Climate Cast ®

From anthrax in the Arctic to tickborne illness at home, climate change worsens disease

blacklegged ticks
Health Department epidemiologist Dave Neitzel shows off a black-legged tick on his arm on May 6.
Elizabeth Dunbar MPR News | 2011

We know all about mosquitoes and ticks in Minnesota. And the diseases they carry — Lyme disease, West Nile virus, dengue fever — are increasing as our climate warms.

In fact, 58 percent of human pathogenic diseases are aggravated by climate change. That’s according to a study published in Nature Climate Change this month.

Erik Franklin is a coauthor on the study and a researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. He joined Climate Cast this week to talk about the paper.

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