Deadly Fungus Spreading in Oregon

[Ec_Prokta]

Quote:
How so?

 

[claud]

I saw it on the news too. I don't think it's a hoax.

Wear masks and Tyvek suits while hiking near trees

And try not to blow any of that stuff eastward....

 

[redhen]

Theres a fungus amongus...

 

[canada-goose]

Quote:
Nice smiley, redhen.

 

[Illia]

Quote:
Nice smiley, redhen.

I love it when people randomly come through with hilarious smilies.

I'm not so sure of it yet. I live in WA. . . FULL of fungus, moreso than Oregon. . .

But far as I read, it listed animals we don't have (except dogs) so I believe I'm safe? Then again who would put Yaks on a list.

 

[Tala]

Quote:
How so?

It sounds like the person was writing a letter or talking to a friend. It is not written like a real news article.

A deadly, airborne new strain of fungus has emerged in Oregon. It has killed nearly one out of four known affected people so far and might also attack animals ranging from dogs to dolphins. And it is likely to spread, researchers now warn.


The new strain known as VGIIc of the fungus Cryptococcus gattii not only targets humans but has also proven capable of infecting dogs, cats, alpacas, sheep and elk. Other strains have even infected porpoises.


Although it can spread to mammals, it does not jump from animal to animal. Instead, people and other animals get it from inhaling spores released by samples of the fungus that infect trees.


"It's in the environment, and we're exposed to the environment," researcher Edmond Byrnes III of Duke University Medical Center told LiveScience. "And the environmental range of this has been expanding."

It remains uncertain why VGIIc and VGIIa/major are more virulent than other strains. One possibility, given how this fungus can reproduce sexually, new hypervirulent combinations of genes emerged due to sex. The researchers also noted that cell components known as mitochondria in these strains could adopt a distinctive tube shape. Since mitochondria help generate energy in cells, it is possible these strains are more energetic, "but that's just speculation right now," Byrnes said.

I don't normally find news reporters talking about mitochondria. I happen to have minored in biology for 3 years, but most of the population has not.

Quoting that sounds like the writer is trying to inflate the credibility of the article and/or the outbreak. The writer did the same thing with the numbers of cases. Saying that 5 people out of 21 was a 25% death rate. Maybe it is, but 25 people is not enough to make the news or cause alarm.
More people than that die from Tylenol poisoning but we aren't talking about banning Tylenol. (More than 30,000 cases per year of acetaminophen overdose are reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers (Bartlett D 2004). It is a leading cause of liver failure in the Western world and the leading cause of drug-induced liver failure in the United States (Bartlett D 2004) http://www.lef.org/protocols/appendix/otc_toxicity_01.htm

The article is poorly written and does not present a strong cause for alarm.​

 

[Imp]

I remember hearing about the outbreak on Vancouver Island.

UhOh I'm surrounded.

I'm not worried, freaky stuff happens all the time. Several years ago a perfectly healthy woman in Seattle was working in her yard. Picked up something normal in her yard. It hit her in a bad way and she died I think in less than a day. I might have the details messed up. But you know what I mean.
People can be very fragile if the wrong series of events occur, and there's some nasty bugs etc out there.

I'm not worried about Oregonian fungus destroying the world

Imp- Now the hairstyles in Portland, that still open.

 

[OccamsTazer]

Uh, yeah...did the author forget to write his assignment for work and decide to post something from his 12 year old's journal instead?

 

[Ec_Prokta]

Quote:
On the Yahoo comments section, some people have claimed that the site the article came from has been posting lots of false stories lately. For example, stories of a flying car being built that was 100 percent bogus.