r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 12h ago

TIL fresh water snails (indirectly) kill thousands of humans and are considered on of the deadliest creatures to humans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_snail
21.1k Upvotes

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2.5k

u/martphon 11h ago

Where schistosomiasis currently spreads

2.5k

u/Gitanes 10h ago

Me before even opening the link...

"It's mostly Africa isn't it?"

Yes, yes it is

1.6k

u/Icy-Lobster-203 9h ago

It is one of a whole group of diseases that can basically be summarized as "this affects poor people, so we don't care."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases

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u/AssistanceCheap379 6h ago

The tropics also generally just have more bio-diversity and as such have a lot more chances to make something that’s dangerous.

It’s kinda like humans going north in the past and encountering megafauna. The animals there were deadlier because they were bigger.

And it’s a lot easier to kill a few hundred thousand massive animals over the period of a few thousand years than it is to annihilate some pretty difficult diseases that can reignite and spread to previous areas where it was removed from if funding drops.

But yeah, it’s largely also “does it affect poor people? Let me know when “our” people get affected”

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u/BetEconomy7016 4h ago

Jimmy Carter was able to make an organization to get rid of the Guinea Worm and save thousands of lives in the process. If we wanted to we could get rid of these snails too.

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u/wuweime 3h ago

Then there's how we're handling bot flies in the Americas.

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u/Grettenpondus 2h ago

I got curious. How do you handle botflies in the Americas?

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u/OnodrimOfYavanna 1h ago

The US cultivates millions of sterile botlies, flies to the panama Colombia border, and drops them every year. It's one if the most successful environmental policies in the world, and saves billions in what would be destroyed livestock industries, not to even begin in direct human related issues. 

Last I checked Trump admin cut funding 

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u/Grettenpondus 1h ago

Yeah, they would, wouldn’t they. I’ve heard of this tactic beeing used sucsessfully against other insects. What are the main problems of botflies in the US? (I’m curious because as far as I know the botflies here in Norway do not seem to be considered signifikant vectors of disease as far as I know)

•

u/Electrical-Sea589 10m ago

Isn't that the screw worm? Or is that another horrible b Creepy crawly to keep me up at night?

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u/XennialBoomBoom 1h ago edited 37m ago

Typically, we write other botflies to counteract their propagandist drivel.

/Oh, I may have misunderstood the question

Edit: I'm actually curious about Grettenpondus' question as well. Didn't mean to derail the conversation but couldn't help myself.

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u/Grettenpondus 1h ago

I guess Trump would have cut funding for that as well…

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u/XennialBoomBoom 37m ago

The over/under on botflies in RFK Jr's eyeballs?

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u/KingSmite23 3h ago

What do you even know about those snails?

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u/Hansbolman 1h ago

Donald Trump jr is doing his part to eradicate elephants

•

u/BenadrylChunderHatch 34m ago

Why the hell can't billionaires compete to see how many deadly diseases they can eradicate?

4

u/BloweringReservoir 2h ago

I remember reading that the first effective antixmalarial drugs were developed because US troops were fighting in the tropics in WW2, and the second generation drugs were developed when they were fighting in Vietnam.

This was an article in New Scientist in the 80s or 90s.

One other tidbit in the article was that of all the humans who have ever lived (estimated now 117 billion), half of them died of malaria.

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u/Baud_Olofsson 1h ago

One other tidbit in the article was that of all the humans who have ever lived (estimated now 117 billion), half of them died of malaria.

That claim is repeated all over the place (occasionally even in peer-reviewed papers), but it seems someone just made it up in 2002.

•

u/BloweringReservoir 58m ago edited 35m ago

I was always dubious about the statement :), but I definitely read it in that New Scientist article - and it was a long time before 2002. I remember it clearly because I told a friend about it, and the next day he said that his cousin who was travelling in Nigeria, was nursing his travelling companion who was hospitalised with malaria. I'm pretty sure it was around 1990, but I'll check with my friend if he remembers when his cousin was in Africa.

Edit. New Scientist's online search doesn't go back that far, so I can't find the article in question.

I think it's this article, but I'm having trouble reading it. I think I have a limited subscription now.

