SARS May beSpreading through Bathroom Drainpipes
SARS’ unlikely hiding place
In this month’s issue of Real Health, I write that the SARS epidemic seems to be under control. I still think that’s true, but with the new cases in Toronto in June, we must presume that anything is possible.
The good news is that world health officials are beginning to learn more about the disease – including how it’s spread. (It may not seem like much, but you need to know what you’re dealing with before you can make any headway in stopping it.)
According to an article I read recently in the Washington Post, SARS can be “spread in part by traveling through bathroom drainpipes.”
That’s a horrifying revelation, considering that there’s essentially nothing anyone can do about it. But rather than admit that they’re helpless (at least for the time being) against such a mobile killer, the government is doing its best to downplay the gravity of the situation so that we don’t all panic and start rioting in the streets.
Here’s what they had to say to the Post: “Klaus Stohr, who is leading the World Health Organization’s scientific efforts against SARSstressed, however, that even if the virus can spread through plumbing or in other ways, the pattern of the epidemic so far indicates that would occur only rarely.” The fact of the matter is that Stohr has no way of knowing this. In view of the fact that it happened, and therefore can’t be all that rare, Stohr is proving what I have always contended: public health officials are extremely biased and unreliable. Their job seems to be more about crowd control than disease control.
He also claimed that if the SARS virus could travel through pipes, “the epidemic would look different. It would spread faster.” How does he know what it would look like when this is a mutated virus no one has ever seen before? And how much faster would he consider really fast? In only a few months, it has spread over the entire world.
Chinese health officials are just as uncertain. Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Health, Welfare, and Food claimed that “‘there is no evidence to suggest that the disease is transmitted by the waterborne route, or by infected dust aerosols.’”
But then he turned around and said the exact opposite: “‘Based on the findings, investigators concluded that the first patient infected a small number of residents in the building, who then went on to infect other residents through the sewage system and by contaminating communal facilities such as elevators.’”
Yeoh contradicts himself, assuming that most people will be too confused to notice – or to panic.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think panicking will get you anywhere either, but I do think it’s important that you know as much about this deadly disease as possible – without all the doublespeak confusing the issue.
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The REAL reason you should wear a hat this summer
Summer is right around the corner, which means that right about now you’re undoubtedly being regaled yet again with all the dreary stories about how sun causes skin cancer. Before you run out to WalMart to stock up on sunscreen, let me tell again you that there is no evidence to support this belief at all. Actually, deficiency of full spectrum light, or sunlight, is what’s clearly related to the development of melanoma.
Now, I was practically born in the sun. Ran around all but naked in Florida with my friends all summer every year – on the beach, in a bathing suit, with a towel and no shoes. It didn’t seem to hurt me or any of my childhood friends.
Doctors will try to scare you into wearing a hat to protect yourself from the evil sun god. OK, wear a hat – but only because you look cute in it.
(I’ve written about the sunlight scare many times – if you subscribe to my Real Health newsletter, you can search the archives at www.realhealthnews.com to learn more. It’s an important subject that’s vital to your health.)
Looking for the real villains,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
