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13-Year-Old Finds Fungus Deadly To AIDS Patients Growing On Trees
An anonymous reader writes Researchers have pinpointed the environmental source of fungal infections that have been sickening HIV/AIDS patients in Southern California for decades. It literally grows on trees. The discovery is based on the science project of a 13-year-old girl, who spent the summer gathering soil and tree samples from areas around Los Angeles hardest hit by infections of the fungus named Cryptococcus gattii.
English is a naturally ambiguous language, and there are two gramatically correct parsings of that headline.
It's a bit like "fruit flies like a banana"
Because honestly no one in medicine cares. There's not just one single environmental source of Cryptococcus, pigeons for example are known carriers. Getting rid of these trees is not going to prevent Cryptococcus infections anytime soon. What will prevent them is getting the HIV in the infected properly treated on a combination antiviral regimen so their own immune system can prevent the infection in the first place.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.