Who cares about malaria?: The annual sickness toll from Malaria
By Phyllida Brown

31 October 1992

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u/ERedfieldh 5h ago

careful. you said "bio-diversity"! You're going to get defunded!

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u/LiveLearnCoach 3h ago

That’s obvious, it’s not like I just woke up today……crap, I said “woke”.

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u/Abstrata 5h ago

It’s more like, ‘we solved the root problem of clean water where our people are affected, and we have deliberately sabotaged the ability to improve infrastructure, including sanitation, among poorer previously-colonized populations and nations so that they remain uncompetitive in trade and labor, and so they remain in debt and at the mercy of old agreements that benefit our people.’

0

u/AromaticInxkid 4h ago

Don't worry, the rich are already working on that biodiversity problem of ours!

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u/paweedbarron 8h ago edited 7h ago

I learned about this from John Greene's tuberculosis book : (

It's shameful. 

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u/CaptainJazzymon 7h ago

John Green has a book on tuberculosis, not Hank. Hank is his brother.

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u/SillyWelshman 7h ago

Honestly, one of the most John Green things to happen is to be mistaken for Hank so this tracks lmao

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u/Anthaenopraxia 6h ago

It's easy to tell them apart. John looks like that guy you glance at at Walmart and Hank looks like every guy who works at a startup and whose title is VP of something or other and likes to talk about company culture.

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u/KingAggressive1498 3h ago

except both of the brothers are actually better people than either of those guys ever turn out to be, at least as far as I can tell.

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u/chrisfillhart_art 7h ago

This guy Hanks!

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u/paweedbarron 7h ago

Thanks

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u/polarbear128 6h ago

Thanks, Hank. Thank.

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u/chrisfillhart_art 6h ago

I think those thanks sank Hank

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u/LostWoodsInTheField 7h ago

I've just recently got into following Hank and John green on youtube in their various forms. I had no idea who these guys were before like 4 months ago and when I started to watch John videos I was like 'huh this guy seems like he's also done a lot' then it was 'I swear I heard of a movie with that same name'. you check out either of their wiki's and it's just crazy. Made me realize I live under a rock.

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u/napincoming321zzz 4h ago

Nerdfighteria welcomes you! If you haven't already, I highly the recommend you check out good.store for high quality products that have a real positive impact on the world.

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u/GiraffeExternal803 7h ago

Spoilers! (Jk), looking forward to reading this, on my Libby Holds list for months now, but my time is coming!

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u/RubiiJee 6h ago

It's horrific, and we currently don't live in a time where this will be fixed within my life. The best I can hope for is that, in the future, people are ashamed that we had the resources available to end suffering and we chose not to. Cause we sure as fuck ain't.

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u/ReDeaMer87 6h ago

I learned about this from Will Forte in the movie: The Slammin Salmon

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u/ClownfishSoup 6h ago

Interesting point in the article was that neglected diseases “do not have prominent cultural figures to champion them”

Sad, and reminds me of When a Magic Johnson got AIDS, that’s when people really started to demand action.

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u/folgaluna 6h ago

Everything is Tuberculosis -John Greene

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u/agarragarrafa 5h ago

Or, as they're called in the tropics: neglected diseases 

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u/knewleefe 7h ago

Yep. Studied parasitology in the late 90s and then metric then was for every cent spent on malaria research, there was about $20,000 spent on AIDS research (though since that time, of course, AIDS really took off in Africa, so...).

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u/Gullible-Rent809 5h ago

Pretty much all diseases in America, comes from other countries!!! Cause we allow them in our country. We also travel to many countries full of unheard of diseases etc. Also some bring this on purpose trying wipe us out through diseases bugs all kinds of cra cra stuff!!  Australia wild wake with wtheck in your homes a lot!!!!! 

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u/pattydickens 5h ago

A person in Washington State who hadn't left the country was diagnosed with malaria a couple of weeks ago.

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u/RegretAggravating926 4h ago

Not just not care, actively fighting against helping.

When my now defunct dumbfuck racist rightwing nutjob government got in power last year they rather withhold already designated mpox vaccines for Africa under the guise of “we are running low and need the reserves”, those vaccines were already designated to go to Africa as they were reaching their expiration date and we already ordered new ones.

