Sunday, August 27, 2017

Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico

The native people of Mexico experienced an epidemic disease in the wake of European conquest (Figure 1), beginning with the smallpox epidemic of 1519 to 1520 when 5 million to 8 million people perished. The catastrophic epidemics that began in 1545 and 1576 subsequently killed an additional 7 million to 17 million people in the highlands of Mexico (). Recent epidemiologic research suggests that the events in 1545 and 1576, associated with a high death rate and referred to as cocoliztli (Nahuatl for "pest"), may have been due to indigenous hemorrhagic fevers (,). Tree-ring evidence, allowing reconstructions of the levels precipitation, indicate that the worst drought to afflict North America in the past 500 years also occurred in the mid-16th century, when severe drought extended at times from Mexico to the boreal forest and from the Pacific to Atlantic coasts . These droughts appear to have interacted with ecologic and sociologic conditions, magnifying the human impact of infectious disease in 16th-century Mexico.
Figure 1
The 16th-century population collapse in
Mexico, based on estimates of Cook and
Simpson . The 1545 and 1576 cocoliztli
epidemics appear to have been hemorrhagic
fevers caused by an indigenous viral agent
and aggravated by unusual climatic
conditions.
The epidemic of cocoliztli from 1545 to 1548 killed an estimated 5 million to 15 million people, or up to 80% of the native population of Mexico (Figure 1). In absolute and relative terms the 1545 epidemic was one of the worst demographic catastrophes in human history, approaching even the Black Death of bubonic plague, which killed approximately 25 million in western Europe from 1347 to 1351 or about 50% of the regional population.
The cocoliztli epidemic from 1576 to 1578 cocoliztli epidemic killed an additional 2 to 2.5 million people, or about 50% of the remaining native population. Newly introduced European and African diseases such as smallpox, measles, and typhus have long been the suspected cause of the population collapse in both 1545 and 1576 because both epidemics preferentially killed native people. But careful reanalysis of the 1545 and 1576 epidemics now indicates that they were probably hemorrhagic fevers, likely caused by an indigenous virus and carried by a rodent host. These infections appear to have been aggravated by the extreme climatic conditions of the time and by the poor living conditions and harsh treatment of the native people under the encomienda system of New Spain. The Mexican natives in the encomienda system were treated as virtual slaves, were poorly fed and clothed, and were greatly overworked as farm and mine laborers. This harsh treatment appears to have left them particularly vulnerable to epidemic disease.
Cocoliztli was a swift and highly lethal disease. Francisco Hernandez, the Proto-Medico of New Spain, former personal physician of King Phillip II and one of the most qualified physicians of the day, witnessed the symptoms of the 1576 cocoliztli infections. Hernandez described the gruesome cocoliztli symptoms with clinical accuracy (,). The symptoms included high fever, severe headache, vertigo, black tongue, dark urine, dysentery, severe abdominal and thoracic pain, large nodules behind the ears that often invaded the neck and face, acute neurologic disorders, and profuse bleeding from the nose, eyes, and mouth with death frequently occurring in 3 to 4 days. These symptoms are not consistent with known European or African diseases present in Mexico during the 16th century.
The geography of the 16th century cocoliztli epidemics supports the notion that they may have been indigenous fevers carried by rodents or other hosts native to the highlands of Mexico. In 1545 the epidemic affected the northern and central high valleys of Mexico and ended in Chiapas and Guatemala . In both the 1545 and 1576 epidemics, the infections were largely absent from the warm, low-lying coastal plains on the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific coasts . This geography of disease is not consistent with the introduction of an Old World virus to Mexico, which should have effected both coastal and highland populations.
