased the burden of people who
desperately need to eat. Like it's not like these things
were chilling before, like there were you know, hunger is
still a massive problem in the world, despite us having
so much food here and so like they say, yeah,
the same as true of medical supplies. Like you said,
right that that means that somebody else doesn't get them,
that money doesn't go to something else very important, that
(25:58):
it could be going to.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Can I ask about something I just learned about the
past couple of days. So on December twenty fifth, the
Jerusalem Post reported that an IDF soldier died of a
fungal infection, and apparently he was hospitalized and eventually he died,
and at least ten other soldiers have been diagnosed with
(26:21):
infections of some sort. I think what kind of made
me annoyed is that there is a headline from the
Times of Israel that said, as a soldier with fungal
infection dies, fears grow of Gaza diseases spreading into Israel,
and apparently they're examining whether the infections originated from the
Hammas tunnels and all this stuff. I think, while Iel,
(26:48):
it really bothered me because I looked at all of
these articles. I mean, most of them are obviously Israeli sourced,
but it still was the same rhetoric of there's diseases
in God and our soldiers are getting them, And honestly,
the takeaway in all of these was we have to
worry about Israeli public health and the Israeli citizens. It
(27:09):
wasn't about anything about the gosins or anything like that.
And I was just I guess I wanted to ask,
is there any truth at all to the idea that
there can be certain infections localized to that degree even
though it's like a very small country in general. And
I guess it's really I feel like it's a just
(27:31):
fear mongering tactic using health as a weapon. But I
don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Even the fungus has gone woke. I can't believe it.
They've weaponized fungus, sasky. I'll let you address it, but
I would say this, I mean, I think the fear
I just did an episode of my podcast on funguses
and talking about the last of us and seeing like
the truth that there's really a concern, especially with global
(27:59):
climate change, and it is I mean, the thought of
a fungus affecting humans in that way who were not
in some way under their body understress or immuno suppressed,
it's it's not that likely. And I definitely agree from
what I'm hearing that like this is just another way
to be like, look at these dirty people, we should
(28:19):
bomb them to them.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Everything related to Palestinians is oh, it's all the plague.
Like they're scary, they're barbaric, and also they're going to
make you sick. It's it's really infuriating. They're just going
at every angle. I just I found the quote that
made me mad. Can I read it? Okay, I'm going
to read it. Basically, it says the war between Israel
and Hamas has led to the destruction of large swaths
of Gaza and internal displacement of the vast majority of
(28:45):
its population, resulting in what is called humanitarian crisis for
the Palestinians. It is called that because it is that
body what law. These conditions have led to the outbreaks
of various diseases, which can potentially threaten the well being
of hundreds of thousands of IDF groups fighting in Gaza.
They can also ultimately spell trouble for public health in Israel.
(29:07):
I just can't believe that's the takeaway.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
All at Saskia, do you want to address the spread
of fungal infection in a situation like this.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, I mean, look again, this is a situation where
disease is going to be spread and that includes idea soldiers.
They are at risk because guess what, they all have
to go back to their bunks and sleep at night
in close quarters. Do we see diseases spread easily in militaries,
of course, I mean it would be insane not to
think that. But trying to, you know, source it in
(29:41):
Palestinians and Gazas is slightly ridiculous because there's no epidemiological
evidence of that. But it's also kind of weird to
me that they're saying a fungal infection. That's a very
specific thing, and bungle infections aren't fast infections for the
most part. You know, when we do see them, I
think from a regional perspective. If you live in Southwest
like I do, Valley fever is a fungal infection. It's
(30:04):
in the dirt though, it's a spore in the dirt,
and it's not spread between people though that's that's the
key part. It is you inhale it and you get it,
and it takes months in a lot of cases. But
you know, can you can you see fungal infections yeah,
that could be contaminated water, you know, inhalation, through showers,
things like that. I mean, there's ways for that to happen,
(30:26):
but we really just for the most part see those
infections spread from an individual source, not an individual person.
They tend to really not be they're environmentally spread, you know.
