Deadly Tap Water

This'll make you think twice about the water coming out of the faucet:


"A 4-year-old child who died of a rare brain infection in early August has led Louisiana health officials to discover that the cause is lurking in the water pipes of St. Bernard Parish, southeast of New Orleans.

It's a type of single-celled amoeba called Naegleria fowleri, about a tenth the width of a human hair. Some call it a "brain-eating" amoeba, although it does its damage by causing a devastating immune reaction rather than by actually devouring brain tissue.

Officials are pumping more chlorine into the municipal water supply to kill the bugs and advising the parish's 40,000 residents how to avoid infection. They say the risk is tiny.

As we'll discuss shortly, it's not easy to get infected, and drinking the water poses no risk. But still, finding such a dangerous microbe in the drinking water is troubling and noteworthy.

"This is the first time that it has been found in the drinking water in the United States," Louisiana state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard tells Shots.

But it won't be the last, he says — because health officials are now trying to pin down the cause of previously unexplained encephalitis cases. About 40 percent of cases of this dangerous brain inflammation have no known cause. "Five years ago, we would never have known that this recent case was caused by the amoeba," Ratard says.

Another new element: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now tests water supplies when a case of amoebic encephalitis is discovered, to see where the bug came from.

For instance, in 2011 two Louisiana residents — one a 20-year-old man from St. Bernard Parish — died of amoebic encephalitis after using tap water to rinse their nasal passages, using a popular device called a neti pot. Health officials assumed that contaminated tap water was the source of the infection, but it was never proved.

This summer the amoeba infected the brains of two other US children – a 12-year-old Florida boy, who died, and a 12-year-old Arkansas girl, who survived. She may be one of only three known to survive the infection in the United States.

These alarming deaths are likely to remain rare – but not quite as rare as health officials used to think.

"We're going to see more cases," Ratard says. Instead of three to five cases of amoebic encephalitis per year across the nation, "maybe we'll go to 10 a year," he says. "I don't expect we'll have a hundred."

The episode vividly illustrates how humans live in a sea of potentially lethal microbes that, amazingly, seldom kill.

In this case, it's because Naegleria fowleri is only dangerous when it gains entry into the brain. It does that when water containing the amoeba gets inhaled very deeply, into the area where the roof of the nasal passages meets the floor of the brain.

"To get infected, the amoeba has to get to the ceiling of your nose – way, way up there," Ratard says. "At the top of the nose you have a little paper-thin plate made of bone with a bunch of holes, a little bit like a mosquito net. The holes are for the olfactory nerve. So the amoeba is crawling up the nerve and gets into the brain."

Drinking amoeba-contaminated water poses no risk, presumably because the single-celled organisms can't survive in stomach acid. Normal bathing or showering isn't a risk because even if tap water is contaminated, it doesn't penetrate into the deepest nasal passages.

Brain infections from the amoeba usually pop up in late summer, when warm water favors its reproduction and many people are diving into ponds to escape the heat.

Since uncounted numbers of people swim in waters that undoubtedly contain amoebae, Ratard says, it's a wonder there aren't more infections. Public swimming pools pose no risk because chlorine kills the microbes.

The child who died last month in St. Bernard Parish while visiting from Mississippi, had been playing a long time on a Slip'n'Slide connected to a household water faucet.

It took about two weeks for the CDC to determine that the child had a Naegleria fowleri infection. Then state officials started investigating how.

"We collected the hose and got some samples from the outside faucet, water heater, and toilet tank water," Ratard says. After testing verified amoeba contamination, Louisiana officials put out a press release about the case.

Further testing of tap water in four nearby areas revealed the presence of Naegleria fowleri, as officials announced on Thursday.

Understandably, the announcement has sparked considerable local anxiety, even though health officials have stressed that the risk is low – and can be avoided entirely by common-sense precautions.

"In the old days, you would look at your faucet and it wouldn't scare you," Ratard says. "But these days, for some people, it looks menacing."

To avoid risk, officials are advising people not to put their heads under water while bathing in tap water — and to supervise young children who might. Flushing the water from household pipes before filling a child's wading pool decreases the risk, although some people might want to add some bleach to the water as an added precaution.

Local officials have shut off the water at school drinking fountains, although it's hard to imagine how schoolchildren could inject that water deep into their noses.

In a couple of weeks, officials will retest the St. Bernard Parish drinking water to ensure that added chlorine has eliminated the threat – for this season at least."

