Why a universal health initiative is needed: shifting the current research paradigm to stop illness before it gets to you.
We were very fortunate to have Dr. Stanley Maloy from SDSU speak at the Foundation’s 20th year anniversary celebration last November. The topic: one world, one health. As recently as 2011, there was an E. coli outbreak in Germany that very rapidly moved through Europe to Canada. The outbreak resulted in a few cases at the beginning of May, to over 200 cases by the end of the month. Aside from the typical, critical symptoms – among them diarrhea and loss of blood-- this particular strain of E.coli was creating a secondary problem. For unknown reasons a substantial number of patients were showing complications from Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), creating a series of problems related to kidney failure. So the health consequences typically known to affect children predominantly had now changed such that 25% of patients were middle aged women –a variation on the patient profile of victims of E.coli. On May 20th of that year, the first case was reported to...