One Health Knowledge Management System

Image: Scientists think the lone star tick (center) likely transmits Heartland disease to people. And the virus probably also circulates in deer and coyotes. iStockphoto; CDC; iStockphoto

npr.org - September 16th, 2015 - Michaeleen Doucleff

It's called the Heartland virus disease. Since it was first detected in 2009, there have been only nine reported cases in the Midwest, including two deaths.

So scientists thought the Heartland virus was limited to a small region.

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Image: BP's Deepwater Horizon oil platform burns in April 2010, fouling the Gulf Coast: Is it responsible for a massive die-off of dolphins? (Gerald Herbert / Associated Press)

latimes.com - February 16th 2015 - Michael Hiltzik

In the years since its Deepwater Horizon oil spill befouled huge stretches of the Gulf of Mexico, oil giant BP has honed its skill at cherry-picking scientific studies to duck responsibility for the spill's environmental impacts.

Its latest effort concerns a study of a massive die-off of bottlenose dolphins in the gulf from 2010 through June 2013, occurring mostly after the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout caused the worst oil spill in history. The peer-reviewed study, led by Stephanie Venn-Watson of the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego, was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and published last week in the open-access journal PLoS One.

submitted by Albert Gomez     

In this Oct. 2008 photo provided by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation is a little brown bat with fungus on its nose in New York. Michigan and Wisconsin wildlife officials said Thursday, April 10, 2104 that tests have confirmed the presence of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats in the U.S. and Canada. The disease has now been confirmed in 25 states following today's announcements in Michigan and Wisconsin. (AP Photo/New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Ryan von Linden)

ap.org - by JOHN FLESHER and TODD RICHMOND - April 10, 2014

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A fungal disease that has killed millions of North American bats is spreading and now has been detected in half of the United States, officials said Thursday. . .

. . . "It doesn't affect people or other animals" . . . but "bats save the agricultural economy $22.9 billion a year by gobbling crop-damaging insects and reducing the need for pesticides. They also eat mosquitoes, some of which carry West Nile virus."

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