Accidental Blogger

Here are some news items that caught my attention in the last  couple of days.  They all relate to disease – of the body and the mind.

Mosquito borne diseases like malaria, dengue, West Nile fever etc. are becoming widely prevalent again.  Should we rethink the ban on DDT?

Anna Manzanarez was a picture of good health. But about a week after catching what she thought was a bad case of the flu, the 28-year-old waitress from Seaside, Calif., collapsed getting out of the shower.

The next day, despite intensive care at a hospital, she died. Her death shocked her family, but the discovery of what killed her hit public health officials like a bolt from the blue: She had fallen victim to a virulent form of a mosquito-borne disease that long ago had been eradicated in the U.S. and once was close to being eliminated throughout South America as well.

The disease, dengue fever, is on the march again and beginning to make its presence felt in the U.S., with cases popping up in Texas, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Last week, top health officials warned that a "widespread appearance" in the continental U.S. is "a real possibility."

Thus far, cases of dengue fever in North America — where disease scientists thought they had conquered it 30 years ago — have tended to be scattered and affect relatively few people. But increased travel to and from South America, where a resurgence has made dengue widespread, is thought to be boosting the disease’s spread northward.

The next one pertains to a disorder I had never heard of even though Houston is apparently a hot spot. It is a mystery affliction of the skin known as Morgellons.  Victims insist that it is real and it is agonizing.  Physicians wonder if it is all in the minds of the patients.

A federal health agency on Wednesday launched a study into an unexplained skin disorder that causes a crawling sensation and lesions that won’t heal, the first attempt to determine whether Morgellons is a legitimate illness or caused by the patient’s imagination.

Dr. Michele Pearson, principal investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would not go so far as to acknowledge that the illness is real, but said the agency has received enough inquiries about it during the past year that it deserves to be considered, and hopefully explained.

"I’m not so concerned with the label," Pearson said. "Clearly the suffering that these patients are experiencing is real."

People who report suffering from the condition identify a range of symptoms including crawling, biting and stinging sensations and so-called fibers or black specks that protrude from skin lesions. Some also suffer from fatigue, mental confusion and joint pain.

The illness has turned Waco resident Pam Stelk’s life upside down. She began to show symptoms about a year ago, and since then has had to quit her job and move away from her family because of the painful bites on her skin and other symptoms.

"To me it’s just the most terrible thing that I can think of that I could have," said Stelk, a 53-year-old who worked as a drug counselor. "You just hate the thought of them things munching on you."

When she picks the black specks — which she believes are living — out of her skin lesions, the stinging sensation subsides, she said. But doctor after doctor will not believe her story. They tell her she’s crazy, she said, fighting back tears.

"It’s bad enough that you have it," she said. "It’s even worse that the medical community does not know or will not acknowledge that it’s a possibility."

I will end with another health and disease related item. As a preamble to that, here is Mike Huckabee’s  latest pandering to the religious right.

The United States Constitution never uses the word "God" or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from "We the People." However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it’s time to put an end to that.

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

Huckabee is much more shrewd than it appears – he is a religious wolf in a populist sheep’s clothing.  He is anti-evolution, anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-Mormon (I assume also anti-anyone who is not Christian). The scary thing is that there are enough like minded voters who gave him a victory in Iowa and may do the same in South Carolina. Huckabee’s suggestion of rewriting the Constitution came up for discussion on Wednesday’s cable news show with Dan Abrams on MSNBC. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council was defending Huckabee when he said the following: (I cannot find a link to the  transcript. I am paraphrasing and you will have to take my word for it)

"If you all believe in evolution and the survival of the fittest, why do you clamor for universal health care?"

I have been waiting a long time for a spokesperson of the ultra-right to come out publicly and question social policies based on their opposition to the theory of evolution. Tony Perkins obliged.