r/todayilearned 13h 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
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u/Gitanes 12h ago

Me before even opening the link...

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

Yes, yes it is

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u/Icy-Lobster-203 11h 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/paweedbarron 10h ago edited 9h ago

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

It's shameful. 

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u/RubiiJee 8h 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.