Arturo Casadevall, author of What If Fungi Win?, argues in a recent interview that there is a ‘dangerous’ pandemic looming, and says ‘nothing is impossible’.
The COVID-19 pandemic ought to keep us on our feet. But humanity doesn’t have experience with a fungal pandemic, so it’s anybody’s guess what it could look like, or how it would unfold. There’s no way of telling on what it would do on a global health scale.
Molecular microbiologist says fungi could ‘unleash new diseases’ as climate changes advances
As global temperatures rise and the climate becomes more unstable and unpredictable, changes are bound to happen in ways we cannot foresee.
And Arturo Casadevall, professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says there’s “no reason to believe fungi will be an exception” to this rule.
Paradoxically, modern medicine is leading us down a path where “more people are vulnerable to new fungal infections,” he points out. Certain fungi have the potential to “unleash new diseases,” he says, “that will harm many more humans in unprecedented ways.”
If a fungus could adapt to higher temperatures, for example, this could lead to the spread of more fungal diseases in especially vulnerable areas.
The Last of Us type of apocalypse is ‘improbable but not impossible’
Casadevall argues that a Last Of Us-style apocalypse caused by fungi is “improbable, but not impossible.”
“Right now, we don’t know of any fungus that can turn a human into a zombie. But there’s no question in my mind that we’re likely to see dangerous new fungal pathogens emerge in time.”
In recent years, a fungal pandemic has been ravaging amphibian populations and causing biodiversity loss in our “interconnected world.”
Naturally, it follows that if amphibians “that have been around for millions of years and which have good immune systems like we do” can fall victim to fungal disease, we can too.
Why it’s so hard to find drugs that kill fungi without hurting us
Fungi are our closest relatives. Closer than plants. Closer than protoctista, or eukaryotic organisms. And closer than prokaryotes, too.
It’s for this reason that they’re comparatively difficult to wipe out without also harming ourselves.
There’s also an economic explanation, says Casadevall. In a capitalist system, pharmaceutical companies are more likely to invest in research that promises greater profits. Since fungal diseases tend to be uncommon, the market in treating and eliminating them is relatively small.
Casadevall’s outlook is simultaneously hopeful and bleak.
He looks at scientific failure as an existential problem: “If science doesn’t work, it’s not going to give humanity the tools it needs. And if people lose confidence in us [scientists], they’re going to cut the funding, and then it’s all going to be a downward spiral. Less funding, less science, less solutions.”
Yet, he argues that if fungi win, “we win.” And, spoiler alert, he thinks “they already won.”
