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)."
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our new brain parasite overlo...
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:Obligatory (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Don't walk around bare foot.
Don't eat raw vegetables from fields people or dogs poop in
Don't eat raw meat.
Get regular checkups, you can always ask for blood tests to see if you have blood parasites.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Informative)
Don't walk around bare foot.
Aren't you thinking of hookworms?
Don't eat raw vegetables from fields people or dogs poop in
Dogs? Because only dogs can have tapeworm infections? If you want to be safe you should avoid eating any raw vegetables that weren't grown somewhere protected from wild animals. Like hydroponic or greenhouse vegetables.
Don't eat raw meat.
Or rare meat. The core of the meat has to reach a high enough temperature [foodsafety.gov] to reliably kill the parasites. 145F for pork and fish. 165 for everything else. Note that chefs routinely go lower than these temperatures in order to avoid tough, leathery meat. I would imagine that fish tapeworms are the most common in the US since cooking fish too long will ruin it. And then of course there is sushi.
Get regular checkups, you can always ask for blood tests to see if you have blood parasites.
Blood tests are not considered reliable [medscape.com]
Eosinophil counts are not diagnostically reliable. Eosinophilia is sporadically present and does not correlate with the severity of the infection. Eosinophil counts also do not help in monitoring treatment modalities.
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Informative)
Fish tapeworms won't be found in sushi -- fish sold for raw consumption has to be frozen to kill the parasites.
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In the United States, sushi fish must be deep-frozen before being served, at a low enough temperature and long enough duration to kill all parasites.
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.
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No, it's just less likely than other options and hence further down the list of things to check for that if it was common. And of course less chance of the lucky "I've seen this before" light bulb from a doctor.
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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 d
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We, as a collective America (the country, not the continent), need to put our foot down and tell them to Get Off Our Lawn (the grassy parts of America, which probably excludes Texas).
[/sarcasm]
Re:At Some Point... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:At Some Point... (Score:5, Funny)
Give them the tools first, then chase them around in a regular pattern that starts from your door, covers the whole lawn and ends at the gate.
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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.
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I am from Georgia, and had a tapeworm when I was about 7 or so. And, yes, I was going barefoot a lot that summer.
Re:At Some Point... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is Slashdot, and reading the article is blasphemy, but if you'd read the article in its entirety, you'd know that the symptoms of this particular kind of infection can go on for decades before it reaches the point where surgery is necessary, and that the woman in question went to a doctor with these symptoms 25 years ago and was given tylenol. The article goes on to say that if it's caught early, it can be treated effectively and cheaply with steroid drugs.
The problem isn't having inadequate systems in place, it's not having proper education about this kind of thing. When the cost rises so dramatically if it's left to stew for so long, it becomes cost effective to educate people and doctors about the risks and symptoms, especially when the majority of those affected will be on medicaid, and the US taxpayer will have to foot the bill for brain surgery in the most inefficient and expensive health care system in the world (medicaid itself spends about twice per patient what gets spent in countries like Canada or the UK). Given all the other drug ads you see on US television, you'd think the steroid manufacturers would be doing the education for the health authorities.....
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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.
Yes, it must be brought into places like Texas from places like Mexico which are so geographically distant that Texas was never even part of Mexico or anything. Clearly tapeworms couldn't be native to the US. It's impossible that you just made that up. Also clearly they must travel in those filthy, infected, unclean, foul immigrants and could never travel in, say, non-humans.
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It's the same things a Texas being condemned for a low graduation rate without recognizing the huge number of illegals that can't speak English and don't stick around long enough to graduate.
On the other hand, people from Texas do tend to be morons...
Hey! I resemble that remark, you insensitive clod!
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The cook can be infected the same way so you've gotta make sure none of the restaurants that the cook has ever eaten at has a cook who immigrated from an infected country or has eaten at a restaurant where the cook...
So what's your Bacon number then?
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That's Goa'uld and their pretty nasty and it takes a lot to get cured of them.
For the children
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa'uld [wikipedia.org]
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Finally the symbiotic friend I've always dreamed of.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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(wikipedia gets him off the hook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiote [wikipedia.org])
The definition of symbiosis is controversial among scientists. Some believe symbiosis should only refer to persistent mutualisms, while others believe it should apply to any types of persistent biological interactions (i.e. mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic).
or vagina. symbiotic vagina? been there, done that...
