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The City Where People Are Afraid To Breathe
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?'"
BBC is the closest news network to cover it?
tsia
The lake instantly assaults your senses. Stand on the black crust for just seconds and your eyes water and a powerful, acrid stench fills your lungs. For hours after our visit, my stomach lurched and my head throbbed. We were there for only one hour, but those who live in Mr Yan’s village of Dalahai, and other villages around, breathe in the same poison every day.
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.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
We wouldn't want a whole bunch of people's property value to go down for doing something like that would we!
From the summary:
It never leaves the body and symptoms can be triggered again.
From the linked article
The infection ordinarily resolves leaving the patient with a specific immunity to re-infection.
Both cannot be true.
sudo make me a sandwich
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?!" What?! And have property values in the area plummet costing the banks loads of money?! NEVER. We don't often like to mention it, but it's a fact and we say it every day in rather indirect ways, but human lives and human suffering are not as important as money. It's a fact. You can claim otherwise all day long, but at the end of the day, when it comes down do it, a human life is less important than money -- even SMALL AMOUNTS of money to those who stand to lose it.
As somebody who has considered the Valley for a relief from sky-high Bay Area housing costs, this is not news. When you're considering such a commitment you research everything if you're smart. Valley air quality ranks 1.8 to 2.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. The best air quality is north of the Golden Gate. Sonoma is excellent, although not really commutable to Silicon Valley. It comes close to 10. If you can stay out of the central valley, the southern reaches of the Santa Clara valley are not bad. Anything closer to the coast tends to have better AQI. Buyer beware of course. I've seen places in zones of excellent AQI, but there's heavy local pollution because everybody in the neighborhood is burning their wood stoves even when they shouldn't, or it's next to a gas station.
I ran across the subject of Valley Fever in the course of all that research too. Lots of interesting things come out along those lines. For example, when the Russian River floods, that's not the end of your problems. Allegedly the flood waters left behind silt deposits which bred microbes, which got blown around as dust when it dried out too. I don't recall what it was though; something other than Valley Fever most likely...
A quick Google search reveals that it's very unlikely you'll actually get it unless you're immunodepressed.
Because of the San Joaquin Valley Chamber of Commerce?
Beware of property owners' rights trumping everything else.
Have gnu, will travel.
If Doc Holiday had this instead of his diagnosed tuberculosis.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
First thing I thought of, really.
And you guys thought those Clickers were fiction...
I lived for a while in Tucson. Pretty much anyone who's outdoors in the desert much is likely to get it; in most people there are either no symptoms or flu-like symptoms. My PhD advisor had to have major surgery, and in the pre-surgery physical they found some characteristic scar tissue in his lungs and commented that he'd had valley fever at some point; he had no idea.
I'm pretty sure I had it; I got an unexplained very high fever and "flu-like" muscle pains along with a cough, but no sinus congestion at the end of my first year there.
[I wonder] If Doc Holiday had this instead of his diagnosed tuberculosis.
Doubtful since he was living in Atlanta when he contracted TB and moved out West in the hopes it would improve his symptoms.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Organic and natural things are good for you, right?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Your pets can get this too, especially if they eat dirt. It's something to be aware of, since the vets took a couple of months figuring it out. It's the sort of thing if you want an expedited diagnosis you probably have to bring up yourself, so it's good to see it getting a little publicity so maybe doctors will become more aware in other parts of the country/world.
Having lived in Avenal as a child, I contracted valley fever. Let me say it's an extremely miserable illness and I couldn't even get out of bed for weeks.
But there's nothing mystifying about the spread of it. It's found in dry soil that's kicked up when the wind blows. Congress has cut off a large amount of water in this state, so now the whole damn place is a giant dried out tinderbox waiting to go up in flames.
Drive up I-5 and CA-99, you'll see the signs everywhere: "Congress Created Dust Bowl" or "Man-made Drought." Look at satellite imagery of CA, the Central Valley used to be nearly solid green. Now it's mostly brown, dead, dried out.
Thanks, EPA.
The place is a goddamn dust bowl. I'm surprised a lot more people aren't sick from all the crap (fertilizer, insecticides, etc.) the farmers spill on the ground
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I lived in Phoenix, Arizona in the early 80s and seem to recall this being a problem there - only they called it Desert Fever. Phoenix was in the midst of a huge building boom and the "fever" was caused from all the building taking place...dust getting kicked up quite a bit.
Assuming you mean media / the press / people who live in the area and don't expect the actual Chamber of Commerce to do anything [in general, end of sentence] that would hurt commerce:
A trip through Google News archives -
2009: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=valley-fever-hotter-wind
Even as far back in the media as 2001: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1709617.stm
I lived in Phoenix for four years, it's a pretty well-known issue. I'm not saying it's okay, that awareness shouldn't be raised, or that current efforts are nearly sufficient. But you can find a string of these articles, usually in the summer, when the issue pops up, people get outraged, then everything cools down (as much as is possible in the Southwest).
