Who needs Anthrax When Pacific Grove Has E.Coli and
Raccoon Roundworm?
 (More information they don't want you to know about P.G.)

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Recent tests confirmed that about 48% of the yards in Pacific Grove contain Baylisascaris (Raccoon Roundworm) which get flushed down the gutter (Many raccoons live in the gutters) directly into the waters of our local bathing beaches. Several, if not dozens of times per year, the local beaches in Pacific Grove are closed due to extremely high E. coli (aka Poop) contamination.

What is more dangerous to humans, Anthrax, which is quite rare and which has treatments available or E coli or Raccoon Roundworm which are very common here and for which there are almost no treatments?

As a wild sidenote, read this article:

"I read somewhere years ago that when you flush the toilet with the lid open, a plume of contaminated water droplets is ejected into the air and lands on everything in the bathroom, including (yuck) your toothbrush."

"In 1975 Professor Gerba published a scientific article describing the little-known phenomenon of bacterial and viral aerosols due to toilet flushing. The more you learn about it, the scarier it sounds. According to Gerba, close-up photos of the germy ejecta look like "Baghdad at night during a U.S. air attack." The article ominously depicts a "floor plan of experimental bathroom with location of gauze pads for viral fallout experiments." A lot of virus fell on those gauze pads, Gerba found, and a lot of bacteria too. In fact, significant quantities of microbes floated around the bathroom for at least two hours after each flush." (Link)

I can only wonder just how large a quantity of E. coli microbes  fall on Pacific Grove from these sea plumes of contaminated ocean water. Here is a possible E. coli plume map of Pacific Grove:

E. coli Plume Map
From www.cleanoceanaction.org:
"Once freshwater effluent has been discharged into the saltwater environment, dilution begins. The
effluent rises from the diffuser where it mixes with ocean water. The rising brew of
freshwater and saltwater mixing is a mixing zone and wastefield. At some distance from the
outfall, the effluent plume is undetectable because of complete mixing and dilution. The distance
that a plume travels depends on many conditions in the ocean, including tides, currents, winds, and
salinity."

Here are some articles on Anthrax, E.coli & Roundworms:

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/4058.323

Anthrax is an animal disease that has been around for tens of thousands of years. Rarely, anthrax causes serious disease in humans. The germ is a bacterium called Bacillus anthracis that "seeds" itself by forming long-lasting spores. These spores can survive in the environment for a long time. Grass-eating animals, such as cattle, are most often infected because they can eat spores living in the soil. Animal vaccination - and destruction of infected herds - has drastically reduced the number of infected animals. Even so, anthrax spores continue to be found in soil samples from all over the world.

The signs of intestinal infection are nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting. This is followed by severe abdominal pain, vomiting of blood, and severe diarrhea.

Human anthrax is a rare disease. There were only 18 cases of inhalation anthrax in the U.S. from 1900 through 1978. There were 224 U.S. cases of skin infection between 1944 and 1994. However, the African nation of Zimbabwe experienced a terrible epidemic of skin anthrax with more than 10,000 cases between 1979 and 1985. Gastrointestinal anthrax is very rarely reported.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/escherichiacoli_g.htm

Escherichia coli O157:H7 (E. coli) is an emerging cause of foodborne illness. An estimated 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur in the United States each year. Infection often leads to bloody diarrhea, and occasionally to kidney failure.

Person-to-person contact in families and child care centers is also an important mode of transmission. Infection can also occur after drinking raw milk and after swimming in or drinking sewage-contaminated water.

E. coli O157:H7 infection often causes severe bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps; sometimes the infection causes nonbloody diarrhea or no symptoms. Usually little or no fever is present, and the illness resolves in 5 to 10 days.

In some persons, particularly children under 5 years of age and the elderly, the infection can also cause a complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, in which the red blood cells are destroyed and the kidneys fail. About 2%-7% of infections lead to this complication. In the United States, hemolytic uremic syndrome is the principal cause of acute kidney failure in children, and most cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome are caused by E. coli O157:H7.

There is no evidence that antibiotics improve the course of disease, and it is thought that treatment with some antibiotics may precipitate kidney complications.

About one-third of persons with hemolytic uremic syndrome have abnormal kidney function many years later, and a few require long-term dialysis. Another 8% of persons with hemolytic uremic syndrome have other lifelong complications, such as high blood pressure, seizures, blindness, paralysis, and the effects of having part of their bowel removed.

http://my.webmd.com/content/asset/adam_disease_e_coli_enteritis

E. coli enteritis is a type of bacterial enteritis or bacterial gastroenteritis. Endotoxins produced by the bacteria are responsible for the symptoms. The incubation period is 24 to 72 hours. In adults, the infection is usually not severe, but in children and infants, the infection frequently requires hospitalization, and in some cases is life threatening.