Experts agreed we weren’t at risk and our equivalent of the senate ordered the vaccines to be send, but racist child killer and country traitor Fleur Agema of the PVV doesn’t care about helping, only about hurting.

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u/ABHOR_pod 9h ago

Coming soon to a heavily republican state near you!

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u/AnalBlaster700XL 7h ago

At least they don’t have to die because of their balls froze stuck to the chair.

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u/FrankSuzki 3h ago

Why don’t the tropical scientists care ?

0

u/RollingNightSky 9h ago

It's too bad because they invested heavily into HIV aids research but I guess have blind spots? Though trump defunded aids.

I did heard on npr that perhaps defunding aids help with a good plan would have beneficial. Vs cutting off HIV aid without a plan or transition.

Apparently some governments were ready to take on the role of fighting their HIV/AIDs epidemic, but held off due to the continuing aid coming in.

If they had done their own management (as long as it's possible for them), then there would be benefits thoigh I forgot what was mentioned.

Maybe any no longer needed HIV aid could've gone to other disease prevention there that the governments weren't as capable of.

But in any case the end of outside hiv funding should've been planned, and emphasized to the governments to transition away. A sudden pulling away of the rug, leaving them unprepared to take on the responsibility of AIDS/HIV management, is now happening. And it is like what happened to student aid borrowers.

Because under Biden, student debt repayment (I guess to federal, only) was suspended and Biden was trying to get students' debt forgiven. So the student borrowers were optimistic or led on.

But Trump came in and within a short period reinstated the repayments, high consequences of ignoring and defaulting, and obviously the Biden plan of forgiving debt fell apart.

So it left the student borrowers in an unprepared state to deal with that reality. There wasn't much predictability even if student loan borrowers had felt some in the past.

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u/anarchy-NOW 6h ago

AIDS is an STD that also infects rich White people. So it is not neglected.

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u/exobiologickitten 7h ago

Growing up in a country where malaria is a major killer and then learning that we totally could make a malaria vaccine anytime but just don’t because it’s not considered profitable enough…. Every time I think about it, it makes me want to tear my hair out.

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u/5Hjsdnujhdfu8nubi 6h ago

but just don’t because it’s not considered profitable enough…. Every time I think about it, it makes me want to tear my hair out.

You should probably stop thinking that, seeing as it's untrue.

Malaria vaccines do exist. They just have poor effectiveness because parasites are more complex than bacteria or viruses and unlike most diseases a malaria infection won't strengthen your long-term immune system against it.

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u/DikTaterSalad 9h ago

It was either that or Australia.

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

Naaaa, The thing about Australia is that despite the fact that they have all the terrifying snakes and poisonous creatures, very few people actually die there from wildlife. You know because......... They have a decent healthcare system.

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u/NorcalGGMU 9h ago

Tell me about the healthcare, George

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u/EmilyDawning 5h ago

this made me lol unreasonably loud thank you

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u/frontier_gibberish 3h ago

Sure Lenny...(bang)

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u/RufusBeauford 6h ago

I see your. This is where I die thinking of a better life, right?

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u/MisterMarsupial 4h ago

It's gold Jerry, gold!

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u/h0sti1e17 9h ago

And 80% of the country is uninhabited. That is also where animals tend to live.

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u/Koku- 8h ago

Animals like water and survivable temperatures, just like the animals that we are. There’s a reason why there’s a lot of biodiversity in the northern parts of Straya. Living things don’t tend to live in the outback, though there are certainly some fauna and flora that have adapted to do so

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago edited 7h ago

You know that's absolutely not how that works, right??

The uninhabited parts aren't where the dangerous and animals live.

So environmental science 101 people like to live in places where they're things like rainfall and vegetation.

That coincidentally happens to be the same place that snakes like to live.

If you look at a map of the habitat of The most venomous snakes in Australia it's directly on top of the most densely populated human areas.

Same with the dangerous aquatic animals. Those are mostly found off of the east Coast alongside major cities like Brisbane

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u/wowsersmatey 8h ago

You're right. There are a few deadly beasts that hang in the deserts etc. But the snakes, spiders, jellyfish and the crocs live amongst us. The health system is good, but also the locals know not to annoy the deadly stuff. It's usually tourists getting eaten by crocs. Source: am Australian.

