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On Dec 26, 3:20*am, Strabo > wrote:
> Worms infect more poor Americans than thought
>
> Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:13pm EST
>
> By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Roundworms may infect close to a quarter of inner
> city black children, tapeworms are the leading cause of seizures among
> U.S. Hispanics and other parasitic diseases associated with poor
> countries are also affecting Americans, a U.S. expert said on Tuesday.
>
> Recent studies show many of the poorest Americans living in the United
> States carry some of the same parasitic infections that affect the poor
> in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical
> disease expert at George Washington University and editor-in-chief of
> the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
>
> Writing in the journal, Hotez said these parasitic infections had been
> ignored by most health experts in the United States.
>
> "I feel strongly that this is such an important health issue and yet
> because it only affects the poor it has been ignored," Hotez said via
> e-mail.
>
> He said the United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars to
> defend against bio-terrorism threats like anthrax or smallpox or avian
> flu, which were more a theoretical concern than a real threat at present.
>
> "And yet we have a devastating parasitic disease burden among the
> American poor, right under our nose," Hotez said.
>
> He noted a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and
> Prevention, presented in November, found that almost 14 percent of the
> U.S. population is infected with Toxocara roundworms, which dogs and
> cats can pass to people.
>
> "Urban playgrounds in the United States have recently been shown to be a
> particularly rich source of Toxocara eggs and inner-city children are at
> high risk of acquiring the infection," Hotez wrote, adding that this
> might be partly behind the rise in asthma cases in the country. Up to 23
> percent of urban black children may be infected, he said.
>
> "Because of its possible links to asthma, it would be important to
> determine whether covert toxocariasis is a basis for the rise of asthma
> among inner-city children in the northeastern United States," he added.
>
> "Cysticercosis is another very serious parasitic worm infection ...
> caused by the tapeworm Taenia solium, that results in seizures and other
> neurological manifestations," Hotez wrote.
>
> He said up to 2,000 new cases of neurological disease caused by
> tapeworms are diagnosed every year in the United States. More than 2
> percent of adult Latinos may be infected, and with 35 million Hispanics
> in the United States, this could add up to tens of thousands of cases,
> Hotez said.
>
> "In the hospitals of Los Angeles, California, neurocysticercosis
> currently accounts for 10 percent of all seizures presenting to some
> emergency departments," he wrote.
>
> "We need to begin erasing these horrific health disparities," Hotez
> wrote in the paper, available online atwww.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0000149.
>
> (Editing by Alan Elsner)
>
> © Reuters 2007 All rights reserved
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