Tree-ring evidence, reconstructed rainfall over Durango, Mexico during the 16th century , adds support to the hypothesis that unusual climatic conditions may have interacted with host-population dynamics and the cocoliztli virus to aggravate the epidemics of 1545 and 1576. The tree-ring data indicate that both epidemics occurred during the 16th century megadrought, the most severe and sustained drought to impact north central Mexico in the past 600 years (Figure 2; []). The scenario for the climatic, ecologic, and sociologic mediation of the 16th-century cocoliztli epidemics is reminiscent of the rodent population dynamics involved in the outbreak of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome caused by Sin Nombre Virus on the Colorado Plateau in 1993 (,). Cocoliztli was not pulmonary and may not have been a hantavirus but may have been spread by a rodent host. If true, then the prolonged drought before the 16th-century epidemics would have reduced the available water and food resources. The animal hosts would then tend to concentrate around the remnants of the resource base, where heightened aggressiveness would favor a spread of the viral agent among this residual rodent population. Following improved climatic conditions, the rodents may have invaded both farm fields and homes, where people were infected through aspiration of excreta, thereby initiating the cocoliztli epidemic. The native people of Mexico may have been preferentially infected because they worked the agricultural fields and facilities that were presumably infested with infected rodents.
Figure 2
Winter-spring precipitation reconstructed
from tree ring data, Durango, Mexico
(normalized and smoothed to highlight
decennial variability). The tree-ring
estimates explain 56% of the variance
in precipitation for Durango and are
consistent with independent 
Ten lesser epidemics of cocoliztli began in the years 1559, 1566, 1587, 1592, 1601, 1604, 1606, 1613, 1624, and 1642 . Nine of them began in years in which the tree-ring reconstructions of precipitation indicate winter-spring (November-March) and early summer (May-June) drought . But the worst epidemic of cocoliztli ever witnessed, 1545-1548, actually began during a brief wet episode within the era of prolonged drought (Figure 3). This pattern of drought followed by wetness associated with the 1545 epidemic is very similar to the dry-then-wet conditions associated with the hantavirus outbreak in 1993 (Figure 3; []), when abundant rains after a long drought resulted in a tenfold increase in local deer mouse populations. Wet conditions during the year of epidemic outbreak in both 1545 and 1993 may have led to improved ecologic conditions and may also have resulted in a proliferation of rodents across the landscape and aggravated the cocoliztli epidemic of 1545-1548.
Figure 3
The winter-spring precipitation totals
estimated for each year in Durango,
1540–1548 (top), 1571–1579 (middle).
Compared with the Palmer drought index,
southwestern USA 1988–1995 (bottom).
A tenfold increase in deer mice was witnessed
The disease described by Dr. Hernandez in 1576 is difficult to link to any specific etiologic agent or disease known today. Some aspects of cocoliztli epidemiology suggest that a native agent hosted in a rain-sensitive rodent reservoir was responsible for the disease. Many of the symptoms described by Dr. Hernandez occur to a degree in infections by rodent-borne South American arenaviruses, but no arenavirus has been positively identified in Mexico. Hantavirus is a less likely candidate for cocoliztli because epidemics of severe hantavirus hemorrhagic fevers with high death rates are unknown in the New World. The hypothesized viral agent responsible for cocoloztli remains to be identified, but several new arenaviruses and hantaviruses have recently been isolated from the Americas and perhaps more remain to be discovered . If not extinct, the microorganism that caused cocoliztli may remain hidden in the highlands of Mexico and under favorable climatic conditions could reappear.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Paleoclimatology Program Grant number ATM 9986074.

