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Thank you for the link to the video Seeb. I was planning on being there but ended up missing it, so I appreciate this.
Sounds like you MUST wash your veggies, clean or distilled water is as effective as vinegar or hydrogen peroxide if not a little more so. And work, work, work to get rid of those slugs!
aloha, Liz
"The best things in life aren't things."
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At the meeting,it was clear that there is much more research that needs to be done. We were told distilled water killed the nematode (they explode) better than hydrogen peroxide, but I would like to know the effects of things like vinegar and grapefruit seed extract, etc as well. No one was able to say how many nematodes you have to ingest to contract the illness. Of course as the scientists who were there pointed out, cannot really do studies on that. I wonder if any studies were done on the monkeys at the zoo that died from the disease already. And, no one had evidence that eating the slime could make you ill, though nematodes have been found in the slime. Scientists would need proof from studies to be able to say definitively one way or the other, but I say better safe than sorry at this point. To me it could partially explain how there can be extremely severe cases and more mild cases. But I am not a scientist. How long the nematode could live outside the slug in the slime was also in question, to my understanding, though it was suspected that the fragile nematode could probably not live in dried up slime for very long.
I was a very good idea to conduct this meeting and bring the Dept. of Health directly into the dialog and want to thank the people at SPACE. It seemed like about 100 or more people attended. It was clear, listening to the problems people had getting diagnosed, that the Dept. has to find better ways of informing doctors of all of the symptoms, severe and milder, and ways of prevention and treatment. It was also clear that the general public has to be better informed. The Dept. of Health presented a draft of a flyer it was working on to do exactly that.
Know Your Farmer Alliance ( http://www.knowyourfarmeralliance.com) has put a page up on angiostrongylus cantonensis (found under the heading "critical issues") and said they will be putting up a summary of the meeting. There are links to studies that have already been done. There was talk at the meeting of a website that people could share information on the illness and its prevention. The ways of prevention that were in no doubt were catchment filtration, inspecting and washing vegetables (in several changes of water), cooking vegetables, protected raised beds for vegetable that will not be cooked, and getting rid of as many rats and semi-slugs/slugs/snails as possible. (all the ones I can remember at this point - but check the link above)
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Thanks for the great link, Seeb, and the useful summary, Shekelpal! Good to know.
I never would have guessed the bit about distilled water working better than hydrogen peroxide solution and so on. The larvae must rupture when the salts in their cells want to push toward the distilled water because of the osmolarity difference, is my guess, but making distilled water takes quite a bit of energy to be doing so in quantity on an ongoing basis. I wonder how much better DW works than a strong salt solution?
If the larvae (or at least their cell membranes) rupture like overinflated wet balloons when immersed in DW because of the salt balance difference, then it stands to reason a strong salt solution would collapse them like deflated balloons as they dehydrate when the same osmotic process runs in the reverse direction, yes? If so, then it is a whole lot less expensive to plunge, agitate, and soak veggies for X minutes in a five gallon bucket of strong brine, and then rinse all the salt solution off with regular clean water after the slugs and larvae are neutralized, than to ongoingly pay for gallons of distilled water at the store or electric bills from running a distilled water still at home to make DW in quantity. Might be worth running an experiment to find out if this salt solution notion "holds water" as it were, if such has not already been checked. Perhaps the mechanics of it are the other way around (DW collapsing the larvae's cells and salt solution expanding them to the point they burst) but either way if DW works then it seems like strong salt solution might also work--less expensively and perhaps even more effectively--if the same process is run far enough in reverse.
Does anyone on this forum use ferric phosphate as a slug and snail poison, or for any other purpose?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_phosphate
It has been a long time since I raised algae and diatoms in two-ton tanks, but this faintly rings a bell. I think one of the recipes for nutrient soup in raising commercial quantities of some strains of algae and diatoms perhaps called for ferric phosphate. The MSDS on this inorganic compound looks fairly innocuous to me (calls for using about the same precautions as would be used for handling table salt or pepper, basically, with about the same levels of risk) ...and there is only one percent (1%) FePO4 in Sluggo.
http://www.biconet.com/crawlers/infoshee...goMSDS.pdf
and
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:stZCE2pKuDYJ:www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Ferric_phosphate-9924042+MSDS+ferric+phosphate&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
I am no enthusiast of using chemicals which need to be repeatedly purchased & reapplied and may have unintended consequences when instead a simple strip of metallic copper might do the job, permanently, as an effective slug and snail barrier around table legs and raised beds, but it is good to know FePO4 may be useful in some circumstances and does not appear to present anywhere even remotely near the same hazard as the rat lungworm vectors which it counters.