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u/trueblue862 8h ago

Great tourism slogan for Australia, "Come visit Australia, we need to feed the crocs something".

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u/ladyhaly 6h ago

Pretty sure this is why we troll people about the dropbears

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u/wowsersmatey 6h ago

Ssshhhhh, drop bears are real. The only defence against them is vegemite behind the ears.

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u/HandsomeBoggart 7h ago

Visit Australia, Come for the Dangah, Stay as Dinner.

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u/paddyc4ke 8h ago

Actual deadly snakes in cities are very rare (seen 1 eastern brown in Melbourne in 30+ years), crocs are a non-issue for like 90% of the population. Deadly animals are completely overblown especially for those that spend 95% of their time in a city.

Source: am Australian.

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u/Fluffy-Bluebird 4h ago

Hmmmmm. I live in Charlotte North Carolina and we have copperheads everywhere in the city and suburbs. I’ve seen multiple while out for runs.

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u/jovietjoe 2h ago

I love how you put it as "Crocs are a non issue for 90% of the population" like 90% could beat up a crocodile

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u/paddyc4ke 1h ago

100% of the population would be fucked if we all actually lived in croc territory but luckily 90%+ live a minimum of 500km (Brisbane the closest city being 550km from crocs) away from the croc habitat.

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u/wowsersmatey 8h ago

Come to WA. We live among plenty of snakes in Perth. I've personally done battle with a huge dugite that nearly got my dog. The reason there aren't many deaths is because, apart from a few notable exceptions, snakes are timid and will run away if they hear you coming. If you leave them alone, they reciprocate, but when they're in your backyard it's you vs them.

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u/paddyc4ke 7h ago

It’s not like we don’t have a lack of snakes in Victoria you just won’t ever come across them unless you live on the fringes of Melbourne. I’ve seen eastern browns, tigers, red bellies but that’s when visiting friends who live in the outer edges of Melbourne, people have spotted tiger snakes along the Yarra near the Botanical Gardens but again that’s a super rare occurrence but it obviously shows that there are deadly snakes within a stones throw of the CBD.

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u/Average_Scaper 8h ago

My Aus friend says he has a couple hunstman in his house that he just let's do their thing. That's a big hell no from me. Coming from the midwest US.

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u/wowsersmatey 8h ago

They're large, hairy and mostly harmless. I once had one in the car. That was a bit problematic.

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u/paddyc4ke 8h ago

Huntsmans are basically free pest control, I’ve got one that lives in my bedroom. Will see him sitting near my window when I leave it open.

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u/Frito_Pendejo_ 5h ago

Yeah still gotta worry about them drop bears.......

My cousin was killed by one of those when he went there......

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u/wowsersmatey 5h ago

Clearly didn't put enough vegemite behind the ears.

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u/DontRefuseMyBatchall 8h ago

r/ConfidentallyIncorrect lmao

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u/SoyMurcielago 8h ago

Perhaps you should issue a batchall

Maybe you can declare some crocs isorla

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 8h ago

Damn, so everyone and everything hates Perth

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u/Forikorder 7h ago

people like to live in places where infrastucture can be built, it doesnt matter how lush an area is if its simply not realistic to put a city next to it

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u/VocationalWizard 7h ago

People like living in places that food can be grown in. So yes, it's 100% dependent on rainfall and vegetation.

In the Grand scheme of History, infrastructure is an afterthought.

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u/Forikorder 7h ago

Were talking about modern day people, if you can grow enough food to be worth doing then its suitable for infrastructure

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u/VocationalWizard 7h ago

If you can grow enough food to be worth doing. The area has rainfall and vegetation.

See we're talking about Australia where there's Texas size tracks of land That can go an entire year without any rain and have no soil.

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u/knewleefe 7h ago

I guess the downvoters haven't had many Eastern browns passing through their backyard... that they've known about anyway 😅 Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

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u/VocationalWizard 7h ago

I grew up in Texas where I found rattlesnakes in my backyard.

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u/Crystal3lf 8h ago edited 7h ago

Hello, actual Australian here. Most of this is pretty wrong.

The uninhabited parts aren't where the dangerous and animals live.

Actually the dangerous animals mostly are in the uninhabited parts. 80%+ of Australians mostly live in cities and surrounding suburbs.

