California's Unspoken Health Problem: Brain Parasites 313
An anonymous reader writes "Sunnyvale, California is a town 40 miles outside of San Francisco, in the Bay Area. As in most of California, the weather is mild, and the winters are short, even sometimes warm. On December 20, Sara Alvarez took her youngest child for a walk in the park in town. As daylight faded, Alvarez lost feeling in her right leg, then her left foot. Her body became numb, and she became weak. At 10:15 pm, her husband drove her to a hospital in Redwood City, about 20 minutes away from their town. There, over the course of Christmas, doctors batted around diagnoses: tumor, cancer. Finally, Alvarez received a brain scan that revealed the truth: neurocysticercosis, a calcified tapeworm in her brain (link contains images of brain surgery)."
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
After RTFA I, for one, DO NOT welcome our new brain parasite overloards
...the trouble with tapeworms occurs when they reproduce. The host expels thousands of the tapeworms' larvae out of their anus, possibly infecting other people.
Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Insightful)
hmm, that would be really odd from Pork grown in the US, these days. It's really clean compared to other countries. The exception being 'natural' or 'organic' small farms. Often the thing it's natural for a pig to eat trash and left overs.
You make a very good point. The proliferation of "organic" production and "farmer markets" open a big door toward infection. The problem is not those, but that people got used to no worrying, since their food is already sterilized, pasteurized, irradiated and whatnot into oblivion. When you go organic/natural production, you have to take certain measure to assure food safety.
Bankrupt (Score:4, Insightful)
In the United States, everyone -- insured or not -- is one major hospitalization away from total life-ruining bankruptcy. It's the health care system here that needs help. Brain parasites would be eradicated as a pleasant secondary effect.
Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention all those nasty deseases the european immigrants brought with them to america.
Oh come on! (Score:5, Insightful)
Slow news day? 386 cases out of 38,000,000 people? Clearly a serious problem. I'd have to do the math, but I think you're more likely to be hit by a space rock or eaten by a shark.
Cost/Benefit Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Budgeting for health care means focusing the available resources on the most cost effective problems first -- the things that affect the most people.
The CDC estimates that there are 1,900 diagnosed cases every year, 386 annual cases in California alone which can cost upwards of $66,000. Often it is paid through Medicare - costing taxpayers thousands.
California Population: 37m
The phrase "upwards of" jumps out at me. Let's be generous and assume the number they quoted is only twice the average.
386 cases at $33,000 = $13m per year
The cost per Californian is under $0.50 per year. Given the weasel phrase, "upwards of", it is probably a lot less than $0.50 per year. You have a one in 100,000 chance of getting it each year in California. If you are a California resident, you are less likely to get hit by lightning, but not by a whole lot.
Health care resources are limited. If we waste them on 1:100,000 shots, people with more common ailments will suffer. That is a bad economics and socially heartless.
Re:At Some Point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some idiot "researcher" will put out a study that condemns CA and/or the U.S. for not having adequate systems/procedures/etc. in place to detect and treat this even though it is not native to the U.S. and is largely brought in by immigrants.
Therefore, this condition cannot occur in the US, so detection and treatment are of no use.
Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Insightful)
The antibiotics are because the conditions are so cramped that bacterial disease transmission is extremely common. So the factory farms (chicken, pig, cow) are huge incubators for developing antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Many of the antibiotics also pass through to the stools, get diluted into the ground and groundwater, and result in an extended environment that allows for the evolution of antibiotic-resistant infections.
So does the person eating the pork get harmed directly due to ingestion? No. But when they or someone else later winds up catching an antibiotic-resistant bacterial strain that evolved thanks to the massive use of antibiotics in factory farming of meat animals? Yes.
Re:At Some Point... (Score:3, Insightful)
The people who think "immigrants" are the problem are idiots, because it doesn't take "immigrants" to introduce such problems. Merely travellers and/or imported pigs or pork, followed by people improperly cooking it and/or unsanitary conditions when preparing food. This can happen anywhere and to anyone. You can travel to another country and bring it home with you to spread around the community. Unless you're going to ban international travel and trade, you have to have a healthcare system prepared to deal with unusual imported diseases like this.
And if you think it's "not native", neither was West Nile Virus, until it became established and now is found across most of the US. Diseases do change their distribution.
Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. In the US, farm animals are routinely given low doses of anti-biotics (in their food) just for the purpose of "growth promotion", despite the lack of any of the factors you list.
Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jan/19/health.medicineandhealth3 [guardian.co.uk]
Sanitation is the greatest medical milestone of the last century and a half, acccording to a poll carried out by the British Medical Journal.
Sanitation was the clear winner among 15 milestones shortlisted by readers of the journal, including the development of vaccines, which has safeguarded many children's lives, and the invention of the contraceptive pill, which was a contributory factor to significant social change.
Getting shit away from us has saved more lives than hand washing and antiobiotics.
It's hard for people in the developed world to understand the conditions that exist throughout Africa and Asia.
Re:At Some Point... (Score:3, Insightful)
even though it is not native to the U.S. and is largely brought in by immigrants.
The article, which was mostly fluff, does not state that. Tapeworms most definitely exist in the US as well. In fact they are very common. Perhaps you can cite your source.