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Comment by MaxBarraclough | Hacker News Reader

> To be clear, there’s no question that Giardia lamblia, Cryptosporidium parvum, and various strains of fecal coliform bacteria—the waterborne pathogens responsible for giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, and other diseases—can infect humans, with potentially serious health consequences. Yet research to date has failed to demonstrate any significant link between wilderness water consumption and infection with these threats.

So what vectors are there for those threats, if not unfiltered 'wilderness water'?

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I've wandered the Scottish Highlands for many years camping and using bothies never filtered water - mind you I mostly consume coffee or tea so maybe the small amount of boiling killed off any beasties. Mind you - I am fairly careful about where I get the water (check for any dead animals upstream, don't take water from anywhere that is obviously frequented by animals or people).

Meanwhile, my wife got a nasty case of cryptosporidium - GP suspected it was from a swimming pool!

Boiling is what did it. Boiling is the most sure-fire way to disinfect water.

Unless contaminated chemically, e.g. by heavy metals. Most portable filters do not protect against these though.

Most portable filters will, actually. They've got fine enough filters to catch protocysts; they'll easily catch any metal contamination. What they don't get are smaller bacteria and virii, which is where secondary purification in the form of boiling or purification tablets is necessary.

> So what vectors are there for those threats, if not unfiltered 'wilderness water'?

Lack of hygiene in the wild?

> the journal Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, concluding that instead, details “point compellingly to hand-to-mouth transmission.” Put more simply: The afflicted campers failed to properly wash their hands after using the bathroom.

You don't get giardiasis from "failing to wash your hands after using the bathroom". You get it from drinking water contaminated with animal feces.

There is absolutely no doubt about this.

That doesn't even make sense, if you think about it. The only way to be exposed to one of these diseases from your own feces would be if you already had the disease.

Washing your hands can help prevent infections from spreading to others, certainly, but your own gut microflora is extremely unlikely to pose a threat to you personall.

Hand-to-mouth can be from touching things in the environment contaminsted with animal feces without washing properly before, e.g., eating. It doesn't have to be your own feces.

The food industry maybe?

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