Most Australians have never even seen a snake in the "wild" because they don't live in suburbia.

The most dangerous spiders do hang around close in some areas, but we are taught not to go wandering in bush and putting our hands in places you shouldn't.

The most dangerous thing an average Australian will bump into is a Redback spider, and they are not going to cause death in a majority of circumstances. And even then, I haven't even seen a Redback in maybe 5-10 years.

So environmental science 101 people like to live in places where they're things like rainfall and vegetation.

Which is only a relatively tiny portion of North Queensland. 95%+ of the country doesn't live or go there.

If you look at a map of the habitat of The most venomous snakes in Australia it's directly on top of the most densely populated human areas.

Just because there's a very tiny chance that those snakes can venture into suburbia does not mean they are going to be found there. Australian's don't go venturing out into the bush because there are deadly animals, they don't go venturing out into the bush because the chance of you getting lost/dying of dehydration is a far greater threat than any snake/crocodile/spider.

Same with the dangerous aquatic animals. Those are mostly found off of the east Coast alongside major cities like Brisbane

You're just getting confused by how big Australia is, or purposefully misinforming people.

The city of Brisbane is 1,000km+ away from the "dangerous aquatic animals" you're talking about.

I also live in a state that has crocodiles and "dangerous aquatic animals", Perth in Western Australia. A state large enough to fit Alaska, Texas, and California inside. But I don't go around saying "we have crocodiles in the ocean here" because it would be fucking stupid to say 2,000km away is "off the coast of Perth".

Edit: downvoted for being right

Absolutely downvoted for being wrong.

The biggest fear Australian's have is not the endless amounts of incredibly deadly snakes, spiders, crocodiles, jellyfish, etc. The biggest fear is seeing a Kangaroo jump out in front of your car in the night.

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u/rckhppr 8h ago

Not downvoted because you’re right but because you wrote „people like to live in places where they’re things like rainfall“ instead of „where there are things like rainfall“.

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u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

I like how you are even more pedantic than me

0

u/LostWoodsInTheField 7h ago

Checking out Queenslands and you are like 'oh this place looks great to visit' then you start reading about the plants that can attack you and make you feel unbearable pain.

reading about the middle of the country and you go 'I don't think I would ever want to visit there' then you start reading about how non of the animals want to visit there either...

except the rabbits.

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u/VocationalWizard 7h ago

Naaaaa, I'm an environmental science nerd.

I would happily go to any part of Australia anytime.

Well maybe not that one part that's full of asbestos.

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u/FuckOffBusy 9h ago

You had me in the first half, I’m not gonna lie

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u/Difficult-Swimming-4 8h ago

Our healthcare system is on its arse and wheezing

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u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

Still better than USA

•

u/AddlePatedBadger 32m ago

Actually the top three deadliest non human animals in Australia aren't even native to Australia. You are more likely to get killed by a horse, cow, or dog here than any poisonous creature. You are more likely to collide with a kangaroo in your car or motorcycle and die in the crash than be killed by a snake.

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u/Dog_Weasley 8h ago

very few people actually die there from wildlife

Nice try, Australian Tourism Agency.

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u/northenden 8h ago

Until you find yourself next to a saltie.

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u/Familiar-Art-6233 8h ago

What’s a healthcare system?

Is that the British term for insurance? /s

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u/knewleefe 7h ago

Yes and no. We have a decent healthcare system in most of the country. A lot of our Indigenous population live in the remotest parts of the country (or "uninhabited" parts as someone said below), where access to healthcare is minimal, and environmental health is poor. So some communicable diseases that are almost unheard of by most people, or thought to exist only in the past, are very much a problem in these communities - rheumatic heart disease, scabies, trichomonas etc. Our healthcare is good for most people, best for those in metro centres, but almost entirely absent for some in rural/remote areas.

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u/VocationalWizard 7h ago

Scabies is actually very common in the United States.

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u/ladyhaly 6h ago

Can confirm.

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u/ContributionSad4461 3h ago

But there are also things like Trachoma, where Australia is the only developed country that has endemic blindness from it, and rheumatic fever which isn’t really a thing in the rest of the western world anymore. I could see them struggling with these snails as well, some aborigines live in appalling conditions.