This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Informative)
This comes from pork, so don't eat undercooked pork. Tapeworms, in general, come from raw/undercooked meat. Pigs just happen to harbor the ones that sometimes go to person's brain.
Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Informative)
There is a tapeworm that comes from cow meet also, although it is less aggressive and rarer than the pork one. So yeah, I agree the most likely cause if poorly cooked pork meat.
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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.
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.
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:This is why we cook our meats (Score:4, Interesting)
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, Informative)
You are lying, anyone taking 1 minute searching on Google can find articles like this one:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=our-big-pig-problem [scientificamerican.com]
That explains quite clearly how US producers use low dosage antibiotics to fatten animals. Some other countries may do the same, but many do not.
And the problem is not direct harm to the end consumer, but to the environment as well as creating a breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria that might then infect people - infections that cannot be treated using common antibiotics because they are resistant.
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There is a tapeworm that comes from cow meet also, although it is less aggressive and rarer than the pork one. So yeah, I agree the most likely cause if poorly cooked pork meat.
Cows?!? How dare you ... oh, wait you didn't mention mad cow disease in Texas. Nemmind.
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Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Funny)
I don't get it. The immigrants are transmitting tapeworms to Californian pigs? Or directly transmitting them to purebred but presumably cannibalistic Californians? Or people are eating immigrants' lunches?
Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Funny)
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The Alpha Centaurans are immigrants too, idiot. They all came from Gliese 876.
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Didn't anyone watch the last season finale of Battlestar Galactica?
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Galactica 80? No, I think that's the main reason it was cancelled...
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A family member, friend or restaurant cook infected with an adult tapeworm can secrete tens of thousands of tapeworm eggs daily, which can be easily ingested by others.
eating food prepared by an infected person. one infected person at a restaurant could infect a few hundred people in a day.
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why is the infected person bleeding and/or shitting all over the food?
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why is the infected person bleeding and/or shitting all over the food?
They don't have to shit in the food. Have you ever been to a restaurant restroom? You know that sign that says "employees must wash hands"? There's a reason for that sign.
Re:This is why we cook our meats (Score:5, Informative)
I don't get it. The immigrants are transmitting tapeworms to Californian pigs? Or directly transmitting them to purebred but presumably cannibalistic Californians? Or people are eating immigrants' lunches?
Transmitting between people, not so hard if you live in undeveloped conditions. If your toilet is close to where you grow/raise your own food you're going to get something eventually. This is why proper disposal of human waste is important and using uncomposted manure for fertilizer is such a bad idea.
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.
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If you read TFA, you'd know that they are brought in by filthy immigrants from filthy countries. The note that the infestations are taking root in California is a big indicator of that, with California being a sanctuary state and all. Come on in, all you stinky unbathed barefoot burrito eaters! You get everything for free at the taxpayers' expense!
While it's always heartening to see an ethnic rant, not all of California's disadvantaged immigrants come from the south, and not all of them get welfare assistance.
"Nobody cares"!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Finally a CT scan revealed the malady. Alvarez had neurocysticercosis — a calcified tapeworm lodged in her brain...Nobody cares about this disease, and they should, if not from a humanitarian point of view than from a fiscal aspect, says Wilkins, a scientist with the CDC
JESUS H FUCKING CHRIST! I CARE! How can one NOT care about brainworms!
Forget al qaeda! America has a NEW ENEMY! And it is brain tape worms! Take all my taxes, draft people, use those milimeter wave scanners on every street corner, suspend the constitution, I don't care, just keep these terrifying slimy things out of my cerebral cortex!!!
Re:"Nobody cares"!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"Nobody cares"!?!? (Score:4, Funny)
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Everyone cares and knows about neurocystercicosis. It isn't rare, just uncommon in the U.S. It's the cause for about 50% of the cases of epilepsy outside of the U.S. It's pretty treatable. It's often asymptomatic, and I run into it fairly routinely, though not as much as when I lived in Texas and California. One famous case was of a Hasidic Jewish family that got it. You see, you get the tapeworms from eating undercooked pork, but you get cistercicosis for
oral-fecal contamination from someone who has the wo
great doctors... (Score:3)
In the late 1980s she complained to American doctors of a pain so absolute it blinded her and made her vomit.
