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WHAT IS NORMAL FOR A FIVE-BILLION-YEAR-OLD PATIENT WITH a 25,000-mile waistline? How can such a patient be diagnosed and treated? These are among the questions that are being seriously considered by a new breed of "physician" whose patient is the earth.
The processes of birth, development, disease, health, and death of living organisms are regulated, for the most part, by two information systems. One of these is located in vivo, where genes and other biomolecules express and manage information as to the creation and development of life forms and protect them against disease. The other is located ex vivo, and consists of molecules and organisms capable of altering, damaging, or killing life forms.
The first of these is the central concern of physicians; the second, of ecological scientists. Together they are emerging as a new realm of healthcare: ecological medicine. The forces driving this blending of medicine and ecological science are new perceptions that point to strong parallels between human and planetary health and illness: (1) Human diseases are basically molecular in nature, most often arising because of pathogens or genetic defects, and (2) planetary diseases are likewise caused by pathogens (such as humans) or genetic defects (such as the San Andreas fault).
The intersection between the relatively young science of ecology and the much older tradition of medicine is not just theoretical. The boundaries between these two disciplines merge in the practice of any healthcare professional who diagnoses, treats, or prevents human illness by diagnosing, treating, or preventing environmental illness.
In this sense, ecological medicine has a long history in the practices of public health officials who have treated polluted water supplies or carried out sanitation efforts, and occupational medicine physicians who have worked to eliminate or minimize toxins in the workplace.
While these practitioners do treat the environment, their primary patient is the human being. What is different about the newly emerging conception of ecological medicine is that the primary patient is the planet. This distinction is not, however, as clear-cut as it might at first appear, for the intimate interdependence of the human patient and the planetary patient is such that the health or illness of one cannot exist without profoundly affecting the health or illness of the other.
Consider, for...