Hi all,

So don't want to freak anyone out here, but found this in my work 
email and thought I would pass it on.  While at first read, the 
contence here might be a little extreme I think in today's world, the 
more info we all have on a topic like this wheather you agree with 
this or not doesn't matter.  I think what matters is the info is made 
avalable to all of us to take as much or as little as we want from it.

Thanks-Gary


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:33:16 -0700
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:33:12 PM

Expert says worms and parasites drain U.S. poor

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science EditorTue Jun 24, 3:09 PM ET

Diseases caused by worms and parasites are draining the health and
energy of the poorest Americans, an expert said on Tuesday.

And diseases associated with the developing world, such as dengue fever
and Chagas disease, may become a bigger problem for the United States as
the climate changes, said Dr. Peter Hotez of George Washington
University and the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington.

"The message is a little tough because they are not killer diseases --
they impact on child development, intellectual development, hearing and
sometimes even heart disease," Hotez said in a telephone interview.

He said the diseases help to keep people mired in poverty, as infections
may last years, decades or even lifetimes.

"Throughout the American South during the early twentieth century,
malaria combined with hookworm infection and pellagra (a vitamin
deficiency) to produce a generation of anemic, weak, and unproductive
children and adults," Hotez wrote.

The parasitic diseases are having similar effects now, he said.

Hotez reviewed nine diseases affecting at least 10 million Americans for
a report in the journal Public Library of Science Neglected Tropical
Diseases, which he also edits.

"These diseases occur predominantly in people of color living in the
Mississippi Delta and elsewhere in the American South, in disadvantaged
urban areas, and in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, as well as in certain
immigrant populations and disadvantaged white populations living in
Appalachia," he wrote.

They include ascariasis, the most common human worm infection. It is
caused by a parasitic worm that lives in the intestine, and infected
just under 4 million people in 1974 according to the last survey, in the
South and Appalachia.

DOG DROPPINGS

Toxocariasis, a roundworm parasite transmitted in dog droppings,
infected up 2.8 million poor black children living in inner cities, the
South and Appalachia, Hotez said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention estimates these roundworms, which can cause intestinal
illness and blindness, infect up to 14 percent of the U.S. population.

Strongyloidiasis is caused by a threadworm that lives throughout the
body and infects 68,000 to 100,000 people. It may cause a hyper-immune
reaction in some people.

Cysticercosis caused by the pork tapeworm and giardiasis, a diarrheal
illness caused by a one-celled parasite, are also common, Hotez said.

One threat to babies is cytomegalovirus, which infects 27,002 newborn
annually, causing deafness and mental retardation.

"It's amazing what we tolerate," Hotez said. He noted the United States
spends $1 billion a year preparing for outbreaks of diseases that have
not occurred, including smallpox, anthrax and avian influenza.

"But these (other) diseases are occurring among voiceless people," he
said. "It's an unintended form of racism in a sense. We need to make
these disease household words."

Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, infects as
many as 8 to 11 million people in Latin America and may become a U.S.
threat, Hotez said. "In Louisiana, almost 30 percent of the armadillos
and 38 percent of the opossums are infected with T. cruzi, and a case of
Chagas disease was recently reported in post-Katrina New Orleans," he
wrote.

"In the coming decade, global warming and increased flooding in the
region could combine to promote dengue and Chagas disease epidemics
among the poor in Louisiana."


Dengue, carried by mosquitoes, can sometimes cause a deadly hemorrhagic
fever and has been reported in Texas.


(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Doina Chiacu)

-----------------------

To change your mail settings or leave the C-PALSY list, go here:

http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?SUBED1=c-palsy