Quite a healthy turnout, it looks like in the video, at that meeting. Way to go, Puna.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman
"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."
NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt
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Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php
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A few further musings and wonderings-
Shekelpal commented " ...no one had evidence that eating the slime could make you ill, though nematodes have been found in the slime. Scientists would need proof from studies to be able to say definitively one way or the other, but I say better safe than sorry at this point."
I am with you on "better safe than sorry," for sure, but it seems as if the question of rat lungworm larval infectivity to humans from slime trails could be tested in a fairly straightforward manner. If certified clean lab mice or rats are obtained from Jackson Labs or some other reputable source and fed veggies with slime trails from infected slugs (being very careful the slugs themselves are not present on the specimens fed to the rodents), then after the appropriate incubation period if the rodents are humanely sacrificed and their organs and tissues subsequently bioassayed the presence of any adult rat lungworms would be a clear indication of slime trail infectivity. A worthy project for a grad student and supervising prof at the university to take on and publish the results of, I'd think, with some local relevance and contribution.
Carey commented "...some interesting research on caffeine against snails & slugs...was done HERE in Hilo!" and provided the useful link http://www.plantea.com/slug-baits-coffee.htm
At that site Marion Owen informatively says " ...Slugs and snails hate caffeine, researchers have discovered. The chemical could become an environmentally acceptable pesticide.Robert Hollingsworth of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Hilo, Hawaii, and his colleagues were testing caffeine sprays against the coqui frog, an introduced species that infests potted plants. They also noticed that a 1 to 2 percent caffeine solution killed nearly all the slugs and snails within two days. Concentrations as low as 0.01 percent put the pests off their dinner...A cup of drip brewed coffee has about 115 milligrams of caffeine...which means you want to use drip brewed coffee for repelling slugs and snails. Coffee grounds are already recommended as a home remedy for keeping slugs and snails at bay. Grounds repel slugs, Hollingsworth found, but a caffeine solution is much more effective, he says: "Slugs turn back immediately after contacting the [caffeinated soil]."...caffeine is an alkaloid compound that acts as a stimulant in humans. Alkaloids are usually derivatives of amino acids and most alkaloids have a very bitter taste. Just think about your first taste of coffee. Pretty bitter, wasn't it? Caffeine is found in the beans, leaves, and fruit of over 60 plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants."
Given the CDC note on frogs as a potential intermediate host for rat lungworm larvae the caffeine spray may have extra utility. I'd bet the CDC's comment probably ties to aquatic frogs rather than to coquis, though. How a coqui frog would become infected in the first place seems somewhat doubtful; they would not be eating rat feces and the A. cantonensis larval stage which might be present in slime trails coquis could be stepping through, laying on, or sharing leaf axle water pools with would, I think, be looking for a mammialian definitive host to infect rather than an amphibian. It might perhaps be happening, though. I'd bet the most likely pathway for coqui infection --if it is happening at all-- would be via slugs drowning in leaf axle pools and the larvae liberated from the slugs entering the coqui there. The reason I am wondering about this is because of the possibility of a recent unusual variation in the rat lungworm infection pattern.
Sick-acting rats have been mentioned, in increasing numbers. Why are there suddenly sick-acting rats at the same time there is an uptick in human health problems from rat lungworm infections? Coincidence, possibly, and/or a more dense human population ...and so both more exposure and more reporting. Possibly some sort of population cycle between rats and molluscs is peaking, just as observed in lynx & hares or wolves & moose -but complicated by the nematode. Yet, maybe, there might also be a coqui card at play in the Hawaii deck. The coqui population has been building coincident with the rise in human infections and observations of sick rats. If the coquis are becoming infected in leaf axle pools and then rats are eating the infected intermediate host coquis, perhaps in large numbers, as well as the usual slugs and snails.... It all makes me wonder.
Also, the mention of a caffeine spray potentially doing double duty against both slugs& snails and coqui frogs brings to mind thought of another powerful plant alkaloid compound: nicotine. There is enough nicotine in a cigarette to kill an adult human if the cigarette is soaked in a jar of water and that stained water then imbibed via drinking it or absorbing it through the skin. Wikipedia says "40–60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans" (this is a low dosage- nicotine is acutely toxic, very dangerous) but Wiki does not comment on the lethal dose of nicotine for either slugs & snails or for coqui frogs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine). I wonder, does anyone know the effects of nicotine solution on slugs, snails, and coqui and whether or not nicotine solution is persistent on plant leaves? Please be very careful if you are experimenting (waterproof gloves, goggles, respirator, a partner spotting you, etc) and only do so if you have experience with such. Probably better to spray them with coffee anyhow, if it does the job.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman
"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."
NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt
)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php
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The second person of three who was diagnosed with angiostrongylus cantonensis in Hilo hospital just got taken to Honolulu. Both are in a coma due to extreme brain swelling or meningnoeocephalitis.
Please people, be careful. If you are careful it is largely preventable.
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quote:
Originally posted by Shekelpal
A friend of ours recently came down with rat lung worm, or angiostrongylus cantonensis, causing eosinophilic meningitis. Many people I know have had it, including myself and my husband, but our friend#699;s case was particularly bad, now in the hospital on morphine and steroids. Not a great way to spend the holidays.
This very wet, cool weather has caused an outbreak of the semi-slugs (Parmarion martensi) that carry a nematode in their bodies and slime trail that causes this illness. These things climb all over your walls, roof, catchment, vegetable garden and fruit trees. Please be careful and inspect and wash your food well (with boiled or well filtered water), or additionally, do not eat it fresh from the garden but let it sit inside or in the fridge for a day. The nematode cannot live outside of the slug for very long. Cooking kills the parasite. Note, that the semi-slug is not the only thing to carry this, snails, and I believe some worms can as well - it is just that semi-slug is more plentiful and so is the amount of slime and it is hard to accidently eat an African Snail.
We spray copper sulfate around the footings of the house and the table where I grow vegetables that we eat raw. So far that has worked fairly well, they hit that and turn bronze and die.
The symptoms of this illness vary, but seem to always be accompanied by extreme headache, neck pain and stiffness, and do seem to come on fairly rapidly. I can only describe it as an alien taking over your body. Depending on the number of nematodes that have gone into your bloodstream and found their way up your spinal column and brain to die, as you are not their natural host, there may be other symptoms as mild as an extremely painful arm and shoulder, or as extreme as your whole body being in total agony and encephalitis. You may also have abdominal symptoms and skin that is painful to the touch. The symptoms may last a year or more to some degree and may cause permanent damage.
Though the knowledge about the semi-slug and the nematode#699;s connection with meningitis has been around for at least 5 years, the Hilo Hospital recently seemed to not know much about it. When I had it a few years ago, I contacted the State Dept. of Health to try to make sure that they put out a warning to people and Drs. as it is a reportable Public Health issue. I copied the letter to Gov. Lingle. I never heard anything from her office, but the health dept. called me and in the conversation we had the man said that "this is the price of living in paradise". I asked him if he did not mean to say parasites? He did not laugh.
Anyway, with awareness and caution this is a largely preventable illness. Hope everyone else is having a happy holiday.
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Rat Lung Worm. What a cool and creepy name for something that attacks the human body. Almost as cool as Monkey Pox.
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As Damon#699;s post to the Starbulletin pointed out, things have gone from bad to worse for our friend whose brain tissue has worm tracks from A. cantonensis eaten into it.
Thanks for the musings and things to think about Alaskasteven...As to the experiment with the rat and the slime, I am not sure this would prove anything except that the rat may or may not get the illness from the slime. Also the rat is the natural host and the human is not so the nematode will behave differently and eventually dies in the human. The question they may have is the number of third stage nematodes that a human must ingest in order to contract the illness. I would think that something more similar to a human would have to be tested in order to get some idea because as the scientists pointed out they cannot do this experiment on humans.
The life cycle of A. cantonensis is: Definitive host (rat, here) where adult worms are in the pulmonary arteries, eggs are released there and carried in the bloodstream to the lungs of the rat, eggs are swallowed and first stage larvae develop in the intestine, first stage larvae are passed in the feces which are then eaten by the intermediate molluscan hosts (such as the semi slug, snails) where they develop into third stage larvae. Infected molluscan hosts are then eaten by the rat (or human). In the rat, the cycle starts all over again.
I have heard that larger reptiles, such as the monitor lizard, that eat slugs and snails can have the third stage larvae in them and if eaten raw or undercooked can give a human a good dose. The planaria (those flat, slender bodied, wide headed worm like things that also get all over vegetables on the island) are also carriers of third stage larvae because they parasitize the slug and probably the eggs. I have seen them sucking on the bodies of semi slugs.
Anyway, thanks for the interest because it is only from being akamai that we can help prevent this horrible illness.
quote:
Originally posted by Shekelpal
...The planaria (those flat, slender bodied, wide headed worm like things that also get all over vegetables on the island) are also carriers of third stage larvae because they parasitize the slug and probably the eggs. I have seen them sucking on the bodies of semi slugs.
Shekelpal -
Are you talking about these worms that I found in my yard?
Warning: This link will take you to my blog and a picture of a worm.
http://damontucker.wordpress.com/2008/12...m-kewense/
I've seen those grow on Kalo as well as sweet potatoes besides green veggies.
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