Did Deforestation Spring Zika?

This is the first of three clips in which I’m interviewed by the Real News Network about the outbreak of Zika virus across Latin America.

No matter what turns out to be the cause of the microcephaly thousands of Brazilian newborns are suffering–Zika, pesticides, something else, or some combo–a large literature shows the resurgence of the Flaviviruses–dengue, yellow fever, Chikungunya, and now Zika–is, like Ebola in West Africa, being driven largely by neoliberal deforestation.

By logging, mining, and monoculture agriculture, we appear to be stripping away the ecosystemic limits forests typically place upon many a pathogen.

I’ll have a more in-depth post on Zika in the days to follow.

Bookmark

The book rollout continues.

Here’s the Tumblr page for my new book, Big Farms Make Big Flu. It’ll include author appearances, reviews, events around the book, vids and articles, and related curiosities.

The book–essays on infectious disease, agribusiness, and the nature of science–is available for pre-order here.

Forthcoming Book

I’m proud to announce Monthly Review Press is publishing my new book on infectious diseases, agribusiness, and the nature of science.

The book collects (and revises) many of the pieces I’ve posted here at Farming Pathogens, but in addition a number of my peer-reviewed publications and five additional essays never before published anywhere.

The book is slated for release this May and can be pre-ordered at the Monthly Review Press site.

Poultry of Minerva

Last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Peter Shea, the Bill Moyers of the Twin Cities, for The Bat of Minerva show.

What began as a kind of intellectual portraiture, in which we explored how I got studying the evolution of infectious disease, spiraled into about as broad a thesis on the nature of disease and agriculture and prospects for a just future as I have compiled in one place to date.

The reason–and there is a reason–we talked in such a noisy place is revealed halfway through the interview.

For those night owls out there–or nocturnal bats or poultry off their counter-seasonal photoperiods–the show will be broadcasted locally Sunday midnight (Saturday night) on Metro Cable Network/Channel 6