Blastomycosis - another threat to our health

[raeanna74]

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?

[maximusveritas]

I think this is just a case of a local outbreak. I did a quick search on it and found it to be endemic in Wisconsin, with multiple outbreaks in the past. So while it may be a relatively big deal where you are, it's not a threat at all in other places across the nation.

[raeanna74]

Actually I did a search on CDC's website and they did not even mention our area. "Endemic in parts of the south-central, south-eastern and mid-western United States. Microfoci in Central and South America and parts of Africa. " We're in NorthCentral US.

[The_Jazz]

Raeanna, I think that you (and me for that matter) are considered Midwestern by the CDC. They would include everything from Ohio to Nebraska and Missouri to Minnesota in that, so we qualify.

[xepherys]

Wisconsin is, indeed, the midwestern US (my wife was raised there), as is Michigan which has seen issues with this in the upper peninsula. Even being raised in Detroit, I heard about this affecting mostly rural areas in the northern part of the state (several years back). I don't know if it's so much a cover up as it is just truly not a huge issue for a very large geographical area.

Fungii do not "spread" very easily like a virus can. They can also be destroyed outright fairly easily given the right circumstances. A good warm summer with little rain will clam up most fungal outbreaks.

Also, because there seems to be confusion regarding which states are in which regions (especially the midwest):

* New England, made up of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
* The Middle Atlantic, comprising New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.
* The South, which runs from Virginia south to Florida and west as far as central Texas. This region also includes West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and parts of Missouri and Oklahoma.
* The Midwest, a broad collection of states sweeping westward from Ohio to Nebraska and including Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, parts of Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, and eastern Colorado.
* The Southwest, made up of western Texas, portions of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and the southern interior part of California.
* The West, comprising Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, California, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii.

from http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/...ctover/ch2.htm

I can't begin to tell you how many times I had to argue with ppl while growing up that Michigan was, in fact, part of the midwest.

[snowy]

Here is some more information about the outbreaks of blastomycosis in Wisconsin:

Distribution is worldwide, primarily in North America and Africa. Endemic areas in the U.S. include the midwest, eastern coast, and along the Mississippi and Namekagon Rivers. There have been several localized epidemics of blastomycosis. There have been a total of 12 documented human outbreaks (ranging from 3 - 48 people) in the U.S., 5 of which came from Wisconsin. Out of the 12 outbreaks, only 2 had positive isolations.

Blastomycosis is not a disease that is required to be reported to the Center for Disease Control on a national scale. However, it was a reportable disease from 1986 -1995 in Wisconsin after 2 human outbreaks in 1985. During those years, a total of 670 cases were reported; 26 of them were fatal. The 10 northern counties in Wisconsin contributed 294 cases of the 670. In 1986, Eagle River, Wisconsin had an outbreak where 48 out of 95 people visiting a camp contracted the disease. Out of 47 environmental samples taken from Eagle River, 2 of them tested positive for Blastomyces, primarily from a beaver lodge. The fungus also seems to be common along the Namekogen River in NW Wisconsin. A Native American (Lac Courte Oreilles band of the Ojibwe) died from this 1997. Seven Namekagon canoeists died in 1979. There was another outbreak in northern Minnesota in 1999. Many people who live in this region fear taking their dogs along the river. A severe outbreak occurred several yearsago along the Des Plaines River near Chicago, where many dogs died in a new subdivision built near the river.

This was taken from Tom Volk's Fungi of the Month Page: http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/jan2001.html

He's a professor of biology at UW-La Crosse, so I would hope he knows what he's talking about when it comes to mycology in Wisconsin.

[Nimetic]

Never heard of it over here.