They gave her Tylenol.
And that's why i avoid all facets of the USA medical system like the plague.
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Indeed, if only a small percentage of the money that is spend on terrorism hysteria was going towards public health significantly more lives could be saved.
Thank you for making this point so succinctly.
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For a minute there I thought you were talking about Fox News.
This sucks (Score:2)
Why can't we get parasites that make us super intelligent?
Re:This sucks (Score:5, Funny)
You just don't eat enough old egg salad sandwiches in space gas stations.
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You just don't eat enough old egg salad sandwiches in space gas stations.
In the end, no matter how well you play the holophonor, it's just not worth it.
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Just make a metaphorical deal with the devil. .. and by Devil I mean robot devil, and my metaphorical I mean get you coat.
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You just don't eat enough old egg salad sandwiches in space gas stations.
In the end, no matter how well you play the holophonor, it's just not worth it.
You mean, once the worms start playing Worms inside your brain?
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Why can't we get parasites that make us super intelligent?
Just like "The Puppet Masters"?
Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
As California is a gateway, thanks to its border with Latin America and many international airports (plus a few containers brought to shore filled with asian imigrants, one was found abandoned at sea a few years ago) we gots lots of happy little bugs.
It's not difficult in some corners of the world to buy a false health certification, which allows someone with rampant Tuberculosis to come on in and cough among us. (thanks to this I went on a 9 month course of Isoniazid as a preventative meausre, 9 months of total suck) Further there are people coming from rural backgrounds in SE Asia who have various gut and blood parasites, they move to the big city, get a leg up and move to the US. There's some pretty graphic examples of what peasants could have in their guts in the way of big worms thanks to eating food grown in fields fertilized by raw manure from infected oxen, goats, etc., and walking around in same fields bare footed. A mobile population in the world means this is going to happen more often, everywhere.
Don't like it? Maybe mandatory health screenings for visitors to the US, but if you even start talking about it you'll be called all sorts of names by various groups and who is going to pay for it?
Not just West Nile that's getting around.
Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention all those nasty deseases the european immigrants brought with them to america.
Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you got any evidence for this, in terms of research done providing statistics on the percentage of parasites traceable to immigrants, or are you just pointing the finger at these people when you should be looking at shoddy health inspection practices?
Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Dey took ur JERBS! And gave us WERMS!
Finaly (Score:5, Funny)
Good call, except for timing (Score:5, Funny)
I though they were just insane, who would have thought they have parasites eating their brains?
The brains were gone long ago.
It's been all parasite for about a decade now.
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The legislature isn't the problem. The ballot propositions are the problem. California has mob rule, and the mob isn't very bright. 85% of California's budget is determined by ballot measures. The legislature only controls 15% of the budget.
How much could you accomplish if your 5 year old kid controlled 85% of your budget and you only controlled 15%?
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How much could you accomplish if your 5 year old kid controlled 85% of your budget and you only controlled 15%?
You forgot that the 5-year-olds elect 6-year-olds to control that last 15%, leaving adults with no control.
Patient information discloser much...? (Score:2)
The Bigger Story (Score:3)
The worm had a person wrapped around it.
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also could have been the salmon moose (sic[k])
This could explain a lot of things (Score:2)
about California if it turns out the problem is much more common than currently understood.
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Actually, if you read the story, it is not known where she acquired the parasite, and California, by virtue of its large immigrant population, has a bigger share of the problem (at least as it is known right now) than other states.
My comment had nothing to do with where the woman acquired the parasite or what her ethnic heritage is, and was more of a comment on the poor state of everything in California. I was suggesting that the reason almost everything is so screwed up in California is that maybe there's
It's not a town, it's not outside anything (Score:3)
This story makes it sound like you're in the burbs. Sunnyvale is a city in the heart of Silicon Valley. It borders both Cupertino (home of Apple) and Mountain View (home of Google) and has more residents than both of those put together. Would you read a story on slashdot relating how Cupertino is a town 45 miles from San Francisco?
