There was a girl here in our town recently who died from this usually rare disease. It seems to not be a rarity in our locality. Prior to her death I was aware of this disease and it's mortality in dogs. Our neighbor, who was a veterinarian for the government (one of those sent by our country to assess and deal with Mad Cow disease overseas) had lost his own dog to blastomycosis only last year. In his dogs case it infected the dogs brain and ended up acting somewhat like a mix between rabies and encephalitis. He put his own dog down.
Now it seems to be extremely common. This veterinarian neighbor is one of those attempting to assist. He reported the fungas' effect on canines a year ago and has found most of the cases to be located along the Wisconsin River near the City's refuse/compost heaps. I know of two people personally who live on that very same block near the City's compost piles who have been struggling with this. The girl in the article in my
Link also lived on that block. It feels to me like this is being covered up a little bit.
No matter what it's one more threat to our health that could cause a bit of a scare if it continues to cause this much trouble. This is more cases in the past few years of Blastomycosis than Lymes disease which is fairly common.
Have you heard of this disease? Any evidence of it near where you are?