INTERESTING TIMES

Sleeping sickness aka African trypanosomiasis
--parasitic disease in people and animals
--caused by protozoa of genus Trypanosoma
--transmitted by the tsetse fly
--endemic in certain regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (36 countries and 60 million people)
--estimated 50,000 to 70,000 current infx
--3 major epidemics: 1896–1906, 1920 and 1970.
--tse tse flies mainly found by rivers and lakes, in gallery-forests and in wooded savannah
--Sleeping sickness occurs only in sub-Saharan Africa in regions where there are tsetse flies that can transmit the disease.
--For reasons that are so far unexplained, there are many regions where tsetse flies are found, but sleeping sickness is not.
--Worldwide, 25,000 new cases of both East and West African trypanosomiasis are reported each year
--World Health Organization says it is vastly underreported.
--Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT)
--caused by flagellate protozoan, Trypanosoma brucei, which exists in 2 morphologically identical subspecies: Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense (East African or Rhodesian African trypanosomiasis) and Trypanosoma brucei gambiense (West African or Gambian African trypanosomiasis)
--Both parasites transmitted to human hosts by bites of infected tsetse flies (Glossina species)
--tse tse flies are found only in Africa
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I'd like to watch this presentation by David Eagleman on how to prepare but it's an hour and a half long (no time right now). It starts with a consideration of why societies collapse. This org is dedicated to helping us learn to think in a longterm way. I found a short writeup of Eagleman's points on their site here.

Word coined by Jenner from latin for cow
( 4 types: live attenuated, inactivated/whole cell killed, toxoid and component vaccines. And recombinant, as a way of obtaining a component for a vaccine. )

One time that I was scheduled to safety boat on a Chattooga section IV trip, I didn't feel so hot. But paddling my kayak down the river and assisting the trip was physically and mentally easier for me than taking a raft full of customers, so I thought I could do it even though I was a little under the weather. I launched at the 76 bridge and escorted the trip through Screaming Left Hand Turn and Woodall Shoals. After Woodall I started feeling worse.
( the rest of the story )

You've heard about antibiotic resistant staph infections. In Flagstaff they had several deaths in the hospital from so-called "flesh eating bacteria", but the media was muted about it. Nobody wants to know. I'm sure it happens a lot more than anyone really knows. Even the doctors don't want to think about it.

ACINETOBACTER BAUMANII
Acinetobacter baumanii is a gram negative rod that is a strict aerobe, non-motile and grows in reddish purple colonies. It is found everywhere in the soil, food, and water, and is normal flora of humans with 25% of people having it on their skin, and 75% of people have it on their pharynx. Because it lives on us all the time, it is subjected to all the antibiotics that people take, and so it has evolved to be highly antibiotic resistant. The only antibiotics that work at all against this bug have side effects like nausea/vomiting, siezures, and other toxicity. Soldiers who spend time in Iraqi hospitals often come home infected with it. It causes suppurative infections in any organ. The cost of war just got higher. Now we have this bug in our hospital systems, and it is gaining prevalence as a nosocomial infection. It most frequently causes pneumonia, but also infects the brains, eyes, hearts, bones and joints, blood, the pancreas, liver and urinary tract. You don't want it. Luckily, if you are healthy, it won't get you. You live in equilibrium with it. But if you are ever stretched to your last stand in a hospital, it may be something like this that finishes you off.

PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA
A better known nosocomial infection is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is also a gram negative rod but is limited to where it can colonize because it is an obligate aerobe. So it only grows on surfaces where it has a good air supply, such as the insides of the lungs, or in burns. It also likes the respiratory mucus of cystic fibrosis patients. It grows into a thick "slime" which is actually a colony of bacteria that begins to function like a tissue. The outer layers that protect the inside from antibiotics or immune agents. The cells of the tissue signal each other, and when P. aeruginosa reaches a QUORUM it begins to turn on the genes that make it lethal. It produces a range of enzymes to digest tissues (known as invasins) and a couple of exotoxins that impair the host's ability to make proteins (exotox A) and cause part of the host's immune system to self destruct (the T cells are rapidly activated and apoptosis induced by exoenzyme S). If you grow the slime on an agar plate it looks blue-green and swells sweet, grapey by some reports. Don't let the sweet smell lull you.

Luckily for most of us, the slime never gets started good enough to slam us with its full power. Our immune systems and functioning respiratory cilia get that shit out. But if you're sick, and you go to the hospital, you don't want to know what I'm about to tell you. P. aeruginosa is the #2 cause of nosocomial pneumonia, osteochondritis and surgical site infections. It's the #3 cause of nosocomial UTI's. The #6 cause of nosocomial blood sepsis. It's the #1 cause of pneumonia in ICU patients, and is the most common cause of death among patients with cystic fibrosis. Once it reaches a quorum it is rapidly fatal. I have no idea if there are any antibiotics left that can kill it. And here's the topper. It lives in hot tubs and swimming pools. Don't let your immune system get beat down too far. These bugs are frightening.