Pathogens

From the early years of the 20th Century we set about destroying much of the achievements and we continued to do so throughout the 20th century and into the 21^st Century.  We have only to think of the wars caused by greed and fed by the creation of ever more powerful weapons that killed people, destroyed what we had built, not forgetting the farmland devastated by conflict. Regarding our health, up to the 20^th Century,  the causes of illness and deaths had been dominated by conflict and infectious diseases, then along came antibiotics (a good thing) and we overcame pathogens such that infectious diseases became a small contributor to deaths worldwide in the second half of the 20th Century. At the same time ,the quality of our food dropped dramatically as we tried to grow food faster and bigger.  To achieve this ambition, we put aside what we had learned from nature, rode rough-shod over good practices we had developed over decades and centuries.  Our behaviour resulting in climate change is a mirror image of our respect for antibiotics.  We ignored what we were told by the inventors and used these medications anywhere and everywhere, particularly outside the human health scenario, such that the pathogens had plenty of opportunities to know how to resist the antibiotics. and learn to thrive in their presence.

We entered the 21^st Century going backwards regarding health and life expectancy. Not only were infectious diseases causing more deaths than before but the non-infectious diseases, such as cancers, strokes, heart problems and diabetes, many of which are linked to diet and poor quality food, were becoming leading causes of death and ill-health and the arrival of significant mental health problems worldwide.