Slashdot Mirror
Mysterious Disease May Be Carried by the Wind
bmahersciwriter (2955569) writes "Kawasaki disease is a mysterious condition that results in alarming rashes, inflammation and sometimes early death. It sickens 12,000 children a year in Japan and is suspected to arrive there and elsewhere by the wind. Now, researchers have narrowed the source to croplands in northern China and offered some possible explanations as to its cause."
Travels by motorcycle.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
"Come now, young lad, stay out of the wind or you'll catch Kawasaki disease."
"Aw...but I wanted to go fly my kite today!"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/
The closing comment was that, since the supposed origin would be frozen solid at the time the disease was supposed to originate there, the real origin of the disease is still as unknown as always. But they're now looking at bacterial toxin as the main culprit. Nice...
I bet you could make a nice disastermovie about this, where it turns out that the GMO crops in India are the real culprits. Then, when they are sprayed with new insecticide, they combine with a new bacterium that integrates the GMO resistance genes, and spread a superplague that turns everyone into a Triffid.
Weehee, I'm calling my agent :)
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
But David Battisti, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, questions whether northeastern China is the region of origin of Kawasaki's causative agent. He notes that outbreaks of the disease tend to occur in Japan during winter and early spring, when cropland in northeastern China is frozen solid, and winds would not stir up many particles.
“it's an open question still whether the source region is northeast China, or maybe even further west,” he says.
No one knows. This is a bad story. what gives /.?
China bad china bad china bad... my tinfoil theory says this is just crap spewed forth into the interwebs by propagandists
The Romans were onto something after all...
Esoteric reference.
The article doesn't give a ton of detail, but it sounds a lot like the Valley Fever that occurs in the US South West. Which is Candida fungus if i remember correctly.
Hmm... that's pretty interesting. I hope they can find the source and I do hope that some kind of Chinese factory isn't the cause because that would make the relationship between the two countries worse. But on the otherhand the China's leaders have been pretty public about the environmental issues lately. If the cause is indeed in China (although the researchers in the article doubted this) there's a good chance that this might offer the kind of catalyst to make Japanese industries more invested in helping Chinese industry to be more environmental friendly and for example share the green technology.
It's Happening... the plants have finally recognized us for the enemy that we are.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It sounds like etherwind to me.
Just saying. The whole Nanking unpleasantness, now Kawasaki's disease.
Can't we all get along?
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
http://www.pensu.com/
âoeit's an open question still whether the source region is northeast China, or maybe even further west,â he says.
Well, it travels by wind, but can it get to Madagascar? If it can, I fear for humanity...
My son contracted Kawasaki Disease in 1987 when he was 4. It was a terrifying experience as the doctors could not explain what was causing his symptoms, including a fever of 104. The poor kid underwent spinal taps and more. Eventually he was transferred to Boston Floating Hospital for Children where they concluded he had Kawasaki. There was no test for it - it's one of those "process of elimination" diagnoses and not all who have KD have all of the symptoms. At that time, there was no known cure but my son was enrolled in a random trial of gamma globulin infusion and, thankfully, the dosage he was assigned turned out to be the one that worked the best. He recovered and tests showed no lasting heart damage.
At the time, there were many wild theories as to what caused it. One of the more prevalent notions was that it was triggered by carpet cleaning chemicals, since debunked. This paper smacks to me of "correlation does not equal causation". I'm especially dubious about the supposed geographic origins given that incidents, while clustered around metropolitan areas, were not confined to the west US coast (we live in New Hampshire.)
Over the years I have read many articles and research papers about Kawasaki Disease. I don't think we're any closer to an explanation than we were in 1987.
Sometimes results in "early death"? As opposed to those diseases that kill you when you would have died anyway?
Kawasaki Disease, as you have put it, occurs everywhere on the earth, including New Hampshire, USA
The claim by TFA on the so-called "scientists" pinpointing the "origin" of the Kawasaki Disease to the wheatfield/padifield somewhere in China not only does not hold any water, it does come across as if TFA plays to the tune of everything-that-is-wrong-must-be-the-making-of-China propaganda
TFA is not a scientific finding
TFA is a political propaganda
Just like some people develop (autoimmune) disease after exposure to gluten, we could expect other environmental agents to trigger Kawasaki. I'm curious to see if this is confirmed. Unfortunately, I don't see we could avoid exposure. Maybe hosts with genetic susceptibility should wear masks? Still, not easy...
Sounds like another SMON to me.
Japan is wierd.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
If you wear all the gear all the time, you're far likely to get rashes and death when you fall off your Kawasaki.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Like toxic you who came out of yo mama's shithole[?]
To whoever modded this down: Anal births — while rare — do happen from time to time; it was an honest suggestion (though it would have been more appropriately phrased as a question).
So the article says they've traced it to northern Chinese croplands, but then towards the end of the article it says that most of the cases occur in the winter/early spring when the croplands are snowed over and the amount of contaminants should be minimal. Sounds to me like they've found very little, they may have found the agent (a bacteria) but they still don't know its source(s) and its convenient to blame it on China, seems to be a fad as of late.
Mmmmm.