The City Where People Are Afraid To Breathe 243
HonorPoncaCityDotCom writes "BBC reports that cases of an incurable illness called valley fever are multiplying at an alarming and mystifying rate in the American south-west. Few places have been hit as hard as Avenal, a remote city of 14,000 people, nestling in a dip in the floor of the San Joaquin Valley in what experts refer to as a 'hot zone' for coccidioidomycosis — an illness caused by the inhalation of tiny fungal spores that usually reside in the soil. 'On windy days you are more conscious of it,' says Enrique Jimenez. 'You breathe in through your nose, and try not to breathe in as much dust. I worked in the fields for a long time, my father managed a few crops out here, and we took precautions, wearing bandanas.' Valley Fever is not easy to treat. Anti-fungal drugs are available for serious cases but some patients don't respond and it can take years to clear up. It never leaves the body and symptoms can be triggered again. Some patients are on the drugs for life, at a crippling financial cost. During World War II, German prisoners held at a camp in Arizona fell ill. Germany reportedly invoked the Geneva Convention to try to get them moved. Longstanding concerns about valley fever were heightened recently when a federal health official ordered the transfer of more than 3,000 exceptionally vulnerable inmates from two San Joaquin Valley prisons where several dozen have died of the disease in recent years. Dale Pulde, a motorcycle mechanic in Los Angeles County, said he contracted the disease three years ago after traveling to Bakersfield in Kern County and was coughing so hard he was blacking out; he spit blood and couldn't catch his breath. For two months, doctors tested him for everything from tuberculosis to cancer until blood tests confirmed he had the fever. 'When I found out that health officials knew about (this disease) and how common it is, I was beside myself,' said Pulde. 'Why don't they tell people?'"
hmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Valley fever (Score:3, Insightful)
As if the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation doesn't have enough problems on its hands being forced to downsize the population of its myriad gulags, they have two prisons near Ground Zero of this disease and several more in the general vicinity. It would not be surprising if they are forced by a court eventually to close these prisons because of valley fever. I, for one, would be pleased to see a reversal in the trend in the United States to imprison instead of rehabilitate those who are eminently rehabilitatable.
Re:Valley fever (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is not prison population. The real problem is that urban areas like Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco ship their prisoners to the Central Valley (more recently Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma) because they do not want to pay for a prison in their own urban centers. Lower land costs, lower utility costs, and lower cost of living/labor makes the Central Valley a better place to house prisoners.
My father-in-law works at one of these Central Valley prisons, and I can tell you that his entire prison (3,000) does not fall within the category of rehabilitation. The entire prison is for people who were transferred from other prisons for murdering another prisoner or who were convicted of murder prior to being jailed. Not exactly the type of people that respond well to counseling and talk therapy. More like the kind of people that would stab you with a metal pen.
Why don't they tell?????? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they tell people that the southwest is full of sharp plants???
Why don't they tell people that the southwest if HOT???
Why don't they tell people that "it's a dry heat"???
Because most southwesterners already KNOW, that's why. Few people have problems from valley fever(1 in 1000, or 1 in 5000 depending on source). And all the medical people will test for it first when a patient comes in experiencing a bad "fever". Even the people that have it (or have noticeable symptoms) usually can overcome it themselves without any medical treatment.
Re:hmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the citizens are left to fend for themselves but the prisoners are evacuated in air conditioned buses.
The prisoners are the direct responsibility of the State and therefore the State is liable for their health and well being.
Re:Moderators asleep at the job (Score:5, Insightful)
Shingles is a virus, Valley Fever is a fungus that gets inhaled. They are not the same.
So what? Both are obviously true despite your claim that they can't be. Virus vs. fungus has no bearing on it.
0) You can be infected with something.
1) You can fight it off and become immune to it.
2) You can later be reinfected by the remnants that still remain in your body - because the infectious agent has changed, because your immune system has failed/been overwhelmed, because your specific immunity has gone away, or because the mechanism of infection (or location in your body) is different (even if the infectious agent is unchanged).
Re:I expected China, but here in the US? (Score:5, Insightful)
>Surprising. It's a "new low" in the US as far as I'm concerned. If an area is not safe for human habitation, it needs to be closed off. "Why don't they tell people?!"
It's no big secret. People who live there know about it. God alone knows why they live there. If you go to Avenal and look around, you can see 20+ really good reasons not to live there before you even think about Valley Fever.
Old saw still applies (Score:5, Insightful)
In undeveloped countries, don't drink the water. In developed countries, don't breathe the air.
Re:hmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
American media are busy trying to inform you of the NSA being the good guys on their five-hour long morning show. Later, they want you to know about the upcoming season of Honey Boo Boo. After they tell you all this they want to show you some Commercials so you can buy a Laptop with Windows 8. After the break they want to have a sit-down with some self-proclaimed former attorney that will explain to you why the Jury was wrong about the Zimmerman verdict, they'll be sure to spend two whole hours with limited Commercial breaks on that fiasco.
Re:hmm.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The prisoners may be free men again some day, and have the same right to health that everyone else does. Free men are able to leave the dangerous areas as they please. Prisoners don't have that choice.
Re:The City Where People Are Afraid To Breathe (Score:4, Insightful)
Stories like that always make me wonder why the turbines in coal, gas, and nuclear plants don't use neodymium magnets. Why is it that only renewable energy sources have to use materials that cause environmental damage to extract, but the physical equipment for non-renewables are made out of 110% non-polluting unicorn giggles?
Re:hmm.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hmm.. (Score:2, Insightful)
And many are not. Many are young kids who decided a life of living on the street free from the constraints of "the man" is a good way to live. I know; I live here.