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After flesh-eating bacteria claimed the life of his father, Michael Theriot is warning people against swimming in Louisiana bayous. Last month, Michael Theriot Sr. was on the Robinson Canal in Cocodrie, La., when he fell overboard and cut his hand on a piece of tin.
From then on, he battled an infection of Vibrio vulnificus, a disease found during the summer months in warm salt water.
"Twenty-six days he stayed in the hospital on life support, from the time of the accident until he passed away on June 12," Theriot said.
Symptoms include fever, chills, diarrhea and intense stomach pain. Vibrio vulnificus can be treated with antibiotics, but it has to be treated early.
Originally posted by Don Wahn
If I heard of one of these by me, I would not set foot near the water, lest some bacteria works its way into some miniscule abrasion on my skin.
Unlike the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, which is caused by fertilizer washing down the Mississippi River, the Oregon dead zone is triggered by northerly winds, which create an ocean-mixing condition called upwelling.
This brings low-oxygen waters from deep in the ocean close to shore, and spreads nitrogen and other nutrients through the water column, kicking off a population boom of plankton, the tiny plants and animals at the foundation of the ocean food web.
Normally, this is good for salmon, giving them lots of food to eat. But when huge amounts of plankton die, they fall to the bottom of the ocean, where they decompose, depleting the water of oxygen.
From Dead Zone Returns to Oregon Coast
Man Infected With Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Bacteria Caught While Fishing
POSTED: 1:13 pm EDT July 17, 2007
GALVESTON, Texas -- A man is fighting for his life after he was infected with a deadly flesh-eating bacteria.
Steve Gilpatrick said he and his family go to Galveston every year for a week of vacation.
"We have a big family and everybody comes here and just has fun," daughter Erin Gilpatrick said.
Steve Gilpatrick was fishing at Crystal Beach on July 8.
"He was in the water for no more than half an hour," wife Linda Gilpatrick said.
Within a few days, Steve Gilpatrick had an infection in his leg, Houston TV station KPRC reported.
"He's diabetic and just thought he had an infection, a severe infection of some sort," Linda Gilpatrick said. "He had no way of knowing the gravity of it."
Fort Lauderdale Personal Injury Lawyer
Florida Woman with Flesh Eating Bacteria Sues Hospital for Medical Malpractice
A woman in central Florida is suing a hospital for medical mapractice after contracting a horrible flesh eating bacteria. Claudia Mejias, 23, went to Orlando Regional South Seminole Hospital to deliver her son, Matthew.
After giving birth the hospital informed her she contracted this horrific bacteria and amputation was her only option to live. Suit was just filed.
Flesh-Eating Bacteria Lawsuit Settled
POSTED: 4:42 pm EDT October 10, 2006
UPDATED: 8:16 pm EDT October 10, 2006
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A woman who says she contracted flesh-eating bacteria during a procedure at a Jacksonville clinic sued the doctor and is expected to receive a $100,000 settlement in the case.
Two years ago, Dorothy Hartman went to The Vein Clinic to have a painful varicose vein removed and in the process she said she contracted a flesh-eating bacteria that has permanently disfigured her.
Dorothy Hartman was in a coma for nearly a month and half, and spent seven more months in hospitals and rehabs because of a flesh-eating bacterium that not only nearly took her leg, but almost took her life.
Originally posted by forestlady
..................
Since it's primarily found in the Gulf of Mexico, and was first identified in 1976, it would seem that this bacteria could indeed be related to the Dead Zone in the Gulf. You can't upset the balance of Nature without suffering some negative result.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
I personally think much of it is due to the pollution that is going on. There was a report on the Houston news several years ago about hospitals dumping their needles out onto Galveston beach. This type of thing happens more often than any of us care to admit.
Originally posted by Muaddib
Originally posted by forestlady
..................
Since it's primarily found in the Gulf of Mexico, and was first identified in 1976, it would seem that this bacteria could indeed be related to the Dead Zone in the Gulf. You can't upset the balance of Nature without suffering some negative result.
Not so, there are at least 150 of such dead zones around the world, and as I already pointed out, there have been cases which apparently people got this flesh eating bacteria from hospitals.
Last i checked hospitals don't use seawater to sterelize their equipment, unless I am completely wrong.
Originally posted by Jazzerman
I wouldn't necessarily say that there is a relation between Vibrio Vulnificus and the dead zones found in certain parts of the world. There is some evidence to suggest that bacteria such as this multiply in areas where human waste is abundant, but little evidence that points to their replication in dead zones.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
I personally don't think this is a natural occurring bacteria. It only arose, what, ten years ago.
I personally think much of it is due to the pollution that is going on. There was a report on the Houston news several years ago about hospitals dumping their needles out onto Galveston beach. This type of thing happens more often than any of us care to admit.
We are paying the piper through flesh eating bacteria and other strange strains of diseases going around nowadays.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
I personally don't think this is a natural occurring bacteria. It only arose, what, ten years ago.
................
Representations of skin lesions and facial deformities have been found on pre-Inca potteries from Ecuador and Peru dating back to the first century AD. They are evidence that cutaneous and mucocutaneous forms of leishmaniasis prevailed in the New World as early as this period.
Texts from the Inca period in the 15th and 16th centuries, and then during the Spanish colonization, mention the risk run by seasonal agricultural workers who returned from the Andes with skin ulcers which, in those times, were attributed to "valley sickness" or "Andean sickness"....
Texts from the Inca period in the 15th and 16th centuries, and then during the Spanish colonization, mention the risk run by seasonal agricultural workers who returned from the Andes with skin ulcers which, in those times were attributed to "valley sickness" or "Andean sickness". Later, disfigurements of the nose and mouth become known as "white leprosy" because of their strong resemblance to the lesions caused by leprosy. In the Old World, Indian physicians applied the Sanskrit term kala azar (meaning "black fever") to an ancient disease later defined as visceral leishmaniasis.
In 1901, Leishman identified certain organisms in smears taken from the spleen of a patient who had died from "dum-dum fever". At the time "Dum-dum", a town not far from Calcutta, was considered to be particularly unhealthy. The disease was characterized by general debility, irregular and repetitive bouts of fever, severe anaemia, muscular atrophy and excessive swelling of the spleen. Initially, these organisms were considered to be trypanosomes, but in 1903 Captain Donovan described them as being new.
The link between these organisms and kala azar was eventually discovered by Major Ross, who named them Leishmania donovani. The Leishmania genus had been discovered.