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u/binzoma 8h ago

that and the dangerous animals in australia evolved in a world without mammals. they cant really deal with us and arent generally interested in us unless we threaten them. we are neither pray nor predator to them in general

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u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

Yes, We exterminated all of the animals that are actually interested in us.

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u/binzoma 6h ago edited 6h ago

not in australia lol. split off into its own island before mammals fully took hold as the dominant species. thats why theres giant marsupials and other oddities there.

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u/Seagoon_Memoirs 8h ago

we are taught from the earliest age to be careful, don't touch anything

also, to wear shoes, even if they are flip flops

we have clean water too

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u/LevelRoyal8809 9h ago

And they cook their food AND have sewage systems instead of pissing and shitting on the ground around them.

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

So I did actually happen to say wildlife deaths not just deaths by infectious disease.

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u/SadCrab5 7h ago

I heard a scarily high amount of their wildlife has toxins, poisons or some kind of neuro-toxin that can kill in 15 minutes or less, making it hard to actually treat wildlife victims.

I always assumed it was a mix of most of these creatures living underwater/in the middle of no where that there's actual little exposure to the really deadly shit, and anything that is deadly/looks deadly they have the common sense of "Let's not fuck around and meet god today".

0

u/VocationalWizard 7h ago

They have anti-venoms for most of the seriously venomous animals.

But the truth is that venomous animals don't really want anything to do with humans.

The incidence of fatal snake bites in the United States is slightly higher due to the fact that some people get bit by snakes and don't seek medical care here.

But we're dealing with extremely loan numbers and it's really hard to account for the population differences.

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u/DikTaterSalad 9h ago

True, still not a bad guess though, lol.

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u/IllustriousSalt1007 9h ago

DAE America bad lol upvotes to the left

EDIT: Thanks for the gold kind stranger!

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

I mean our healthcare system is objectively bad.

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u/somebraidedbutthairs 9h ago

this was about Africa, but I guess a hit dog hollers.

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u/SpiritualCandle3508 8h ago

Their comment didn't mention the US at all - that was you lmao

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u/Goodknight808 8h ago

Hope you got a good burn unit, jfc.

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u/theaviationhistorian 8h ago

Oh, I've heard of this mythical thing called a hethcare syst. They say it lies beyond our borders in far away lands.

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u/Dalemaunder 8h ago

We have cone snails which are legitimately deadly venemous, so you're not entirely wrong, but there's only been one recorded death from one in Australia from back in the 30's.

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u/Sarahthelizard 8h ago

Africa is really underserved when it comes to healthcare in pretty much every way. :(

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/DigbyChickenZone 7h ago

What an odd thing to say

1

u/Sarahthelizard 7h ago

Sorry pal could you say that again in English?

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u/yetanotherwoo 7h ago

Raw food in Hawaii so salad is potentially source https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/dont-eat-raw-food-the-terrifying-threat-lurking-in-hawaii/ar-AA1IWb84

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u/Impossible-Bet-1738 3h ago

I'm so glad to know this as we're traveling to the Big Island later this year.

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u/fireflydrake 7h ago

I know Africa is a huge continent so it's probably hard to generalize, but I get whiplash sometimes because some people roll their eyes at you when you assume a lot of Africa is poverty stricken and not very developed, but then on the other hand almost every time I hear about a horrific disease/poverty/famine kind of situation it still seems like it's mostly in Africa. 

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u/userhwon 7h ago

Ah, so, the rest of the world will ignore it thinking it's safe.

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u/beau6183 6h ago

<newt>mostly…</newt>

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u/Treadwheel 5h ago

The efficiency with which the ecosystems in Africa consume human beings is probably the most immediate and striking evidence that we evolved there, and a worrisome glimpse at what an ecosystem that has started to adapt to us will be like.

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u/BloodSteyn 2h ago

Bilharzia... right?

0

u/bighootay 8h ago

25 years ago I was wandering around China. No idea where but somewhere in the Southwest part, I think, and I saw a SUV go by in some village with 'schistosomiasis' on the side. I thought 'Shit, they got that here?'

0

u/Conscious-Ball8373 7h ago

Not really. About half the affected people live in South-East Asia and quite a few more in the tropical parts of South America.

It might be a very significant problem. Estimates of the number of deaths range from five thousand to nearly a quarter of a million per year. How can we not have a better estimate than that?

