Ocean Illness Report #1
70 just logged the first Ocean Illness Report by a user I don’t personally know. When I recieved notification of the report awaiting moderation and saw the illness listed as Typhoid Fever, I stopped reading and almost denied it on the spot. Typhoid isn’t listed as an illness caused by polluted water in any of the research I’ve done. I did a quick google search, which seemed to suggest it is only contracted through food and drink. Again, I almost denied the report as I am very concerned about the possible reporting of illnesses not related to polluted ocean water. Then, on this page of Cornell University’s site I found this sentence:
Typhoid fever is spread by consuming food or beverages that have been handled by a person who is shedding S. Typhi, or if sewage contaminated with S. Typhi bacteria gets into water used for drinking or washing food.
How much sea water do you swallow in a given session?
I went back to the illness report and read a little further. In the field labled, “Did anyone else get sick at this spot?”, was the answer:
“To my knowledge all of the gringo surfers that live in Sayulita and surf Sayulita on a regular basis, have had Typhoid Fever or currently have some kind of Typhoid count.”
Scary.
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May 29th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
yeah, that is scary…
i don’t guzzle sea water or anything(at least try not too…) but how many times do you lick your lips, etc., to need to ingest enough?…
whew, scary indeed
May 30th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Rob, I hope my post wasn’t too sensationalized as the intention here isn’t to scare people away from the water. I personally surf 3 times a week in SD and can’t attribute an illness to the ocean. Also there are alot of issues with public illness logging.
The biggest question is, how do we know an illness was caused by the ocean? The answer is, we can’t really.
After the guy fell in the canal during the spill and died in hawaii, the doctors STILL said they couldn’t prove the 5 infections he had were caused by the sewage spill. So how do I decided what gets marked and what doesn’t? Very difficult.
For now the 70 policy on Ocean Illness logs is, if it looks like a maybe, mark it. If, in a year, we have 1000s of maybes, many showing the same symptoms all from surfing one location then we have a yes. Maybe. :D
May 30th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
good system, and i’m not panicked(although some would argue otherwise) i am suprised that it is even possible.
i used to live in OB SD, and surfed dog beach all the time. i’ve had numerous weird rashes etc that my doctor said was from polluted water…
bad siutation for sure. does the city still get those vouchers to dump so much whatever into the river?