Oregon man suffering from the plague is in critical condition

New York Daily News ^ | June 13, 2012 | Philip Caulfield

[Free ThinkerNY]

An Oregon man is at death's door in a hospital battling a rare case of the infamous “Black Death” plague, health officials said.

The unidentified man, who is in his 50s, was bitten on the hand while trying to pull a mouse away from a stray cat on June 2 and got sick several days later, doctors at St. Charles Medical Center-Bend told The Oregonian newspaper.

The man was thought to be suffering from septicemic plague — meaning the ruthless bacteria was spreading in his bloodstream — and was in critical condition on Tuesday, doctors said.

Karen Yeargain, the county health department's communicable disease coordinator, told The Oregonian that officials were working to confirm that the man had the plague, but that all the symptoms were there, including stomach pain, bleeding mouth, nose and anus and dying tissue.

He's just the fifth person to catch the plague in the state since 1995.

Only about 10 to 15 people in the United States catch the frightening illness each year, typically in western states.

Globally, health officials report about 1,000 to 3,000 cases per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

[Spaulding]

I vaguely recall, having followed the damage caused by Rachel Carson, whose “Silent Spring” caused congress to take the safe path and ban DDT, in spite of the complete lack of evidence to support its claimed dangers, that within a few years of the ban in the early 70s bubonic plague reappeared in the US. The real damage was to millions of African children, upwards of 40 million of whom contracted malaria. But flea-born plague was went from none during the DDT spraying years before 1972 to some tens of cases, growing slowly ever since.

One of the Sierra Club's real environmentalists, a now deceased professor of ornithology at San Jose State, Gordon Edwards, testified before congress, and pointed at the literature, now in the Congressional Record in which the sorry ‘protect-your-own-behind’ tradition held, and resulted in millions of deaths worldwide which faux-environmentalists like to forget. Hard to tell who are the uninformed since the environmental business makes billions by appealing to the ignorance of the public. Make no mistake; it is a business. Lawyers can specialize in in law school in environmental law.

Textbooks tell about the egg shell thinning of Peregrin Falcons, while Edwards cited many studies besides his own showing how shy falcons are, particularly when environmental inspectors insisted on flying to the nesting area in noisy helicopters once or twice each week, and tramping through the laying area on the Anacapa Island to count eggs. They counted abandoned eggs, abondoned by the parent falcons they scared away. DDT actually increases the thickness of eggshells as well as the fecundity of the parents birds, in a study published by the UC School of Public Health.

Of course, taking the mouse from the cat was not very smart. Remarkable that there aren't cats with plague? Are they immune? My cat is a first class mouser, and gets rabies shots; now I'll have to ask about plague shots.

[Veggie Todd]

“Oregon health officials don’t know if the man was bitten by the cat or the mouse.”

[Windflier]

What this has to do with politics, though, is behind me.

Don't you mean, 'beyond' you?

I understand your viewpoint. I'm sorry the guy wound up so sick too, but you have to admit, that was a really stupid thing to do. As it turns out, it wasn't even his cat. It was a stray.

I only made the comment about liberals, because that is just typical of the kinds of things they do. Sorry, but it's just a cultural observation.

[miss marmelstein]

My goodness, you're gonna have an aneurysm if you keep up this level of fury at me! I'd respond more fully but I'm have to feed my two ferals some kibbles and bits.

[tflabo]

was bitten on the hand while trying to pull a mouse away from a stray cat

UUuhhhhhhhhh don't cats kinda specialize in chewing up mice as sport? Must be a dumb liberal save the planet type.

[GladesGuru]

“So who bit him...the cat or the mouse?”

Probably, a flea from the rodent.

[Windflier]

Worse, a stray cat. He may get rabies too! Not the brightest crayon in the drawer.

Which was my underlying point. There really are cultural differences between libs and conservatives. Our kind of folks just generally have better sense than that.

[Rides_A_Red_Horse]

but what on earth would possess somebody to try to take a mouse from a stray cat?!?!?

---

Maybe the mouse owed him money...

[miss marmelstein]

How I wrote “behind” when I meant “beyond” is something I don’t want to contemplate.

This is what in quaint circles used to be called “a tempest in a teapot.”

[Tainan]

Did someone mention The Plague?...Its time to Bring out Your Dead!

[cricket]

Good grief; it never ends. . . .Flesh necrotizing bacteria; the 'plague'/Black Death. . .If it's not bears; it's alligators; or brown recluse spider - multiplying pythons; mice or just a mouse, in a cat's mouth. Then we have the 'tornado'; the hurricanes; the forest fires; the droughts and the floods. Many axims that speak to this; one: Everything changes; Nothing changes. Another we hear often; 'The more things change; the more they stay the same'. And so it is.