Weird.
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This story makes it sound like you're in the burbs. Sunnyvale is a city in the heart of Silicon Valley. It borders both Cupertino (home of Apple) and Mountain View (home of Google) and has more residents than both of those put together. Would you read a story on slashdot relating how Cupertino is a town 45 miles from San Francisco?
Weird.
They didn't likely bring it, if your read through TFA, she complained of suffering pain back in the 1980's when she imigrated. Patient worm. The probably was when her immune system tried to work out what to do with the dead worm.
Sunnyvale is about as squeaky clean as you're going to find anywhere in the USA. You might find some suspect vegetables in a supermarket (anywhere in the USA) which is why you should cook pretty much everything.
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>You might find some suspect vegetables in a supermarket (anywhere in the USA) which is why you should cook pretty much everything.
Does that mean no salad?
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Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything (Score:4, Funny)
Why do you think that statement was directed at foreigners? It's the average American who needs help with geography.
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That, plus some small defense companies. Westingouse made Nuclear sub components there, and Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) is there. My dad worked at Lockheed Missiles and Space for a long time. It has also won many awards for the best run small city (population was always about 100K). Lived there off and on for 38 years.
Would love to go back, but damn, 50's vintage tract homes that are teardowns still sell for $700K+
FINALLY?!? (Score:2)
There, over the course of Christmas, doctors batted around diagnoses: tumor, cancer. Finally, Alvarez received a brain scan
My dad had symptoms of a stroke - which are similar. First thing he got? A dose of blood thinners and a brain scan at a local hospital.
I can understand a little bit of incompetence, or delays due to Christmas but please don't tell me that it was cost that prevented this simple scan from happening immediately, or I will once again shake my head at the appalling state of affairs of the US
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In that order? Sounds like a malpractice suit waiting to happen. Give blood thinners to someone with an ischemic stroke, you get a miracle cure. Give blood thinners to someone with a hemorrhagic stroke, you kill them. That's why you try to figure out what's going on before you start treatment.
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Pretty sure they were thinners.... it was some time ago. Maybe they were clotters :-P
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They have to go back and forth on the diagnosis to give House's romantic back-story time to run its course. So blame the English
Brain parasites in California? (Score:2)
This explains SO much...
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.
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.
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Not only that, but TFA basically says the woman has had the parasite since before she ever moved to CA...
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Neither Smallpox transmission nor eradication had nothing to do with hygiene. It was highly contagious through airborne transmission, and was eradicated through vaccination.
And most of the problem with parasites is due the hygiene of the carrier, not the victim. Touching one doorknob or ATM keypad that happened to be used by someone who didn't wash their hands and getting infected sounds like shit luck to me...
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.
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How extensive is the undiagnosed population, and how fast is that population growing, and how much will they cost to treat?
Yes, exactly. That is exactly what I meant with my post. Health care allocation decisions should be based on rational analysis, not whether some individual had worms in her brain on Christmas day. You are adding data points to the analysis, and that is good. I'm not saying my cursory glance is sufficient to find the right answer, just that the decision should be rational, and that even
Latte sucking sushi snarfing (Score:2)
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Even the few that did were mostly supplemented by a note of recent immigrants being the only ones impacted.
Sushi is a risk...but a very minor one, especially considering the fact that I can often trust my sushi chef more than the minimum wage person cooking other quick eats to prepare my food under sanitary conditions (I've received under cooked meat many times at fast food establishments).
California, it figures (Score:3)
All the way across the country from Dr House.
This was the series pilot [wikia.com] subject disease.
Summary troll (Score:5, Informative)
The parasites apparently were contracted outside of the United States according to the article contrary to all of the other comments and contrary to what the Slashdot summary seems to imply.
Get'm B4 they enter the brain WITH PAPAYA SEEDS! (Score:3, Informative)
Can we give them to our politicians? (Score:3)
It can't hurt right?
Serious medical crisis aside, all I can picture in my head right now is Paul Ryan wearing a brain slug from Futurama, "Poor little guy starved to death"
On the other hand, parasites can be good for you (Score:2)
Much is explained (Score:4, Funny)
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Rack City is Vegas (which is not in CA, in case you did not know)