Hello,
Poultry farmers are considered medium- to high-risk to get histoplasmosis. I had disseminated histoplasmosis from bats roosting in my workplace. Bats carry it and shed it in their feces. It's in their guano. In December, two New York cannabis growers died from histoplasmosis due to using bat guano as fertilizer. You can Google the news stories.
Poultry can't carry it because their body temperature is too high. But it grows well in chicken feces (I believe because it's so nitrogen-rich). Disseminated histoplasmosis can cause autoimmune issues, rheumatoid arthritis, blindness (retinal detachment, macular degeneration, etc.). Google Histoplasmosis followed by: leukemia, brain tumor, inflammatory breast cancer, ovarian cancer, anal carcinoma, etc. etc. etc.
I have known multiple farmers with chickens who had it. Older people. It seems people used to know about it more.?
See attached file, for example. And papers about risks to poultry farmers, like this one: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8306883/
Attached is an older map with higher-risk areas, but now the entire U.S. is considered endemic.
Poultry farmers are considered medium- to high-risk to get histoplasmosis. I had disseminated histoplasmosis from bats roosting in my workplace. Bats carry it and shed it in their feces. It's in their guano. In December, two New York cannabis growers died from histoplasmosis due to using bat guano as fertilizer. You can Google the news stories.
Poultry can't carry it because their body temperature is too high. But it grows well in chicken feces (I believe because it's so nitrogen-rich). Disseminated histoplasmosis can cause autoimmune issues, rheumatoid arthritis, blindness (retinal detachment, macular degeneration, etc.). Google Histoplasmosis followed by: leukemia, brain tumor, inflammatory breast cancer, ovarian cancer, anal carcinoma, etc. etc. etc.
I have known multiple farmers with chickens who had it. Older people. It seems people used to know about it more.?
See attached file, for example. And papers about risks to poultry farmers, like this one: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8306883/
Attached is an older map with higher-risk areas, but now the entire U.S. is considered endemic.