(Used to read as a child; about Christians being martyred for their Faith; fed to lions; tortured, beheaded; read of ancient physical atrocities; and imagined all belonged in an uncivilized, 'world past'; and that these things, so heinous; would never touch MY world. Same goes for the Holocaust. Could not possibly imagine 'otherwise'. . .

Hard to fathom, sometimes; how we grew up - or that any of us, 'last' till old. Clearly, many 'in time'; do not manage either. While many do, of course. . .

(Reading David McCullough's "Greater Journeys/Americans in Paris". This takes me there.)

[cricket]

Good grief; it never ends. . . .Flesh necrotizing bacteria; the 'plague'/Black Death. . .If it's not bears; it's alligators; or brown recluse spider - multiplying pythons; mice or just a mouse, in a cat's mouth. Then we have the 'tornado'; the hurricanes; the forest fires; the droughts and the floods. Many axims that speak to this; one: Everything changes; Nothing changes. Another we hear often; 'The more things change; the more they stay the same'. And so it is.

(Used to read as a child; about Christians being martyred for their Faith; fed to lions; tortured, beheaded; read of ancient physical atrocities; and imagined all belonged in an uncivilized, 'world past'; and that these things, so heinous; would never touch MY world. Same goes for the Holocaust. Could not possibly imagine 'otherwise'. . .

Hard to fathom, sometimes; how we grew up - or that any of us, 'last' till old. Clearly, many 'in time'; do not manage either. While many do, of course. . .

(Reading David McCullough's "Greater Journeys/Americans in Paris". This takes me there.)

[cricket]

Good grief; it never ends. . . .Flesh necrotizing bacteria; the 'plague'/Black Death. . .If it's not bears; it's alligators; or brown recluse spider - multiplying pythons; mice or just a mouse, in a cat's mouth. Then we have the 'tornado'; the hurricanes; the forest fires; the droughts and the floods. Many axims that speak to this; one: Everything changes; Nothing changes. Another we hear often; 'The more things change; the more they stay the same'. And so it is.

(Used to read as a child; about Christians being martyred for their Faith; fed to lions; tortured, beheaded; read of ancient physical atrocities; and imagined all belonged in an uncivilized, 'world past'; and that these things, so heinous; would never touch MY world. Same goes for the Holocaust. Could not possibly imagine 'otherwise'. . .

Hard to fathom, sometimes; how we grew up - or that any of us, 'last' till old. Clearly, many 'in time'; do not manage either. While many do, of course. . .

(Reading David McCullough's "Greater Journeys/Americans in Paris". This takes me there.)

[GladesGuru]

“My goodness, you’re gonna have an aneurysm if you keep up this level of fury at me! I’d respond more fully but I’m have to feed my two ferals some kibbles and bits.

Don’t forget to sprinkle on a bit of arsenic. Hold the old lace, even if the ferals are females.

;-)

[Rides_A_Red_Horse]

I vaguely recall, having followed the damage caused by Rachel Carson, whose “Silent Spring” caused congress to take the safe path and ban DDT, in spite of the complete lack of evidence to support its claimed dangers, that within a few years of the ban in the early 70s bubonic plague reappeared in the US.

---

I recall a story about some scientist who took a spoonfull of DDT by mouth, every day, for several years as an attempt to prove it was safe.

[GeorgeWashingtonsGhost]

Well, the city of Santa Ana, CA with a 75% illegal alien population has at least one ‘resident’ with typhus and how did they explain it? The typhus victim lived near a school that has feral cats that carry fleas that PROBABLY carry typhus. They made this announcement before any tests were conducted to substantiate their claim. Seems they were in a hurry to pin the reason for this outbreak on something OTHER than an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

[Windflier]

Thanks, Steff. I see you really got it (which is more of what I expect in a place like this).

Hell, I don’t even wish the plague on Jesse Jackson. I’ve got a heart, but I’ve also got a brain, which is more than I can say for people who pull rodents out of the mouths of feral cats - or who vote for Obama!

LOL

[Windflier]

1/4 of the earth's population of humans die between 1346 and 1352, and they get a paragraph in the history books. One poor guy in Oregon, God bless him, and prayers up... is very sick, and it makes national news.

Well, in all fairness, I don't think Algore had quite worked out that internet thingy back then ;-)

[Windflier]

This is what in quaint circles used to be called “a tempest in a teapot.”

Hey, I speak Quaint!

Can't help it. I was born in a place called America, a long long time ago. Some folks think it's a mythological land, but I assure you, the place was very real ;-)

[miss marmelstein]

I usually serve my arsenic in glasses of elderberry wine. The cats I just club with my Yankees’ baseball bat.

Charge!!!!!!!!!!!!!