"A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die." It sounds like science fiction but it's true. (Hat tip Ron)
Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it's killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future."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.
"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."
According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL'-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.
In Arizona, David Evans said nobody knew his son, Aaron, was infected with the amoeba until after the 14-year-old died on Sept. 17. At first, the teen seemed to be suffering from nothing more than a headache.
"We didn't know," Evans said. "And here I am: I come home and I'm burying him."
After doing more tests, doctors said Aaron probably picked up the amoeba a week before while swimming in the balmy shallows of Lake Havasu, a popular man-made lake on the Colorado River between Arizona and California.
Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment.
Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve.
The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain, where it continues the damage, "basically feeding on the brain cells," Beach said. (By CHRIS KAHN, Associated Press Writer)
Not at all related, but probably of much more interest than the brain eating amoeba:
Political Pistachio has an excellent radio show lined up today. Dr. Blogstein will be one guest, "something about illegal aliens" presented with comedy. Check it out.
Iraq News: Top Shi'ite cleric meets Sunni leader, from Wake Up America
WHAT HAS THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS DONE FOR THE BLACK COMMUNITY???, "SHAKEN" BUT NOT "STIRRED"!!!
Check out Anti-Mullah's UCI News Roundup
My favorite comment:
Posted by: Grouch at Right Truth |Did you hear that John Edwards, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid were infected?
The Amoeba died of starvation.