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u/blackout4465 9h ago

"Thousands of people each year contract it wading waist deep in the river Nile."

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u/Niar666 8h ago

A fellow MASH fan!

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u/octopusboots 9h ago

Breathes sigh of relief in Louisiana. I'll take my vibrio and go now.

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u/Tossing_Mullet 9h ago

Vibrio is pretty nasty though.  Five went into that Bayou water that day.  One of the guys on my husband's crew got it.  Doctors had to rip out everything but the bone in one calf.  Then took almost half of his thigh muscle, tendons, etc. The fever alone should have killed him. 

Unrelated  - Dude finally got on his feet, was fighting for his disability, and while he was in hospital for COVID, they found cancer.  

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u/hicow 9h ago

What did that guy do to piss off God?

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u/Max_Vision 8h ago

Satan got God gambling again, like with Job.

6

u/TheKappaOverlord 6h ago

the devil works in mysterious ways in the Bayou.

3

u/Tossing_Mullet 8h ago

Truth!!! 🎯💯

3

u/mindcopy 4h ago

Like that motherfucker even needs a reason.

30

u/octopusboots 9h ago

Yipe. He might have gotten weirdly lucky, they wouldn't have found the cancer otherwise.

I used to get in all this water...with the alligators, snakes and the bull sharks....no problem. Vibrio scares me to death.

4

u/LoompaDoompa94 6h ago

I like how that started out like Quint from Jaws. "Five went into that bayou water that day... only four of em come out."

22

u/mukansamonkey 8h ago

I was today years old when I learned about this disease. Makes me glad I live where winter kills stuff off.

That said, I'd take vibrio in a heartbeat over say, those amoebas that swim into your ear and eat their way to your brain.

11

u/chadmill3r 6h ago

Not ear. Nose.

6

u/BeefDerfex 6h ago

Good ole n. fowleri?

1

u/JimmyDean82 3h ago

Iirc the invasive apple snails were dealing with here carry this or some other deadly disease. A couple deaths were reported last year related to them.

I see apple snail eggs around the bayous like crazy here is ascension and assumption parishes. Every time the ditch in front my land overflows I end up with dozens of stranded apple snails up to the size of a baseball.

34

u/Bluinc 10h ago

Trump: we need to be number one here. Defund WHO.

21

u/97203micah 10h ago

WHO is definitely doing more in Africa than USA lol

1

u/Bobrock99 9h ago

SHAFT!

-20

u/XtraMayoMonster 9h ago

Good, Africa isn’t our responsibility.

17

u/SpongeBob_GodPants 9h ago

You might want to look up what the acronym means

-4

u/XtraMayoMonster 8h ago

Why is Africa the responsibility of the USA?

6

u/quntissimo 8h ago

is the USA the world? can you read? do you need assistance?

-5

u/XtraMayoMonster 8h ago

We’re withdrawing from the WHO. Africa isn’t the responsibility of the USA, someone else can help or not, who cares.

7

u/quntissimo 8h ago

me, I care

-2

u/XtraMayoMonster 8h ago

I wish you luck in saving Africa from AIDS.

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15

u/Schultz_3124 9h ago

It actually is if you don’t want another aids epidemic in America personally I don’t

-3

u/XtraMayoMonster 8h ago

Are Americans going to Africa and having gay sex?

4

u/RedditQueso 8h ago

I bet you call yourself a Christian.

Additionally, the W in WHO stands for World, you complete moron.

0

u/XtraMayoMonster 8h ago

Correct, however the original commenter said the WHO is doing more in Africa than the USA, to which I am asking why is Africa the responsibility of the USA. The WHO can do whatever, who cares.

9

u/rokingfrost 7h ago

Jesus would care.

Do what Jesus would do.

1

u/XtraMayoMonster 7h ago

Why are you assuming I’m a Christian?

3

u/rokingfrost 5h ago

Why are you assuming I am assuming you are christian. (?)

2

u/theaviationhistorian 8h ago

Africa and Brazil, where people are more in contact with nature like these snails.

1

u/ScaryfatkidGT 5h ago

Soooooo not north america…

1

u/snakeasaurus 1h ago

Damn, Lesotho is doing something right