Hookworm gave the South a bad name (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Hookworm gave the South a bad name (2016)

pbs.org

83 pointsthunderbong50 comments

This reminds me of one of the wildest stories I ever read on the internet. Person flew to Cameroon to intentionally infect himself with hookworms to treat asthma. Reports positive results! So much so that he started a business selling kits for people to self-infect without the need to travel.

https://www.autoimmunetherapies.com/

The business still seems active, but operates outside the US after it caught the attention of the FDA.

The original story is long gone (rip kuro5hin!) but is thankfully archived.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060523232308/http://www.kuro5h...

Radiolab did a story on this, and the lack of critical thinking on their part was somewhat of a turning point. I realized that many of their stories were just a chaotic collection of impulsive ideas, rather than anything that was organized with context or presented with responsibility and wisdom.

Apparently it had the same effect on a lot of listeners, because they did a short followup where they said they did nothing wrong, and refused to acknowledge any responsibility for effectively making an advertisement for a business that was likely to harm people.

It actually stood in stark contrast to This American Life. They made some smaller mistake, and the next week they spent the entire hour identifying all the things that lead up to the error, and going into excruciating detail about why they believed their mistake was even an more serious one than most listeners realized.

I don’t listen to many podcasts anymore, but I thought the two responses taught me a lot about journalistic ethics, and how to identify when to continue reading or watching. Is this news source casual about getting details wrong? Do their individual stories fit in context of a larger story they are telling about the world over many years? Are they careful about what reporting will lead to a rush to judgement or bad decisions by readers and viewers?

Radiolab also fucked up in their story about some kind of Agent Orange chemical used in Cambodia that messed up a village. Robert Krowlwich (sp?) came off as just a big self important jerk, even in their "we are so sorry we were so insensitive" episode. He basically refused to admit he had hurt people.

Funny, my dermatologist just told me about a similar scenario where a study found that pig whipworms seemed to help IBS significantly

I lost most of my allergies after using leeches against knee pain. Would totally recommend.

The article paints hookworms as disease causing parasites, responsible for the poor health and economic circumstances in the South.

But this year hookworms were involved in a clinical trial on type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease with positive results, so maybe the south were onto something.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/diabetes-study-suc...

There have been many such studies using hookworms to investigate whether aspects of out physiology can benefit from parasites, whether our bodies have evolved to expect them to the point that living without is unnatural. BUT, my understanding is that these studies have always used only male or only female worms. The patient is "infected" with a very limited number and they will all eventually die. That is very different than being infested with a colony's worth of worms. And, most importantly, any released eggs will not ever go on to infect other people.

These worms are also easily eradicated from the body if needed. Ivermectin cannot kill covid, but it murders worms very well.

Aside but my favorite ivermectin study was the meta study that found that there was a relationship between whether or not ivermectin improved Covid outcomes and the rates of endemic parasites that could be treated with ivermectin.

So, people who got the dewormer did better - but only in those places where people had a lot of parasitic worms. The obvious implication being they did better because they had a parasitic worm infection which was incidentally treated with ivermectin.

There was also an in vitro study that showed ivermectin killed SARS-CoV-2 viral particles. Of course the conspiracy theorists left out dose information, which would be so high that it would just kill you outright.

So the truth behind the two halves of the ivermectin conspiracy were basically: if you have parasites, getting rid of them will help your COVID prognosis; and if you don't mind being dead first, we can prevent COVID from killing you.

The study did not show that Ivermectin killed SARS-CoV-2 viral particles. Prior to the pandemic, Ivermectin was known to act as an broad anti-viral. This is due to Ivermectin being a protease inhibitor, i.e. it blocks an enzyme from acting. It's important to note that this is the mechanism through which approved anti-virals for SARS-CoV-2, such as Paxlovid, operate.

There are also some studies indicating that it can shrink certain tumors. My assumption was that it just stirred up the immune system in general, un thevsame way that a flu shot can decrease the severity of a cold.

I see a few in vitro studies are out there, It'd help if we knew which ones were being talked about specifically.

It would be nice if every comment was fully cited, but would probably be counter-productive since most people don’t have the time to find citations.

Until everyone’s knowledge is represented in some kind of knowledge graph, simply finding a citation “of that paper I read last year” can be a lot of work. So for now, it’s more effective to talk generally and cite a paper when it is relevant (when discussing methods etc).

I don’t know if you’ve done an in vitro study before, but I have. I can make anything kill anything in Petri dish. Heck I can make anything kill anything even in a mouse. If ANYONE can figure out how to reliably correlate preclinical studies (that’s the technical term for any study not done in humans) to human outcomes, they’d be a literal trillionaire in a decade. But that’s not possible yet.

Ivermectin did not work. It never did. People in the initial waves off were dying of Covid because their own immune system killed their lung. Ivermectin did jackshit about it. Multiple clinical trials proved that. So it’s time to hang that hat and find the next favorite conspiracy theory.

Obligatory zkcd: https://xkcd.com/1217/

During covid you would often read that medicine X or Y would work on some people or in some country.

I always wonder if those didnt work because people often have more than one infection ongoing. And obviously two or more infections are more deadly, since your organism is fighting not only coronavirus but something else as well. So I wondered if the medicines didnt defend against that something else.

