It will take blood from you for the better of the community.
Posted on 02/08/2007 8:53:15 AM PST by 3AngelaD
Federal researchers say neurocysticercosis, a brain infection caused by a pork tapeworm, is a "growing public health problem in the United States," especially in states bordering Mexico, where the disease is endemic. ..."international travel and immigration are bringing the disorder to areas where it is not endemic," such as this country. "Neurocysticercosis is the primary cause of epilepsy in endemic areas. This brain worm is very serious," Victor C. Tsang, chief of the immunochemistry laboratory in the Parasitic Disease Division of the CDC said... "Oral-fecal contamination is the standard route of transmission," he said of the condition... "Recent data indicate cysticercosis is an important cause of death in California," Mr. Tsang and other authors wrote in a recent report... A separate report in this month's issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases found that nearly 60 percent of the 221 U.S. deaths from cysticercosis between 1990 and 2002 involved California residents. "Most patients [187, or 85 percent] were foreign-born, and 137 [62 percent] had emigrated from Mexico... ..."In Hispanics and Latinos, neurocysticercosis accounts for 13.5 percent of [U.S.] emergency-room visits for seizures," federal and California investigators wrote ... "The growth is mainly due to immigration from endemic developing countries," they reported. ...These eggs are spread through food, water or surfaces contaminated with feces. "So if you have people cooking for you or handling your food who are tapeworm carriers and don't have good personal hygiene, you will be exposed to the eggs of the tapeworm" and become infected... Carriers tend to be people from rural developing countries with poor hygiene, where pigs are allowed to roam freely and eat human feces. Mr. Tsang said the condition is rife in Mexico and other parts of Latin America and Central America and "in a large part of China and Africa."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Thanks.
Parasitic Plague Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
It will take blood from you for the better of the community.
| Potentially lethal tapeworms increasing along border Associated Press - Parasite, which lodges in brain, blamed on poor sanitation by food handlers and more immigration. McALLEN - Doctors in South Texas say they're seeing more cases of a parasite that burrows into the human brain, sometimes resulting in seizures or even death. Health officials say the increase is probably due to failure of food handlers to wash their hands after going to the bathroom. They believe increasing immigration from Central and South America, where the tapeworm is more common, may also be a factor. A condition known as neurocysticercosis occurs when immature larvae of the pork tapeworm travel in the bloodstream and lodge in the brain or central nervous system, sometimes causing seizures and headaches. The disease kills up to 50,000 people worldwide each year, according to a Cambridge University research group, but is uncommon in most of the United States. "Neurocysticercosis is a major health problem along the United States-Mexico border," according to a 1998 report by the Texas Department of Health, which said the increase corresponds to increased immigration from areas where the disease is more common. It also said doctors are better able to diagnose the disease, using CAT scans. "It's a tremendous problem in Third World countries and its becoming an increasing problem in the U.S. It definitely has to do with immigration," Dr. Judy Teale, a researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center, told The Monitor newspaper in McAllen. Teale is studying the effects of treatment for the disease. Worm on the Brain Woman Recuperating After Doctors Remove Parasite Dawn Becerra has made a quick recovery after undergoing an operation to remove the remains of a parasite from her brain. (ABCNEWS.com) April 13 - An Arizona woman says she's feeling good, a little more than a week after undergoing six hours of surgery to remove a worm that had lodged in her brain. Dawn Becerra and her doctors believe the parasite got into her system three years ago, when she ate a pork taco while on a visit to Mexico. Becerra said she was ill for three weeks after eating the taco. Soon after, she began suffering violent seizures. Later, doctors determined she had a parasitic worm in her brain and it had caused neurocysticercosis - a lesion in her brain. Poor Sanitation Allows Parasite to Spread Doctors at Arizona's Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale believe the taco contained Taenia solium, a parasite that is common in Latin America. It can be transmitted by infected food prepared by someone who has not followed proper sanitation procedures after coming into contact with the creature's eggs, which can be present in human feces. Some experts point out that it is difficult to know for certain that the taco was the source of the worm. However Becerra ingested the parasite, it attached itself as an egg to her intestinal wall. Eventually, the egg developed into the worm, which moved into her blood stream and to her brain, said Dr. Joseph Sirven, who operated on Becerra. Once in the brain, the worm causes little harm until it eventually dies and decays, thereby inflaming surrounding tissue. "It's after the worm dies that the body reacts to something foreign," Sirven explained. Undergoing Brain Surgery While Awake Although Becerra seems to have kept a good attitude - she even gave the worm a nickname, Tonya - she said the seizures it caused were devastating. She reached a point where she could no longer tolerate them. "You have to be conscious that you can have them at any time," Becerra told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America on Thursday, "and I lived with the thought that there was a worm in my brain." She made the decision to have it removed and just when she thought the situation couldn't get any worse - it did. Doctors told her that she would have to undergo brain surgery while she was completely conscious because the procedure would take them into an extremely sensitive area of the brain. |
Nice pantsuit! It makes her legs look so thin.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1766726/posts
Rare brain worms spread by unsanitary cooks[Texas]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1746772/posts
Brain worms can be deadly
What did we read about young healthy immigrants?
This is one thread that didn't need pictures.
UGH!
Yuck! That is really gross.
Years ago, at Ellis Island, immigrants were carefully examined and quarantined for weeks (if not sent right back) for having communicable diseases.
Whoever has the strongest platform against illegal immigration is the one who will get my vote for President in 2008.
Well Said!
Now there's a politically correct phrase if I've ever seen one.
In other words, the disease has jumped the Rio Grande.
All the immunization programs of the past have ended up all for naught. It appears we don't even have much need for the CDC. I am sure they operate in PC fashion now. Thank you American Government selfish Jacka**es.
Yep, it's racist to oppose illegal immigration. We should just cheerfully accept this brain tapeworm spread in the name of cultural diversity.
I sure miss a good salad. I rarely eat them these days because of what you said in this post. I heard the same thing.
It is a real threat. I have known about this disease for a few years. It is very common in Mexico according to the doctor that explained the disease to me. A lot of Mexicans handle animals and don't wash their hands before eating.
Dumb me, I didn't put 2 and 2 together about those infected cooking food and passing long the disease.
I'll see your S. Texas/Mexico Ping and raise you a Border Ping...
I wonder if this is related to a recent death in our 'family'?
The original diagnosis was encephalitis...
How 'bout it, son, any chance this is related to our recent experience?
Did they do an autopsy?
ping
Anybody who thinks this problem exists only in the border states is dead wrong.
The 'Mexican' tape worms are popping up all over the country along with drug resistant TB and STDs and even leprosy.
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