Biography

• 
Dr. Acuna-Soto is a professor of epidemiology on the Faculty of Medicine at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. He is particularly interested in the history and environmental context of disease in Mexico.

Footnotes

Suggested citation: Acuna-Soto R, Stahle DW, Cleaveland MK, and Therrell MD. [REMOVED SEQ FIELD]Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico. Emerg Infect Dis. [serial on the Internet]. 2002 Apr [date cited]. Available from http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol8no4/01-0175.htm

References

1. Cook SF, Simpson LB The Population of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century. Ibero Americana Vol. 31, Berkeley: University of California Press; 1948
2. Gerhard P A guide to the historical geography of New Spain. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press; 1993
3. Hugh T Conquest, Montezuma, Cortez, and the Fall of Old Mexico. New York: Simon and Schuster; 1993
4. Acuna-Soto R, Caderon Romero L, Maguire JH Large epidemics of hemorrhagic fevers in Mexico 1545-1815. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2002. In press [PubMed]
5. Marr JS, Kiracofe JB Was the Huey Cocoliztli a haemorrhagic fever? Med Hist. 2000;44:341–62 [PMC free article] [PubMed]
6. Stahle DW, Cleaveland MK, Therrell MD, Villanueva-Diaz J Tree-ring reconstruction of winter and summer precipitation in Durango, Mexico, for the past 600 years. 10th Symposium Global Change Studies. Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1999; 317-8.
7. Stahle DW, Cook ER, Cleaveland MK, Therrell MD, Meko DM, Grissino-Mayer HD, et al. Tree-ring data document 16th century megadrought over North America. Eos. 2000;81:121–5 10.1029/00EO00076 [Cross Ref]
8. Schmaljohn C, Hjelle B Hantaviruses: a global disease problem. Emerg Infect Dis. 1997;3:95–104 [PMC free article] [PubMed]
9. Hjelle B, Glass GE Outbreak of hantavirus infection in the Four Corners region of the United States in the wake of the 1997-1998 El Nino-Southern Oscillation. J Infect Dis. 2000;181:1569–73 10.1086/315467[PubMed] [Cross Ref]
10. Malvido E Cronologia de las epidemias y crisis agricolas de la epoca colonial. Hist Mex. 1973;89:96–101
11. Peters CJ Hemorrhagic fevers: How they wax and wane. In: Scheld WM, Armstong D, Hughes JM, editors. Emerging infections. Washington DC: American Society for Microbiology, 1998;15-25.

Articles from Emerging Infectious Diseases are provided here courtesy of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Terrorism and Islam are linked

FAZ exclusive

The Islamic scholar Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil 
Staquf is the secretary general of Indonesia's 
largest Muslim organization. He talks about 
Islamic terrorism. The West must cease to 
declare criticism of the religious foundation 
of the extremism as "islamophobic", he says.


There is a very clear link between fundamentalism, terror and basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy "says Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, general secretary of the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, in an interview with the" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "(Saturday edition of August 19, to Read at FAZ plus ). In particular, the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as the attitude of Muslims to state and law are problematic and lead to segregation and hostility. "Too many Muslims see civilization, the peaceful coexistence of people of different faith, as something to be combated," says Yahya Cholil Staquf. The growing fear of the West before IslamIs therefore quite understandable. And one must clearly say about the connections: "The West must stop explaining about these questions as islamophobic."

more on the subject





"We must come to the conclusion that an understanding that sets the traditional norms of Islamic legal doctrine absolutely false. Religious values ​​and social reality must fit together. And it must be crystal clear that the state laws take precedence, "says the Islamologist in conversation with the Frankfurter Allgemeine.
48081913© ARCHIVEnlarge"There is a very clear link between fundamentalism, terror and basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy" says Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf.
Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf comes from a Sunni scholar's family. He is General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim association in Indonesia, which is the country with the largest Muslim population worldwide. The community of Nahdlatul Ulama gives its membership with fifty million and at least partly understands moderate. Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf belongs to the spiritually oriented wing of the organization.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

DOJ Document Dump to ACLJ on Clinton Lynch Meeting: Comey FBI Lied, Media Collusion, Spin, and Illegality


