Posted on 12/25/2007 10:17:24 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Roundworms may infect close to a quarter of inner city black children, tapeworms are the leading cause of seizures among U.S. Hispanics and other parasitic diseases associated with poor countries are also affecting Americans, a U.S. expert said on Tuesday.
Recent studies show many of the poorest Americans living in the United States carry some of the same parasitic infections that affect the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease expert at George Washington University and editor-in-chief of the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Writing in the journal, Hotez said these parasitic infections had been ignored by most health experts in the United States.
"I feel strongly that this is such an important health issue and yet because it only affects the poor it has been ignored," Hotez said via e-mail.
He said the United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defend against bio-terrorism threats like anthrax or smallpox or avian flu, which were more a theoretical concern than a real threat at present.
"And yet we have a devastating parasitic disease burden among the American poor, right under our nose," Hotez said.
He noted a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, presented in November, found that almost 14 percent of the U.S. population is infected with Toxocara roundworms, which dogs and cats can pass to people.
"Urban playgrounds in the United States have recently been shown to be a particularly rich source of Toxocara eggs and inner-city children are at high risk of acquiring the infection," Hotez wrote, adding that this might be partly behind the rise in asthma cases in the country. Up to 23 percent of urban black children may be infected, he said.
"Because of its possible links to asthma, it would be important to determine whether covert toxocariasis is a basis for the rise of asthma among inner-city children in the northeastern United States," he added.
"Cysticercosis is another very serious parasitic worm infection ... caused by the tapeworm Taenia solium, that results in seizures and other neurological manifestations," Hotez wrote.
He said up to 2,000 new cases of neurological disease caused by tapeworms are diagnosed every year in the United States. More than 2 percent of adult Latinos may be infected, and with 35 million Hispanics in the United States, this could add up to tens of thousands of cases, Hotez said.
"In the hospitals of Los Angeles, California, neurocysticercosis currently accounts for 10 percent of all seizures presenting to some emergency departments," he wrote.
"We need to begin erasing these horrific health disparities," Hotez wrote in the paper, available online at www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0000149.
Women, minorities hardest bit.
We could just deport the worms when we discover them.
Won't Mike Huckabee be putting them in for free tuition?
“We need to begin erasing these horrific health disparities,” Hotez wrote
Agreed. immediate deportation is the only way.
"Because of its possible links to asthma, it would be important to determine whether covert toxocariasis is a basis for the rise of asthma among inner-city children in the northeastern United States," he added.
They'd be better off looking at the cockroach asthma link.
With worms no less.
Let us face it. Bad things will happen to subgroups who think that hygiene is just an intellectual construct, though they will not phrase their feelings in quite this manner. Government cheese activists, coffee shop cogitators, performance artists, alternative lifestyle facilitators and birkenstockers feel that the verities are racist and so forgo their very health, mental or otherwise.
You can prevent becoming infected or reinfected with pinworms by:
* Bathing frequently
* Using clean underclothing, night clothes, and bed sheets
* Washing your hands routinely, particularly after using the bathroom
The worms crawl in
the worms crawl out
they crawl all over
the dead man’s snout
....
OH god that brought back memories:
The worms crawl in
The worms crawl out
through your stomach
and out your mouth
They eat your eyes
they eat your nose
they even eat the ? right out of your nose
Wow childhood stuff dies hard doesn’t it?
Working my way through college, I was an orderly for a while, then a med tech. Back in the early 60’s I recall vividly watching a old lady sneeze a couple of worms out her nose. The scuttlebutt with this was that it (Strongyloides) was then usually associated with rural elderly farmer-people, and not necessarily the “poor.” BTW, I don’t think it’s significantly more prevalent now.
The worms crawl in,
The worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle
On your snout.
Mature bunch, ain't we?
>> Bad things will happen to subgroups who think that hygiene is just an intellectual construct <<
More chlorine for the gene pool, please.
The worms go in, the worms go out
They eat your stomach and eyeballs out
And that is why I always cry
When a hearse goes by
-- as sung in Dallas-area public elementary schools c. 1973
It was a typo, Al, go home!
It's Global WORMING, not warming!
[Agreed. immediate deportation is the only way.]
You can’t deport 20,000,000 worms.
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