And I'm not a fungal expert. I can just speak
to the ones that I've seen, and really we don't
see them spread between people, and so I think that
it's it's a weird choice to say, and I worry
(30:48):
a little bit that they're just again to your point,
trying to say like, oh, look, our soldiers are getting sick.
You know, the sacrifice that we're making right is so much.
And here's the thing. Conflict is where we're going to
see disease spread no matter what. And I if you're
so worried about soldiers getting fungal infections from Gaza, then
(31:10):
maybe keep the people in Gauza safe and then they're
you know, either way you paint this, if you're trying
to blame it on them, they keep them safe and
they won't be able to spread disease. Very simple.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yeah, they did. They did. Cite contaminated soil.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Okay, that's a contamination thing like environmental.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Yeah, this one epdibiologist said that these soldiers have come
back with serious anti microbial resistant infections that they've picked
up through contact with contaminated soil, among other factors. Like one,
I feel like it's like a very direct statement.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
There's a lot of there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Again though if it's in the soil, it's an environmental exposure.
That is like, that's not anyone's fault from an anti
microbial perspective that I'm having a hard time believing that
value fever, as I mentioned, is really hard to treat,
so sometimes it's not responsive to some of the medications
you give. But you know you're gonna get anti microbial
infections more so from people and contaminated objects, because that
(32:08):
means that it has to have been exposed to antibiotics
and become resistant to the infections. But there's that feels
like very messy, uh, you know, reporting on their part
or communications, because not a lot of that makes sense
to me. And either way, if they're saying it's from
the environment, congratulations, you've just proven you're not getting it
from people.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, thank you for getting into that. I just the
the Hamas tunnels, the Hamas terror tunnels, sorry in their words,
their terror tunnels. They're going to investigate whether infections have
originated from there. It just it's also just that doesn't
make any sense. So I'm glad to have two doctors
here agree, and that's all I wanted.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
I mean, I will say this Coxidium micosis is value fever,
and we like, you know, she just mentioned it's we
see it here in California. It's the reason why we
used to say, if you're driving down Central Valley, California,
down the Eye five, you should roll up your window
and not breathe in the air because there's a possibility
of getting it from that. So okay, they say that, Well,
(33:11):
I don't think they do so much anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
There's a whole number of reasons why you don't want
to be breathing in.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Yeah, there's a lot of cow farms out there too.
It gets a little bit nasty out there in the
I five. But but I mean, that's what is an
endemic thing. It's like, if they don't want to be
exposed to it, stay out of that area.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, but you're not going to get it from other people.
That's the kicker. It's not spread from people.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
It is very common to attribute infect your diseases that
come from conflict to your enemy. It's like if you
look at like the nineteen eighteen pandemic flu, right, and
all the different things that people call that flu and
the people to whom they attributed it, like, you can
see that we've been doing that for more than one
hundred years. It's it's part of the process of dehumanizing
(33:56):
people who you're trying to kill.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
It happened with COVID too, No, it's.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, that was a whole different situation.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
I guess humans just don't learn. I suppose.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
So I wonder Saskia like we obviously this is a
terrible situation, and it's one that's like super easy to
feel very disempowered with because you know, as much as
you march around and do things, it doesn't seem to
be stopping. There is there anything that like people can do,
(34:36):
advocate for, like take action on, that could make this
slightly less bad.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I mean, a ceasefire. I encourage people to donate to
UNISF and obviously you know MSF A lot of the
wonderful organizations doing work there, and probably my my biggest
one right now, especially since we're around the holidays and
people are spending a lot of time with family and
likely getting into some heavy conversations around the dinner tables.
Make sure you're well informed and you're not spreading misinformation
(35:04):
and disinformation online because that's been a huge aspect of this.
