Jean Marie Le Pen Ebola epidemic would solve immigration problems

How many more opportunities will be given Jean Marie Le Pen (founder and honorary President of the French far-right wing National Front) to provoke chaos and feed a turmoil of plain racism and ignorance whenever he opens his mouth?

Jean Marie Le Pen states that "there is a demographic explosion in the world and a risk of submersion. A replacement (of the national population) is under way... Monsieur Ebola can solve the problem in three months." He then added that the French population is at risk of being replaced by immigrants, a tendency that can be seen throughout Europe and can be seen as a cataclysm, an invasion that has only started. Then he states that most of the so called invaders are Muslims, talks about the tendency in Islamic groups for conquering, and that numbers can pose a future threat.

I dont want to discuss politics here. We all know where policies are driving us to in Europe as in the rest of the World. We all know the positives and negatives of globalisation, and we all know that all cultures need to give and take in promoting world peace and harmony. If we are to live in peace there is a lot of work to do in offering everyone not only conditions for a better living, but also in feeding the notion that a better life standard comes with responsibilities. I wont go as far as Martin Luther King when saying that there will come a time we will all live as brothers. That is just so not going to happen in the coming 10 centuries! I think that what we have to promote is the idea that even though you might not see someone as your brother (and that is perfectly acceptable, dont beat yourself over that) you have to see it as an individual with the same HUMAN rights as you. Bear in mind that I am not talking about SOCIAL rights, but human rights. Social rights should be acquired, given to you when you embrace the pre-determined behaviour of a social group that, as a group, provides for the society as a whole. Human rights are inherited as your parents cells fuse. That is, at least, my opinion.

What I want to analyse is just some parts of Le Pens statement that might concern this blog as a science platform.

a) There is a demographic explosion in the world.

The human population has grown about ten-fold over the past 300 years and nearly four-fold in just the last century. However, there are signs that in our times the human population explosion is actually decreasing in rate, and several researchers assume that a decline will occur. [1]

[1]

b) Ebola can solve the immigration problem in three months.

I need to use the words of two, can I call them experts?, in the studies of Environmental sustainability and Epidemics; Professor Melissa Leach and Amanda Teckman. I strongly beg you to read Professor Leachs interview concerning Ebola and Lassa, seen under the eye of the local populations, accessing here. 

[2]

Amanda Teckman very wisely states that the greatest problem concerning Ebola is the possibility of the virus being used as a bioterrorist weapon. Her article entitled "The bioterrorist threat of Ebola in East Africa and implications for Global Health and Security" opens the discussion with a very sensitive point that has been neglected so far. She writes "Ebolas epidemiological makeup creates circumstances in which could spread quickly to ALL parts of the globe". [3] Not only Africa, but also France, Monsieur Le Pen. And she proceeds clarifying that "Global health and security are currently compromised because a vaccine has not been discovered to prevent and treat the virus and deter bioviolence". Unless Le Pen is planning to go all bioterrorist and attack Africans with Ebola on a scale and unprecedented thinking, preparation and focused aim, I see no logic in his words, if they were ever to be logical at all in the first place.

[1] The Encyclopaedia of Earth, Human population explosion, [http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153596/], last visit on the 22nd May 2014, last update on the 26th of February 2014.

[2] World Health Organisation, Time to put Ebola in context, [http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/10-030710/en/], last visit on the 22nd of May 2014, last update on July 2010.

[3] Teckman, A (2013). "The bioterrorist threat of Ebola in East Africa and implications for global health and security". Global Policy Essay, pp. 1-15.

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An epidemic of emotional proportions

As I was researching through articles available on the internet on the subject of mental health disorders among university students, I came across many different names. Names of young people who are no longer with us. Names that carved deep a wound in their families hearts and reveal that we are facing disaster. These people became mere statistics. Their names remain validated in the emotional footprint of the ones who will always love them, but their existence will sadly drop down to numbers in reports.  

