If you ask random dermatologists what the dominant issue in dermatology will be during the next 100 years, they might say melanoma. Or HIV. Or — I don't know — photoaging and wrinkles.
Some of them, though, will pick the crisis that many non-dermatologists are pointing to with alarm — climate change. In fact, the International Society of Dermatology (ISD) revised its bylaws to make climate change the defining issue of the 21st century. Dermatologists gathered at the group's second Climate Change conference in June 2010 in Argentina. (The first was in Germany.)
Photo by flickr user ace_alejandre (Creative Commons).
The kissing Bug (or triatominae) is a vector for Chagas' disease.
Dr. Sigrid Muller, chair of the ISD's Climate Change Task Force, explained at the 2010 Las Vegas Dermatology Seminar why he and his colleagues are getting hot under the collar because of climate change. If you've been paying any attention to the news in recent years, you've heard about the increases in extreme weather we're experiencing, and some of the general disasters ahead if we don't slow climate change.
On a more specific dermatologic level, as warmer weather shifts latitudes, different bugs and critters come with it, and so do the diseases they carry. As a result, Lyme disease is spreading from the U.S. into Canada. Peru and Ecuador will see more Carrion's disease. Leishmaniasis is moving north into Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Ohio. There are increasing reports of Chagas' disease in the United States and Central and South America.
The ISD compiled a reference library and resources on these climate change problems for dermatologists.
Climate change: we'll lose the polar bears, but the ticks and parasites may love it.
–Sherry Boschert (@SherryBoschert on Twitter)
The Las Vegas Dermatology Seminar is sponsored by Skin Disease Education Foundation (SDEF). SDEF and this news organization are owned by Elsevier.