06-29-2017, 06:37 AM
It's not a surprise, but it's nice to see the fingers pointed in the right direction by the right people. The Rat Lung issue is really what disturbs me the most.
"People play politics like this all the time and there was all kinds of other things that they punished him for. I think playing that kind of game with this kind of issue is outrageous. There’s a life or death issue that harms our community and instead the money that should have gone to our lab went to the Department of Health, which didn’t ask for it, doesn’t have a plan to spend on vector control on Maui where they’ve been fighting this disease for a full two months [vs Big Island for about 7 years], and so you know … that’s what happened in the end."
Maui gets the money and Ruderman is trying to get them to work with (i.e. fund) the actual rat lung worm lab in Hilo
A Deadly Brain-Invading Worm Is Disturbingly Widespread in Florida
The joint project between the University of Florida’s UF College of Veterinary Medicine and the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered traces of rat lungworm in five of the 18 counties studied, Alachua, Leon, St. Johns, Orange, and Hillsborough. Of the 171 rats tested, 23 percent were infected with the disease. In the counties where the parasite was found, around 16 percent of collected rats feces showed traces of the disease, and nearly two percent of land snails tested positive.
The new study reveals the alarming degree to which the parasite has now spread in the state of Florida, and discusses how climate change may be contributing to its expanded geographic range.
“The parasite is here in Florida and is something that needs to be taken seriously,” said study lead author Stockdale Walden in a statement. “The reality is that it is probably in more counties than we found it in, and it is also probably more prevalent in the southeastern US than we think. The ability for this historically subtropical nematode to thrive in a more temperate climate is alarming.”
http://gizmodo.com/a-deadly-brain-invadi...1796514141
"People play politics like this all the time and there was all kinds of other things that they punished him for. I think playing that kind of game with this kind of issue is outrageous. There’s a life or death issue that harms our community and instead the money that should have gone to our lab went to the Department of Health, which didn’t ask for it, doesn’t have a plan to spend on vector control on Maui where they’ve been fighting this disease for a full two months [vs Big Island for about 7 years], and so you know … that’s what happened in the end."
Maui gets the money and Ruderman is trying to get them to work with (i.e. fund) the actual rat lung worm lab in Hilo
A Deadly Brain-Invading Worm Is Disturbingly Widespread in Florida
The joint project between the University of Florida’s UF College of Veterinary Medicine and the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered traces of rat lungworm in five of the 18 counties studied, Alachua, Leon, St. Johns, Orange, and Hillsborough. Of the 171 rats tested, 23 percent were infected with the disease. In the counties where the parasite was found, around 16 percent of collected rats feces showed traces of the disease, and nearly two percent of land snails tested positive.
The new study reveals the alarming degree to which the parasite has now spread in the state of Florida, and discusses how climate change may be contributing to its expanded geographic range.
“The parasite is here in Florida and is something that needs to be taken seriously,” said study lead author Stockdale Walden in a statement. “The reality is that it is probably in more counties than we found it in, and it is also probably more prevalent in the southeastern US than we think. The ability for this historically subtropical nematode to thrive in a more temperate climate is alarming.”
http://gizmodo.com/a-deadly-brain-invadi...1796514141