You know, we saw with the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
You know, Russia took direct action to spread misinformation and disinformation,
and we're struggling with that in the United States right
now with this. So I encourage people to stay informed
of this, to really utilize good resources and not pull
(35:28):
things from social media. If you're going to share something,
you know, do so from an accurate source. I really,
you know, the who un have been really good at
doing continuous updates and sharing that information. Human Rights Watch
at all of the above, and on top of again,
donating and really being an advocate for a ceasefire, to
(35:51):
me is the biggest thing because also reminding people, hey,
this is currently a localized crisis, but infectious diseases and
a humanitarian crises, excuse me, rarely stay that way.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
I would also plug the Palestinian Medical Relief Society the PMRS.
They're the on the ground people. They've been there since
nineteen seventy nine. They are founded by Palestinian doctors. It's
mostly a Palestinian run and they're doing I think, really
good work down there as best they can. And they're
where actually the who gets most of their information or
(36:26):
a lot of it at least it's coming from their
updates from the PMRS people on the ground, So that's
another local source to look at if people are interested
in getting involved.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Perfect, you got to do.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Sure, I'm not going to wrap it up yet. I
was just thinking how unfortunate it is that people don't
care enough. So you have to be like, it's not
only going to stay localized, Like it's not just that
probably you know what I mean. I hate that we
have to go there because, especially after going through a
pandemic yourself, if that is still not enough for you
(36:59):
to have any kind of empathy, that's that's just insane
to me. That's uh.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
The one consistent thing I've seen is a lot of
people say, oh, this conflict is you know, very There's
a lot of history and I don't really want to
get involved and yeah, and you know, to us, I
do understand that there is a long, complicated history that
not a lot of people are well informed of. But
inform yourself. And that doesn't mean you can't have empathy.
(37:25):
You can you know, denounce the Moss and also denounced
anti Semitism. These things are not really intrusive. And it's
it's impressive to me that we're still after you know,
it's not even been three months and we've lost twenty
thousand people that we know of a this. We're seeing
journalists held left and right as well. It's it's impressive
to me that people are still saying, oh, I don't
(37:46):
I don't really want to comment on that, or you know,
it's it's it's very messy.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
It is, and it's not though in the medical I'm sorry, James.
In the medical world, i've seen doctors complain about more
about the word provider and how it's used. Then the
fact that three hundred medical professionals have been killed, some
of them while doing their duty in the hospital, Like,
that's a part that kind of surprised me from a
(38:12):
medical perspective. And you know, I think I mentioned it
to you before. I'm grateful for coming on your show,
because I think a lot of the overlap between doctors
who listen to our show and they listen to yours,
and they're very vocal and they're online, and they are
the ones who are really giving me hope in these
situations because and there's a lot of people in medicine,
(38:34):
this is a medical issue. I mean, I'm not even
talking about any of the history. That's nothing. That's not
what I'm that's not what it's important to me right now.
It's about this healthcare crisis that is worsening and progressively worsening,
and it is a bit of a bummer that I'm
not seeing a little bit more interest in addressing it.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, I would hope also that most people, like insider
outside of medical community could maybe agree that like the
correct number of hospitals to bomb is zero hospitals, and
that yeah, there isn't a reason why you bomb a hospitalities, shouldn't.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Anthony Blincoln said like a year or about Ukraine and Russia.
Russia bombed hospitals and schools. There's no way that's normal.
And then like there's a video where it's like cross
sectioning into like right now, how it's like we're always
going to support Israel. So it's like, no, it's not normal.
Bombing hospitals and schools is never normal or okay, it's
crazy that Israel went from being like we would never
(39:30):
bomb a hospital to bombing dozens of them and nothing happening.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, but like yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I guess just felt like like completion. Again, it's not
okay when Turkey bomb's hospitals in Northeast area either, like
I was there when they bombed one, they bombed another one.
