Biodiversity and human health
By: edited by Francesca Grifo and Joshua Rosenthal ; foreword by Thomas E. Lovejoy.
Contributors: Grifo, Francesca.; Rosenthal, Joshua.
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 379
Subjects: Environmental health -- Congresses; Biological diversity -- Congresses; Pharmacognosy -- Congresses
Description: The implications of biodiversity loss for the global environment have been widely discussed, but only recently has attention been paid to its direct and serious effects on human health. Biodiversity loss affects the spread of human diseases, causes a loss of medical models, diminishes the supplies of raw materials for drug discovery and biotechnology, and threatens food production and water quality.

Biodiversity and Human Health brings together leading thinkers on the global environment and biomedicine to explore the human health consequences of the loss of biological diversity.

Based on a two-day conference sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution, the book opens a dialogue among experts from the fields of public health, biology, epidemiology, botany, ecology, demography, and pharmacology on this vital but often neglected concern.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.