Risk factors include recent family illness with E. coli, recent family illness with gastroenteritis symptoms, recent travel to an area endemic for E. coli, or exposure to untreated or contaminated water. The incidence is 3 out of 10,000 people.
Signs of E. coli:  

    * diarrhea that is acute and severe
     * vomiting (although rare)
     * loss of appetite
     * abdominal pain
Raccoon roundworm:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/baylisacaris/default.htm
Baylisascaris  Infection

Baylisascaris, the raccoon roundworm, is a cause of a visceral larva migrans syndrome in humans. Infection is spread through the ingestion of raccoon feces and can be fatal for young children. Although Baylisascaris is a different worm, the life cycle and syndrome is similar to Toxocara infection.

Raccoon Roundworm Life Cycle:
Raccoon eats rat infected with roundworm larvae-------> Larvae grow in raccoon -------> Raccoon sheds roundworm
eggs in feces in yard, chimney, school attic or gutter in Pacific Grove-------> In 30 days the eggs grow to larvae maturity------->children, birds, rabbits, rats, Etc. eat the raccoon feces or  larvae infected soil------->Larvae migrate into organs in children or rats in about three to four weeks (Cycle repeats)-------> Raccoon eats rats infected with roundworm larvae.

http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4892/raccoonroundworm.html

Clinical and pathological symptoms occur when an abnormal host (an animal other than the raccoon) becomes infected. It can cause a very rare disease called visceral larva migrans (VLM) in humans and other animals,  as well as ocular larva migrans (OLM) and neural larva migrans (NLM). If ingested by an abnormal host, the eggs penetrate the small intestine (which they apparently do not do in raccoons) and undergo an aberrant migration through the body. The eggs hatch, and the larvae migrate to the brain, eyes and other organs. The parasite has been implicated in cases of serious eye disease or central nervous system disorders and infection can cause death or paralysis depending on the location in the body and number of worms.

It should be noted that visceral larva migrans and ocular larva migrans in humans (and other animals) can also be caused by feces of other animals - most notably pet dogs and cats.  Human infection with the toxiocaris larvae of canine or feline roundworms is known collectively as toxocariasis. All cases of toxocariasis come from pets, according to the Texas Dept. of Health, Div. of Zoonosis Control, which states an estimated 10,000 new cases of roundworm infection occur in children every year, most often as a result of eating dirt contaminated with animal feces. Most human infections are mild enough to go unnoticed and apparently produce no permanent damage. However sometimes infection results in severe and even fatal disease. Common symptoms include abdominal pain, headache, weakness, lethargy and wheezing.

While there is no known treatment for visceral larva migrans or neural larva migrans, there are several drugs that can treat the parasite in raccoons.

http://www.crittercontrol.com/lyme_disease.htm

Darcy Levee, a Stanford researcher, said that when children play in areas where raccoons have left feces, the youngsters become infected when they put their hands in their mouths and ingest the tiny worms. "We believe that many more people are infected, but few show symptoms," she said. "Unfortu nately, the symptoms can result in serious disease. At least four people have died from infection with the parasite since 1985."

Levee said that when the body's immune system attacks the worms (which can grow to be 2 millimeters in length in humans) the inflammatory response can be devastating, especially if the worms migrate to the brain.

Raccoons can be commonly infected with this parasite in various areas of the country, and its eggs can survive up to 12 years under optimal conditions. Dry feces in chimneys, etc., would survive probably a few months to a couple of years, depending on the moisture. In soil under Midwest conditions, for example, they probably last 5-6 years. A fire in a fireplace, especially a nice hot one, would certainly kill them. However, since the eggs can embryonate in 30 days, and since much of the year people don't use the fireplace, you may be exposed to infective eggs.

In contrast, two fatal cases we diagnosed involved very young children (1 to 1-1 /2 years) who did eat enough eggs from fecal matter or contaminated articles so that they died with massive irreversible brain disease. Of importance is that both fatalities involved the fireplace in one way or another. In the first case, raccoons nesting in the chimney defecated into the fireplace, and we believe the boy was infected directly from ingestion of some fecal matter containing eggs. In the second case, we proved that the boy became infected by chewing on a piece of firewood bark contaminated with raccoon feces.

In older people the danger would be impossible ingestion of a few eggs, and their chance migration to the eye, producing eye disease (not to say that brain disease could not be produced in adults, just that they would probably not take in that number of eggs). In older persons, visual symptoms would be the sign. There is no known drug treatment for either problem, though eye disease has been successfully treated using lasers to kill the larvae.

 Pray for us.
Opinions expressed here do not reflect those of the government of Pacific Grove. They would be wise to take notice & work quickly to prevent gutter water & raw sewage from flowing into the bay & our local bathing/surfing beaches; because they are already getting plumed by it daily.

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