Poop in the Pool

[PoolDoc]

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Nearly 100 ill after weekend swim meet at Naval Academy
State health officials investigating pathogen that affected swimmers, coaches, parents at statewide competition

http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/b...,2367500.story

(archival copy attached)
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The interesting thing here is that virtually all flavors of gastroenteritis travel by the so-called "fecal-oral" route. In other words, from their butt to your mouth. Poorly sanitized pools (AKA swim-meet pools with chlorine below 2ppm) are a great place for this to happen.

Odds are, the guy that did this knows. Diarrhea may sneak up on you, but you know when it hits.

Fortunately, most poop doesn't cause problems, unless you ingest mass quantities or get it into a wound. (It took me YEARS to actually work this out -- medical and sanitation texts either dance around this fact, or else make wrong statements.)

In fact, recent studies indicate that the best way to treat serious Clostridium difficile infections is NOT antibiotics. After all, it's usually antibiotic therapy which causes these infections in the first place! Rather, the cure is to "ingest fecal material" from an individual with a healthy intestinal flora population.

In other words, you eat poop from someone who's got normal poop bacteria, rather than the intestinal bacteria from hell that Clostridium infected individuals have. (They can use a stomach tube!)

I should have guessed. I've known for years that after waking from hibernation, bears have to 'jump-start' their digestive system, by making their first post-hibernation meals from other animals poop!

Bottom line:
Poop in your pool -- if it's from a HEALTHY person -- is not a disaster for other swimmer's health.

Ben


Here are the links:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/...ransplant.html
http://www.cmaj.ca/earlyreleases/24f...ransplants.dtl
http://www.torontosun.com/news/toron.../17429656.html

Archives attached

[kelemvor]

Did you just tell me to go eat s... poop?

[chem geek]

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick with yogurt.

[waterbear]

Well, 'hair of the dog' works for a hangover so why not! Makes sense when you think about it.

[BigTallGuy]

Hey a billion flies can't all be wrong!

[Manslick]

Nice, puke in the pool too.

[waterbear]

Nice, puke in the pool too.

Now THAT is gross!

[CarlD]

Ben,

TMI!!!!

Carl

[brent.roberts]

I wish I could give you guys a link to help validate the "eat poop" idea but there are, as of about the middle of 2010 at least 2 Canadian hospitals that
have adopted this as a treatment for C-difficile infections. C-difficile is present in most of us, in the flora in our gut. Antibiotics are quite good at killing off that flora ... hence diahrea is a common side effect of taking the antibiotics. Without the normal flora in your gut, the C-difficile runs rampant and causes all kinds of problems up to severe cases causing death. I think the doctor who started the treatment idea was in Alberta and could not get his hospital to allow the treatment he proposed, eat your own (pre-anti-biotic) poop. He has in the last couple of years got 2 hospitals to try it, one I believe in the Hamilton/Burlington, Ontario area.

I suspect in time someone will come up with a capsule or porridge slurry that will have lots of the good flora to replace what got killed by the antibiotics, and put it in a lovely chocolate errrr maybe orange flavored drink that will leave out the connotations of eat your own ... and make
millions doing it.

In the meantime, don't get sick enough to need the antibiotics ... especially in some hospitals where the more resistant strains of C-difficile are
on the loose. Just this week there are a few with that challenge in the Niagara Falls area.