Deadly Amoeba Found for First Time in Municipal Water Supply

durp, i just noticed the article was from 2013. why they had such an old article linked on the front page of msn news i have no idea.

to frighten whitey. that's the motive behind a lot of the articles on that site, imo.

that is an old story though, they've been found in warm, stagnant-ish water, in various areas of the south.

you want to keep your stupid brains? move north.

Please try sharing in a less sensationalist way. If you read on about how rare this actually is, you have a better chance of being struck by lightning. It kills "zero to eight" people in the U.S. each year.

The fact that they rate "zero" potential deaths is pretty impressive. It means it's likely more people die be bludgeoned with a sex toy.

To rehash their agenda and create a panic to the mindless public.

Sir, those are fighting words!

I demand a duel with you in form of a rubber chicken slapoff at high noon tomorrow in front of the courthouse. Bring your own chicken though, I'm not made out of money.....

Distillers are easy to make.

should have double tapped

More chlorine in public water is needed obviously. Oh and more fluoride while we are at it. We are protecting you.....

Actually they're theorising that it potentially survived in the tap water due to the evaportation of the chlorine from the water system still not properly upkept and repaired following Katrina.

And on top of the rest of your crazy, are you seriously against the fluoridation of water?

Do you know how much fluoride it takes to do any harm to somebody? Do you also know how much fluoride is in most water systems today?

You do realize that you would get water poisoning well before you get to those levels of fluoride that would do harm, right? I'm guessing not.

It's less about a sudden high dose of floride, and more about a slow poisoning process, and sometimes leading up to toxicity levels in some cases.

So, how much fluoride does it take per day before any negative effects harm a person?

Also, how much fluoride ppm is in an average tap?

It's less about the fluoridation of water and more about his need to believe in all kinds of ***that is utterly made up.



HERE. HAVE A SNUFFLEUPAGUS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5csbAHVr48

Have you ever considered that maybe the part about how it's made uo might be made up to discredit the truth?

Also, Snuffy was Big Birds IMAGINARY friend, so nice try. :P

Yes, that was the joke, thank you for picking up on it, if not being able to process it in context.


Have you considered a strong antipsychotic to make the voices stop?

I lol'd.

Sadly though, I hear no voices in my head. :(

Oh, I see. You're not psychotic, you're delusional.

Psychotics know the voices aren't real.

Yeah, for keeping the area clean of trash and other forms of ***, please keep unsubstantiated youtube videos located in this thread.

Please keep our website clean, throw your trash away for "Truth and Justice"

It's a known fact that theres about (1.0 part per million, or 1.0 milligram of fluoride per liter of water) in just about EVERY tap system in North America starting from the early 1950's. Something that promotes "good oral health" has been givin to us for decades. And oyah if you don't think its true, go look up your citys official website of utilities and they will most likely promote this as " Fluoride is an abundant- naturally occurring element found in rocks, soil and fresh and ocean water. When fluoride is present in drinking water at optimal levels, it has been shown to promote oral health by preventing tooth decay." and also before someone says theres a way to avoid it or you can make a distiller, if you want one to also filter all the water for your shower etc that will also cost a lot of money in itself... but the point is this shouldn't be happening in the first place even if there is ways to avoid it.

(╯◕_◕)╯ This is how I want to die.

I'm not saying water isn't fluoridized; it is.

It's the conspiracy theorists that claim it's a problem that I'm openly mocking.

I dont know why they call it conspiracy anymore... I guess it's only called that for people who dont want to come to terms with the truth. Sometimes it can be hard, I know

You don't know why it's called a conspiracy when you say the government is trying to poison us all with fluoride? Really?

You rock a tinfoil hat at night, don't you?

Nice way to twist that around... You sure have manipulating and twisting peoples post down to a tea.
I said that because you make fun of people who believe in the truth. Not about what I said about the fluoridation of water. Good try tho. Maybe this will remind you since it seems you have suffered from severe short term memory loss.

Why not elaborate what you believe is the truth then?

I mean, you did state a small, well known fact. But you didn't elaborate on the discussion at hand.

Do you think that fluoride is good or not?

While I agree with your premise, the government isn't forcing you to drink tap water or use it in any way. We supplement our water supply with a rain barrel for watering the garden and washing the cars. We drink bottled water (which is not much better in many cases), simply for the convenience, as we wouldn't drink as much water otherwise. The fluoride shouldn't be forced on people, but it also isn't being forced on people.

It's *** delicious.