Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

seattletimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–208 of 208 posts

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#201

Post by TheCoelacanth »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #195
duskwuff wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Netis are part of Ayurvedic medicine in India since long before people dreamed of personal immortality. Yes. And in that time period, average life expectancy was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years. The risk of death from neti pot use was hardly significant compared to all the other health risks anyone living at the time would be exposed to. The same goes for skin cancer. It's a meaningful risk to us today be…

30 is the mean between infants and 60-year-olds. There has never been a society in which dying at 30 was typical.

Infant mortality was the biggest contributor, but there was also higher mortality across all age groups.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#202

Post by solatic »

wholinator2 wrote: post #193
solatic wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they don't inform the user of the potential hazard of using otherwise safe-to-consume tap water. Devil's advocate: if they did, odds are consumers would consider it as if the company is peddling conspiracy theories rather than actual science. Or "maybe it's true for tap water where the pots are made, but I trust my tap water and I know it's safe". If such explanations are more likely to harm a company's percept…

The good that that does is saving lives, even if it harms the companies reputation. It sounds like you're suggesting that a companies reputation is worth more than the potential death of unknowing, innocent people.

Of course the company has a moral obligation to protect their consumers, which is why the company warns against using tap water in the first place. The question isn't whether or not it's worth it for the company to try and save lives, it's whether an additional explanation will actually save more lives. The fact that there's a real potential image hit to the company makes the case that much more difficult to make to decision makers.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#203

Post by angry_octet »

asynchronous13 wrote: post #85
angry_octet wrote: post #59

I'm stunned at how many people are commenting that they will continue using untreated water. You can end up having your brain eaten and die, I can't think of a PSA any more convincing.

There's been ~100 cases in 40 years. That's less than 3 people per year, so it's very rare. There's about 10 shark attacks per year in the U.S. Now that you know that, will you stay out of the ocean forever? Or will you maybe take the risk and go for a dip if you go on a beach vacation? edit Plus, of those 40 cases the vast majority are from swimming in lakes. So there's only a handful of cases where the infection wa…

Also, it might be incredibly rare because most people follow the instructions, and/or the people who follow instructions poorly live in areas with highly treated water (essentially the entire urban population). In warmer rural areas, using rainwater or borewater, it is likely to have significant growth of Naegleria fowleri. Children are particularly susceptible.

https://healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/A_E/Amoebic-meningitis https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/naegleria/pathogen.html https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/professor-encouraging...

There is a similar problem where cleaning contact lenses with untreated water leaks to Acanthamoeba infection, leading to possible blindness of loss of an eye.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#204

Post by 8bitsrule »

duskwuff wrote: post #194
8bitsrule wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must have been something else involved. Should we not swim in pools, rivers or lakes, or submerge ourselves in hot tubs? Netis are part of Ayurvedic medicine in India since long before people dreamed of personal immortality. Remember when people worked outside all summer without worrying about excess UV? Maybe we're overthinking this stuff, we Chicken Little emulators.

> Netis are part of Ayurvedic medicine in India since long before people dreamed of personal immortality. Yes. And in that time period, average life expectancy was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years. The risk of death from neti pot use was hardly significant compared to all the other health risks anyone living at the time would be exposed to. The same goes for skin cancer. It's a meaningful risk to us today be…

IMO most of 'average life expectancy' can be attributed to human ignorance and savagery. Like the savagery of pouring dyes into rivers until too many people die of bladder cancer, then moving the factories to another continent. Repeatedly. Or the savagery of using scientific knowledge to create nukes ... and use them.

One example of ignorance is knee-jerk, gainsaying, scientism about alternatives to Western medicine. My use of Neti was recommended by a well-trained physician, and it was very beneficial. There was indeed practical wisdom in the world before the rise of materialist rationalism.

Oh yeah... and western medicine couldn't save the lady's ass. I'm sure the bill was VERY healthy though.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#205

Post by berlinstartup »

deepsun wrote: post #95
harshreality wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't worry as much about boiled potatoes as I would something like soaking/cooking grains. It's a matter of your level of concern. I rinse dry goods and and vegetables with tap water, and steam with tap water, but I use expensive water for anything else. Mostly because I don't discard the water. Either the food absorbs all the water, or I accept a mushy, stewy, or soupy consistency. Steaming is better if you're…

After some googling, I concluded that filters in good-tap-water neighborhoods do more harm than good -- they filter out nutrients that we do need from water.

Either you don't know what the word nutrient means, or you've been bamboozled--water does not/should not contain nutrients.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#206

Post by logifail »

MertsA wrote: post #118
deepsun wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? If tap water is contaminated (by, say, metals or salts from plumbing system pipes), then boiling won't decontaminate it either.

This is what is in your hot water tank right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=55s If your water heater is malfunctioning and not heating up all the way to 140 degrees but it's still heating up to e.g. 100 degrees then it's a breeding ground for listeria. The temperature difference changes the solubility of minerals and salts dissolved in it as well as changing how quickly everything even slightly vo…

>> This is what is in your hot water tank right now

Does anyone think the inside of a ~20 year-old cold water feed pipe is going to look shiny and "clean"?

Go take an electron micrograph of the bacteria on your skin, or use a microscope to look closely at the living things inside your bed, in your sofa, or on your pet.

Then take a deep breath, check the causes of death tables if you really have to, and remember that - given we're all intelligent humans - none of these "eww, gross!" things really matter in the overall scheme of things.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#207

Post by MertsA »

logifail wrote: post #206
MertsA wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what is in your hot water tank right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=55s If your water heater is malfunctioning and not heating up all the way to 140 degrees but it's still heating up to e.g. 100 degrees then it's a breeding ground for listeria. The temperature difference changes the solubility of minerals and salts dissolved in it as well as changing how quickly everything even slightly vo…

>> This is what is in your hot water tank right now Does anyone think the inside of a ~20 year-old cold water feed pipe is going to look shiny and "clean"? Go take an electron micrograph of the bacteria on your skin, or use a microscope to look closely at the living things inside your bed, in your sofa, or on your pet. Then take a deep breath, check the causes of death tables if you really have to, and remember that…

Yeah the cold water side will look dramatically better. It certainly will have deposits accumulating but it's not going to be anything close to the amount of deposits that form inside of a water heater. Heating up hard water will chemically alter the water going through it. It's not that those calcium carbonate molecules were in solution before, it's pretty insoluble in water, it's that they were chemically formed when the water was heated.

I'm not suggesting that those deposits are going to kill you or anything, but if things go wrong and the water isn't heated enough those deposits make a great substrate for harmful bacteria to grow.

Ideally you shouldn't use hot water for consumption even though normally it's safe. It also tastes different than cold water because of the change.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#208

Post by QuantumGood »

repolfx wrote: post #180
QuantumGood wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(An in-hospital sleep study confirmed my self-diagnosis of mild sleep apnea.)

What do you mean by mild? I did a study and had an AHI of 28, my doctors put me on CPAP. I'm not overweight and the machine is set to give hardly any pressure but it still seems to eliminate the issue, at least according to the machine's own counts. If I could fix it with just some nose strips and a neti pot, that would be amazing.

"Mild" used by doc prescribing me Modafinil after study. There were insurance cost concerns as well so I pursued other options.

I have to work at keeping my mouth closed, and some nights don't work out well, but most do. I also use alternating combinations of sedatives, and take them in stages (e.g. sometimes a partial pill embedded in a softgel taken after 3 hours of sleep). I'm overweight, and it did start for me after I gained weight

Post reply on HN