Six boys or young men have died in the US this year from a killer amoeba that lives in lakes, enters the body through the nose, and feeds on the brain. It is almost always fatal.
“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational-waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Um… ya think?
“This is a heat-loving amoeba,” Beach said. “As water temperatures go up, it does better. In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”
The amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, killed 23 people in the US between 1995 and 2004. It has already killed six people this year, three in Orlando, Florida, two in Lake LBJ, Texas, and one last week at Lake Havasu in Arizona.
Hmm. Perhaps our good friend Stefan should organize a national conference of global warming deniers at one of these prime locations? After all, who could possibly have less to fear from a brain-eating amoeba?