Dewormer in USA, some anti flu medicine in Italy and other in Poland...

Ah that makes more sense. I recall one of the studies saying that the worms couldn't reproduce, whereas the article on HN mentions millions of eggs causing an infestation.

If anyone is interested in controlling parasites by playing with their reproduction, consider the "screwworm fence" down in Panama. Irradiated male screwworm flies are bred and released en masse, to mate with wild females to produce nonviable offspring and thereby halt the species spreading further north. It works so well that few have heard about it.

i'm curious how much overlap there is between the benefits of parasitic worms, and the benefits of severely calorie-reduced diets

Yeah, well, it’s also excruciatingly hot down here. 98 degrees and 100% humidity makes you want to do nothing but sit on your ass with a tall glass o’ iced tea (that’s sweet tea for y’all in the north).

After the elimination of hookworms, air conditioning is what really made the difference in the south when it comes to economic development. Those summers are oppressive.

Anyone who grew up in rural areas of the south is generally on the lookout for chiggers, ringworms, ticks, hookworms, and pinworms.

I grew up in N. GA and I vividly remember shtting out worms in about '98 and running to tell my dad. He called me wormy and that was the end of it. lol

No idea what I had, but we did run around barefoot outside and I did until I was around 12-13 when I stepped on a rusty can and damn near cut my pinkie toe off.

Apparently some worm larvae are small enough that they can get in through the pores in your feet. I remember reading that a big part of the parasite elimination campaigns in the south involved convincing people to wear shoes outside more often.

That or there were eggs on some food you ate.

Yeah, we still had some older folk that used outhouses so I wonder if it was through that. I've also considered dogs because we had so many that roamed free. We did grow our food from time to time.

Breaking the reproduction/re-infection cycle was key. Pickup up dog turds did make a difference, so too the widespread use of preventative drugs in pets. Not spitting in the street. Wearing shoes. Bathing in clean/chlorinated water, drinking clean water, proper sewage, and tacking any local infections with serious drugs ... all these things add up to cut the reinfection rate to the point that the parasites stopped spreading.

You probably had pinworms, which are much more common. 20% of kids in the US get pinworms at some point.

>ringworms

Which for those who may not know is a fungus, not an actual worm

I’ve never been so miserable as when I got covered in chiggers. Poison ivy was less maddening.

>98 degrees and 100% humidity

98 °F wet-bulb temperature (which is equal to the air temperature at 100% relative humidity) will literally kill you. That's higher than anything listed on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Highest_r...

I'm not trying to be a Dick, but it's called hyperbole. Not everything is meant to be exactly literal. Based on the tone of the original post, I think they are being a little silly.

I am glad that someone else on here recognizes this.

Sorry, I forgot we’re supposed to be 100% wet-bulb literal and never silly on HN. :(

No need to apologize to me, I am just happy there are others practicing sarcasm around here without putting that stupid “/s” bullshit on their posts.

I had to stop drinking sweet tea this year. It's been a tough transition.

We have a saying here, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity", but if you're from a place where 85 is hot, you won't agree. When it's still over 80 at 11 o'clock at night, it takes some adjusting.

I grew up in Texas and now live in Oregon where we get something like two weeks of nights where it's 80+ out late at night. I agree with you; the humidity makes things gross but what makes them unbearable is the duration of the heat.

On the flipside, having been in El Centro, CA and the Persian Gulf region while in the Navy, I could smack anyone who says "but it's a dry heat." When it's 110 degrees, it doesn't matter.

Here in Texas, it's been 80 degrees by about 8 or 9am for most of the summer. Sometimes earlier or for days. Apparently it currently feels like 110 degrees (air temperature is 101).

Luzianne half caff and stevia are your friends.

> that’s sweet tea for y’all in the north

Bless their hearts.

Fellow Southerner detected!

My accent must have given it away…

Where is the sweet tea McDonald’s dividing line these Days? Northern VA? Maybe it’s moving as fast as the saltwater intrusion towards New Orleans lately.

I don’t know but it’s one of my favorite rituals, when northerners come down here and innocently order tea and then gag at first sip.

There is some unpalatable concoction served as "sweet tea" in various chain sit-down restaurants in the greater deep south area that I assume either uses some non-sugar sweetener or some instant tea mix. I now order unsweetened iced tea, and add sugar to taste. see also: "If this is tea bring me coffee, and if it is coffee bring me tea." https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/11/11/coffee-tea/

It's not sweet tea if you put sugar in cold tea. It's tea with sugar.

Or so I've been told by my southern relatives. I can't really taste a difference.

You put the sugar in when the tea is hot because it allows you to super saturate the room temperature/cold tea with sugar and the tea is more like a syrup. If you just stir in sugar, you can't get the same amount, especially if they bring you chilled tea.

You can practically feel the diabetes when you drink sweet tea in the south.

> You can practically feel the diabetes when you drink sweet tea in the south.

That’s the South I know and love. I salute you.

Yankee as I am, I luv me sum swait tay

Where are you that has wet bulb temperatures of 98? That’s near or past the point where lethal hyperthermia sets in for otherwise healthy persons.

Stuff You Should Know did an episode on hookworms

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-269...

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