6 die from brain eating amoeba

[azurnoir]

not sci-fi, not in some far off place in the tropics, Florida, Arizona, and Texas.


It sounds like science fiction but it's true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.

"This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better," Beach said. "In future decades, as temperatures rise, we'd expect to see more cases."


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KILLER_AMOEBA?SITE=FLROC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Mythsaje]

1. Yikes...

Well, I suppose there's something to be said for living in the land of cold and wet.

[opihimoimoi]

2. Them Pubs will be filling their Pools with concrete/dirt soon enough

[azurnoir]

3. Florida and Texas could explain some things n/t

[azurnoir]

4. and deep water n/t

[frustrated_lefty]

5. Naegleria has been around for quite a while.

This one spike could be happenstance.

[Breeze54]

6. "This is definitely something we need to track," said Michael Beach

Ya think?? :crazy:

"This is definitely something we need to track," said Michael Beach, a specialist
in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Beach cautioned that people shouldn't panic about the dangers of the brain-eating bug. Cases are still extremely rare considering the number of people swimming in lakes. The easiest way to prevent infection, Beach said, is to use nose clips when swimming or diving in fresh water.

"You'd have to have water going way up in your nose to begin with" to be infected, he said.

David Evans has tried to learn as much as possible about the amoeba over the past month. But it still doesn't make much sense to him. His family had gone to Lake Havasu countless times. Have people always been in danger? Did city officials know about the amoeba? Can they do anything to kill them off?

Evans lives within eyesight of the lake. Temperatures hover in the triple digits all summer, and like almost everyone else in this desert region, the Evanses look to the lake to cool off.

It was on David Evans' birthday Sept. 8 that he brought Aaron, his other two children, and his parents to Lake Havasu. They ate sandwiches and spent a few hours splashing around.

"For a week, everything was fine," Evans said.

Then Aaron got the headache that wouldn't go away. At the hospital, doctors first suspected meningitis. Aaron was rushed to another hospital in Las Vegas.

"He asked me at one time, 'Can I die from this?'" David Evans said. "We said, 'No, no.'"

On Sept. 17, Aaron stopped breathing as his father held him in his arms.

"He was brain dead," Evans said.

Only later did doctors and the CDC determine that the boy had been infected with Naegleria.

"My kids won't ever swim on Lake Havasu again," he said.

---

On the Net:

More on the N. fowleri amoeba:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/naegleria/factsht-naegleria.htm#what

[Swamp Rat]

7. No, alien lizards named Jeb and George ate their brains.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. Does this mean Republicans are immune?

[izzie]

9. A mild form is also working at the WH and Congress.

The people will live but the brain dies.

[azurnoir]

10. it's the amoeba's that are in control n/t

[izzie]

17. I am sorry I could not help myself.

It seems to be eating up any thing learned since the Enlightenment from the brains of the Far Right.

[Beerboy]

11. brain-eating amoeba....

it keeps spreading...

[zabet]

12. There is one case of a person living

through this....Dumbya.
This would explain his moments of
'lostness' in his speeches.

[sam sarrha]

13. they were swimming and got it thru their noses

[azurnoir]

14. Wonder if the amoeba's come in a dehydrated form?

powdered, that could explain George

[sam sarrha]

16. amoeba's do encapsulate when the water dries up, and regenerate when it get wet again

[Algorem]

15. hard to believe one moeba could eat up all them brains