Since it's not okay when the Hunter and Meanmile bombs
hospitals and at this one hospital left standing in the
whole of Kerny State right now, and like this is
happening there too, not like not caring about those people
(40:02):
because it's just a topic of the day or whatever.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Like it's also not okay to use white phosphorus on
armed civilians across the board were Yeah, like in general,
it's horrific, and I just I think it's it's you know,
and there was there were a couple of reports and
I think that there's still data coming out about it
that bodies had organs stolen from them, Yeah, which is
(40:26):
just horrific.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
And yeah, it doesn't really practice what Israel has done
for a while though. Israel's uh, they said they stopped
it and then they're continue to do it. But it's
like they're notorious for bringing to returning bodies that have
been like autopsied or having all their organs removed. And
I want to just point out that for Muslim burials,
(40:48):
the body is like it's very important that the body
is whole, and the same for Jewish burials. But it's
just really disgusting, just point blank and then also really disrespectful. Yeah,
sorry interrupted, No, no, I mean it's and again, you know,
I think there's still a lot of information coming out
about that and how many that cret etc. Because I,
(41:10):
like I mentioned before, I think information right now is
really challenging. Accurate information, of course, is exceedingly difficult, so
I'm always very careful, you know what we say. But
to me, you know, the Washington Post just released a
really good article and in death analysis of the attacks
on the Al Shifa hospital, because that's the biggest hospital
(41:30):
in Gaza. And for a while, you know, IDF was saying, well,
this is where Hamas has been operating. They have a
tunnel networks and there was there was a good breakdown
of why this is int accurate and at the end
of the day, now there's no acceptable reason to bomb
a hospital, and drawing attention to the fact that this
was occurring and misinformation is being shared is huge. So
(41:52):
I'm hopeful that you know and very grateful to be
on this podcast and talk with you all because the
more information we can communicate about this situation, but also
about the fact that there are much larger consequences of
this from just even an infectious disease perspective is so
critical because I don't think people realize that, and again
they disassociate when they hear it's the conflict, it's a
result of conflicts. It is so much larger than that.
(42:15):
It will you know, we will see it in the States,
we will see the ramifications of this and if nothing
else again coming out as COVID, I'd like to think
that we realize that we are part of a much larger,
interconnected world and infectious diseases are simply a plane flight away.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah, very true.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Thank you both so much for your brains and your
knowledge of we're coming on the show.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
It's thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, thank you so much for having us, of course,
and before we go, I'd like to ask you guys
if you have anything you'd like to plug, like white
people can find you good. You've mentioned a couple of
good resources, but other information resources, that kind of thing
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
So in terms of the resources, I I am following
a couple members of the pm RS. They have a
Twitter feed but it's not very active, but the who
gets a lot of the same information and they do
a good job of updating in terms of where you
could learn more. I just did an episode on the
(43:24):
healthcare crisis in Gaza on my podcast, The House of Pod,
which James has been on and stream. I'm trying to
get you to come on so I'm down. I'm going
to keep working on you in Saskia too. I mean
you're all invited.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I'm recording this.
Speaker 5 (43:39):
I'm just gonna release it on my podcast as well,
and uh yeah, so listen to us there. I'll be
doing more episodes on this topic as well in the
in the coming months.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Perfect, How about.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
All of those resources I really been looking to of course,
on the public health parents so w h O and
writes watch and my big go tos as you know
again as all the sources we've already mentioned, and I
really I want to give a shout out to a
colleague of mine, Jessica Alti Rivera, who is really really
wonderful in this space and has been doing a lot
of science communication on her Instagram. I tend to be
(44:16):
a little bit more on the cesspool that is formally Twitter,
but you know, I'm I think there's some really wonderful
people out there, this entire group included, that are actively
working to share information but also how people can get
engaged and involved. So shout out to her and just
all of the hard work that a lot of key
journalists are doing in this space, because again, if you
(44:39):
have no communication out it's really hard to get accurate information.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Well, thanks guys for listening. Why are you laughing? James?
Can I wrap this out? Or is this too monotone?
Send it now? That's the show again, Thanks again for
both of you being so outspoken, and I think especially
reminding everyone that it's actually not complicated, because it's also
(45:06):
like a medical issue. It's not exactly when you just
look at the numbers, look at BodyCount, look at families.
That's I think what our main focus should be and
I appreciate you both because I know it's a tricky
out there to be outspoken.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
So thank you, thank you guys, thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (45:28):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
One more podcasts from the cool Zone Media. Visit our
website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.