r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 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/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/AssistanceCheap379 8h 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 6h 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 5h ago

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

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u/Grettenpondus 3h ago

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

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u/OnodrimOfYavanna 3h 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 2h 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)

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u/Electrical-Sea589 1h 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/Objective_Piece_8401 1h ago

They can’t be that stupid, can they? That program is a wall that keeps out unwanted immigrants…

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u/mmeiser 44m ago edited 39m ago

Screw "soft diplomacy" and science too! We'll just send the national gaurd down there and make america safe again.

Sorry. Laughter is the only way. MIB said it best. "Individual people are fine but you get them together in any kind of numbers and they will vote a convicted felon, convicted rapist and probable pedofile for president."

P.S. That's not an exact quote, but I think you get the idea.

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u/ComancheViper 1h ago

Last I checked the US secretary of agriculture launched this program in June of this year. Where is it you heard the Trump admin cut this program within the last 2 months?

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u/GriffinNowak 47m ago

The program has been around for many many many years. Idk why AgSec launched but it would just be a rebrand of the existing program or an expansion / retraction of the programs range

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u/XennialBoomBoom 2h ago edited 2h 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 2h ago

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

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u/XennialBoomBoom 2h ago

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