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.
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
Umm... They do. Valley Fever isn't some new mystery illness that's popped up in the last few years, it's been around for a long time and pretty much everyone who lives in areas where it's common knows about it (or at least I they should). Maybe this is news in the UK, but it's old hat here.
BBC is the closest news network to cover it?
Cases Of Mysterious Valley Fever Rise In American Southwest [May 13]
Valley Fever Outbreaks Lead California to Move Inmates [July 5]
That's the usual excuse from people when they don't tell you something. It's like real estate.
In undeveloped countries, don't drink the water. In developed countries, don't breathe the air.
I am officially gone from
We had a prisoner of war camp in Arizona during WWII.
When I read the headline I thought it was something new and sinister to worry about, but valley fever? This is nothing new - at least here in Arizona. As a kid growing up here in the 70s and 80s there was a public service announcement on TV about it played pretty often (Channel 5 maybe?). (Imagine a scene in a small farming town, near a cotton or alfalfa field, on a hot, dry summer day. A tractor is discing a field in the background, kicking up a wall of dust behind it, in the warped light of the baking summer sun. Cue a narrator's voice - "dusty... Dusty... Dusty... DUSTY...")
This is only based on my Arizona experience and as a "study of one", but FWIW:
1) People who grow up in AZ from the start don't seem to have as much trouble with it as those who move here at some point. I have heard a couple of stories of people having to move away from Arizona solely because of it, but that is pretty rare to hear about.
2) Unlike diseases where you get a specific set of symptoms, different people respond to valley fever differently. My entire family (4th or 5th generation Arizonans) grew up on a small farm in rural AZ, and none of us ever experienced a case of diagnosed valley fever in my entire life. I probably had it at least once and just got over it like some small bout of the flu when I was younger. OTOH, my borderline asthmatic wife that grew up in multiple states (coastal CA, CO, and AZ) got it as an adult and she was miserable. It took a few weeks of suffering (including some coughing rough enough to bruise ribs) to overcome it, and she wasn't the same for a while afterwards. (According to her doctor/specialist at the time, testing for the disease is quite unreliable, coming back false quite often when in reality you do have it.)
Who's up for that???
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Coccidiomycosis is all over the southwest, it's not incurable, and it's no flipping mystery why the incidence is increasing ... A couple of wet winters, some dry dusty summers and an influx of new residents with the attendant construction kicking up the dirt where the spores are ... and probably an easier diagnostic test. Instant epidemic. We had a surge of cases every fall in Phoenix if the dust storms had been severe.
2/3 of the people who have antibodies against it thought they had a slight cold or had no symptoms. A large chunk of the remaining 1/3 have a mild cough and mild to moderate fatigue ... I had it and it was fatigue of the "stop and rest three times going up one flight of stairs" kind. A serious damper on my college life for a couple of months.
It's been known for decades (since before I took Mycology in the late 60s) that certain groups were more prone to have severe cases: African Americans, Asians (especially Filipinos), Women in their 3rd trimester of pregnancy, People with weak immune systems, including those with an organ transplant or who have HIV/AIDS
Moving a group of people out of an area where they are extremely likely to get a disease that will make them sicker makes economic sense ... fewer cases of the illness means fewer resources needed to take care of them. But I'd screen them for antibodies first, because only the non-immunes need to be moved. I'd bet that over half to prisoners they plan to move are already immune.
==========
A vaccine was under development during WWII, but the project stopped when the war ended. There have been noises about reviviing the project, but no funding.
I am from Coalinga, about 20 miles away from Avenal. I saw the article from the BBC yesterday and thought it was being blow way out of proportion. I know a few people that have gotten Valley Fever, and even one that died from it (he was about 85 years old), but I still think they were being dramatic with how they depicted it. I do think the cases for valley fever are going to pick up if valley doesn't get more water soon, but that is a very long and different conversation.
as did my parents and brother. Non-event for all of us except for my dad. He had to have the upper lobe of his right lung removed to stop the infection. I guess he was fortunate in that it didn't do worse damage. Nasty disease.
You, sir, win fifteen intertubes.
On slashdot in particular, all the same materials used for any other purpose are ineffably evil whenever used by those dreaded, world-controlling greens.
The cactus, coyotes, Gila Monsters, javelina, and snakes weren't enough. We developed a fungus to keep the pansies out of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts.
According to the linked story, Germany did not invoke the Geneva convention, the US preemptively decided to remove the prisoners because they thought it might be a violation to subject them to the conditions. It would have been rather odd for Nazi Germany to complain about treatment of people in camps, from what I understand about history ( primarily through a tv channel with history in the name of it ).