We have just obtained hundreds of pages in our ongoing investigation and federal lawsuit on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton while the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI had an ongoing criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. The results are shocking.
First, the Comey FBI lied to us. Last July, we sent FOIA requests to both the Comey FBI and the Lynch DOJ asking for any documents related to the Clinton Lynch plane meeting. The FBI, under the then directorship of James Comey, replied that “No records responsive to your request were located.”
The documents we received today from the Department of Justice include several emails from the FBI to DOJ officials concerning the meeting.  One with the subject line “FLAG” was correspondence between FBI officials (Richard Quinn, FBI Media/Investigative Publicity, and Michael Kortan) and DOJ officials concerning “flag[ing] a story . . . about a casual, unscheduled meeting between former president Bill Clinton and the AG.” The DOJ official instructs the FBI to “let me know if you get any questions about this” and provides “[o]ur talkers [DOJ talking points] on this”. The talking points, however are redacted.
Another email to the FBI contains the subject line “security details coordinate between Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton?”
On July 1, 2016 – just days before our FOIA request – a DOJ email chain under the subject line, “FBI just called,” indicates that the “FBI . . . is looking for guidance” in responding to media inquiries about news reports that the FBI had prevented the press from taking pictures of the Clinton Lynch meeting. The discussion then went off email to several phone calls (of which we are not able to obtain records). An hour later, Carolyn Pokomy of the Office of the Attorney General stated, “I will let Rybicki know.” Jim Rybicki was the Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to FBI Director Jim Comey. The information that was to be provided to Rybicki is redacted.
Also of note several of the documents contain redactions that are requested “per FBI.”
It is clear that there were multiple records within the FBI responsive to our request and that discussions regarding the surreptitious meeting between then AG Lynch and the husband of the subject of an ongoing FBI criminal investigation reached the highest levels of the FBI.
However, on October 21, 2016, the Comey FBI replied to our legal demands that “No records responsive to your request were located.”  This is in direct contravention to the law, and we are preparing further legal action to force the FBI to come clean and turn over ALL documents related to this matter to us in a timely manner.
Second, the hundreds of pages of (heavily redacted – more on that below) documents paint a clear picture of a DOJ in crisis mode as the news broke of Attorney General Lynch’s meeting with former President Clinton. In fact, the records appear to indicate that the Attorney General’s spin team immediately began preparing talking points for the Attorney General regarding the meeting BEFORE ever speaking with the AG about the matter.
Third, there is clear evidence that the main stream media was colluding with the DOJ to bury the story. A Washington Post reporter, speaking of the Clinton Lynch meeting story, said, “I’m hoping I can put it to rest .” The same Washington Post reporter, interacting with the DOJ spin team, implemented specific DOJ requests to change his story to make the Attorney General appear in a more favorable light. A New York Times reporter apologetically told the Obama DOJ that he was being “pressed into service” to have to cover the story. As the story was breaking, DOJ press officials stated, “I also talked to the ABC producer, who noted that they aren’t interested, even if Fox runs with it.”
Two days after the meeting, DOJ officials in a chain of emails that includes emails to Attorney General Lynch herself stated that the media coverage of the meeting “looks like all or most are FOX” and that “CBS . . . just says a few lines about the meeting.”
Fourth, DOJ bureaucrats have redacted all the talking points, discussions of talking points, a statement on the meeting that was apparently never delivered because there was not enough media coverage on the meeting, and its substantive discussions with the FBI on the matter. They absurdly claim the “deliberative process exemption” to FOIA, which is only supposed to apply to agency rulemaking processes.
Discussions about Attorney General Lynch’s ethically questionable meeting with former President Clinton during her investigation into Hillary Clinton clearly has nothing to do with any rule making process. We will be taking these redactions back to federal court. The law is on our side. We will keep pressing on with our investigation of former Attorney General Lynch until we get to the bottom of this.
We will also keep you informed as our litigation continues.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

The evidence the FBI doesn't have

https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/890684225611067392

Okay. Well, I think you are making my point when you say there is no evidence to establish that. Maybe not in the way she handled classified information, but with respect to obstruction of justice—and you have a pen here—I just want to make the sure the record is clear about the evidence that you didn’t have, that you can’t use to prove. So this comes from the FBI’s own report. It says that the FBI didn’t have the Clintons’ personal Apple server used for Hillary Clinton work emails. That was never located, so the FBI could never examine it. An Apple MacBook laptop and thumb drive that contained Hillary Clinton’s email archives was lost, so the FBI never examined that. Two BlackBerry devices provided to the FBI didn’t have SIM cards or SD data cards. Thirteen Hillary Clinton personal mobile devices were lost, discarded, or destroyed with a hammer, so the FBI clearly didn’t examine those. Various server backups were deleted over time, so the FBI didn’t examine that. After the State Department and my colleague Mr. Gowdy here notified Ms. Clinton that her records would be sought by the Benghazi Committee, copies of her emails on the laptops of both of her lawyers, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, were wiped clean with BleachBit, so the FBI didn’t review that. After those emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton’s email archive was also permanently deleted from the Platte River Network with BleachBit, so the FBI didn’t review that. And also after the subpoena, backups of the Platte River server were manually deleted. Now, Director, hopefully that list is substantially accurate, because it comes from your own documents. My question to you is this: Any one of those in that very, very long list, to me, says obstruction of justice. Collectively, they scream obstruction of justice. And to ignore them, I think, really allows not just reasonable prosecutors but reasonable people to believe that maybe the decision on this was made a long time ago not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.