Everywhere in the world where pressure is used as the ongoing strategy, some subjects fall. Everywhere there is a sudden change of approach asking for sudden acclimatization, some subjects fall. We are basically the only living species that races towards its own extinction as if an unstoppable oligarch management program was at full steam and could not be detained. This mesh of global demands is promoting a global epidemics and its taking place in many different social realities. 

For example, Hungary ranks amongst the most suicidal countries in the world (17th in 25). But if you think money is the issue than look at Japan (18th place). The list of 25 countries with the highest suicide rates also sees the name of Poland, one of the emerging economies in the world [3]. 

When it comes to the focus group of this post, the number of students considering suicide and actually attempting it is growing in campuses all over Canada [1, 2].

Why? Students are at a very early age confronted with decisions that will have a huge implication in their lives and they start of in debt. But my personal opinion is that the biggest causal agent in the increasing number of graduate students looking for counseling services and psychological support of some kind is the modern social and professional systems. These favour competitiveness rather than cooperation, and also the enormous prejudice surrounding aspects like mental health disorder. 

***

I worked as an interpreter for NHS in the past, and as I was waiting for a patient to show up for the appointment I had the opportunity of exchanging a few impressions with the patients practitioner. I told him that if they were able to change from a designation of "mental health disorder" to "emotional disorder", "mental health patient" to "emotional patient", most of the cases of mild depression, stress, anxiety would see an increase in the number of patients and a reduction of serious cases ending up in suicide. No mildly depressed person wants to be seen in the same pot as a schizophreniac, a bipolar, and the like. The judgemental attitude of a system towards people in need of emotional counselling is forcing people, regardless of age, gender or religion, to feel scrutinised under the same doom spell as maniacs. And if one is not a maniac one doesnt want to be seen as one.

Everywhere in the developed world suicide is becoming an epidemic. But that is the end of the line, until a person reaches such a low point there is a toll of personal decay that drags the individual as well as the individuals family and friends to a very dangerous zone. And this is becoming worse every year with increased pressure for success institutionalized in peoples lives from such early age.

If you read a research report by the WHO on global suicide rates among young people aged 15-19 [4] you will see where exactly the problem starts. There has been over the last few decades a rising trend in youth suicide [4]. This is ever more concerning when global suicide rates are falling.

Lets just look at these three random examples in the globe:

Canada

In 2012, approximately 17% of Canadians aged 15 and older, perceived themselves as having had a need for mental health care in the past 12 months. Counselling, at 12%, was the most common type of mental health care need cited by this group [2].

Boston (USA)

 [5]

England and Wales

Families are generationally spaced from their offsprings. Time available for the family to support and actually monitor their youngsters is ever so reduced. An autistic fragmentation of communication is devised by the new digital Era. Media portray success as the only possible way to be somebody, and most of the time at all cost. Instability is a way of life nowadays. As things are at the moment most of the time it is up to you, as a friend, to make a difference in someones life.

[1] Campus crisis: why are suicide rates rising among university students, [http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/campus-crisis-why-are-suicide-rates-rising-among-university-students-1.1463654], last visited on the 18th of May 2015, last updated on the 27th of september 2013.

[2] Canadian Community Health Survey: Mental Health 2012, Statistics Canada, last visited on the 18th of May 2015, last updated on the 18th of september 2015.

[3] 25 countries with the highest suicide rate, list 25, [http://list25.com/25-countries-with-the-highest-suicide-rates-in-the-world/2/], last visited on the 18th of May 2015, last updated on the 21st of February 2015.

[4] Wasserman, Danuta, Cheng, Qi, Jiang, Guo-Xin (2005). "Global suicide rates among young people aged 15-19". World Pychiatry, 4:2, pp. 114-120.

[5] Students suicide rise during recession years, The Guardian Higher Education Network, [http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2012/nov/30/student-suicide-recession-mental-health], last visited on the 18th of May 2015, last updated on the 30th of November 2012.

All images kindly taken from [http://www.collegedegreesearch.net/student-suicides/].

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