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The list does not work the way you think it does. My brother had not been employed for several years, not a problem. Kidney transplants are money saving operations, so money is not really an obstacle. All kidney patients are eligible for Medicare, and the break-even of cost of transplanted patients vs dialysis is 2 years or less. So, generally the government is eager for you to get a kidney transplant because they are covering all or the bulk of your costs regardless of socio-economic status or voluntariness of your residence.
So... everyone goes on the list, and it's pretty much do first come, first serve, with exceptions for people who have some particular difficulty that might make a long wait impossible. Generally, loss of kidney function will not kill you directly, you can live a very long time on dialysis. My brother lived for several years with no kidneys at all (removed for extreme size).
Bad (medical) behavior can get you off the list (excessive drugs, alcohol, or obesity, for example), but money can be worked around.
Other organs do not have the same cost-benefit structure, and there are not alternative therapies, so the rules work differently.
I don't know what the rules are for sex changes, so I'm no help there.
"Two-thirds of all Valley Fever infections happen right here in Arizona and out of those, 80 percent occur in Maricopa County." Read more: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/weather/weather_news/changing-weather-bringing-more-cases-of-valley-fever-to-arizona#ixzz2ZL5bmBDL Maricopa County, AZ, Population of 3.88 million, had 16,472 cases in 2011, 0.0042%. This is an increase of 2,700 cases from the year before. The 1,000 ft high dust storms during the monsoon season are a major contributor. Most of the cases showed up in February, after getting a few months to grow in the host and diagnosed by doctors. Most people in the SW carry the fungus, but only some are prone to it's ill effects. I have lived here for 32 years and never had symptoms severe enough to visit a doctor. I have known people to be hospitalized within their first year living here. Yea, it sucks. We take that chance when we live here. Get over it!
i think i've heard of valley fever on television. what scares me is how fungus can live inside a body like a human or mammal. eww.
Like TB the test then was a tine test... For the US south west it makes sense (to me) to add this bug to the TB test process. One might adjust the map to address TB coming from south american countries where it is a serious ill managed scourge.
It also makes sense to spend money for both TB and Valley fever medications. Modern genetics may illuminate ways to treat these infection. Lung infections of many types are astoundingly lethal.
Ask Judy Collins about TB.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
that there be a price to pay to escape that miserable weather and high taxation, DAMN IT!
--
Another fine opinion from The Fucking Psychopath®.
It is because there would be a disruption in property taxes if the truth were told.
--
Another fine opinion from The Fucking Psychopath®.
The Last of Us
I live in the San Joaquin Valley. This is seriously not a big deal here. It's not like we are all stumbling around, sick. Like most illnesses, it really is only 'dangerous' to high risk people, like infants and the elderly.
And Avenal is a toilet with an attached prison. The prison was built because the people wanted one there. Seriously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenal_State_Prison
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.
Are you familiar with, Histoplasmosis? It's a fungal disease, very similar in presentation except the fungus prefers moist environments high in organic matter (like silt deposits or bat guano). Present across large swaths of the Central and Eastern US, but especially common in states bordering the Ohio River valley and the lower Mississippi River. Or Cryptococcus? Yet again, very similar fungal disease, this time worldwide in distribution with no particular geographical preference. How about Blastomycosis? Another rather similar fungal disease, and again common around the Mississippi river, Ohio river valley, and also around the Great Lakes and Wisconsin area. And yes, fatalities in immunocompetent individuals do occur.
And that's just for the fungal diseases that resemble coccidiomycosis. If you're going to have a freak-out over the relatively small numbers of victims this one disease has, crack open an infectious disease textbook -- you'll find most of the U.S. is uninhabitable territory. And don't even get started on tropical countries, it's a miracle anyone manages to survive in those places at all!
"Why don't they tell people?!"
To the general public's "They" has the requirement of being mass media or celebrity spokesperson, and "tell" means sexed-up writing in a lurid manner. The fact that you haven't heard of a particular disease before is because reporters and advocacy groups decided Lyme Disease and West Nile Virus are sexy, while Babesiosis and Ehrlichiosis are not.
This shit has been in textbooks for decades, it's not exactly a secret. Actually, it's more like an anti-secret: the information has always been out there, but people tune it out when the news comes from Health Department guy on PBS.
So there's a Fungus Amungus?
I grew up in Bakersfield, CA and Valley Fever is common knowledge there. Something that the local know, and that they have known about for over 20 years isn't a secret.
Pro breathing regulations.
Valley fever has been around for decades. Most cases aren't severe. It is a natural soil bacteria.
is a speech pattern that consists of phrasing everthing as a question and the use of words like "like"?