A mysterious kidney disease has arrived in Texas
texasmonthly.com
texasmonthly.com
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davereddick_mysterious-kidney...
[2] Most labouring job sites I've been at in the 00s at least always had a very prominent chart regarding urine colour and the dangers of dehydration, and heat stroke. As such most workers at various sites I've worked at being much more aware of urine colour regarding dehydration than most of the medical staff I encountered at the hospital my Mum died in.
Edit: Forgot to mention my locale is North Queensland Australia - it gets fairly hot though summers.
Most people have access to at least one 16-digit code that will do the trick.
I could try a different browser - but in the time I wait for the site to decide if I'm not a bot, if I'm that invested, I've already done a quick search of topic heading and ...
They're probably talking about buying a subscription with a credit card, but I'm less certain where it lies on the shared-joke versus snide-insult spectrum.
That said, not all are 16 digits. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number#Issuer_ide...
So I tried a newer chrome variant browser and it loaded ... and then tried the old firefox browser to recall if the bot protection was related to cloudflare and ... it opened without issue.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/16/texas-heat-wave-wate...
They will, of course, all tell you otherwise.
Islands of prosperity in general.
When in the 16th century all of Europe got involved in religious wars a Dutch leader decided that religion was a personal choice. This was not magic everyone could have come to this conclusion. But noone did.
My wife went to a hospital that was run perfectly. No charge.
The food I ate today was safe.
There's almost no criminal activity here.
We do not have any active wars.
The list you gave doesn’t refute my point in any way whatsoever.
How many paved roads and public hospitals does it take to offset a government depriving you of human rights to protect the state itself?
https://www.government.nl/themes/international-cooperation/r...
It’s somewhat of a stretch to claim that the Dutch society is “well run”, but you know that already.
Yeah, I have wandered mistakenly into the backstreets of Amsterdam and been approached by drug dealers.
Sure it is, but only the really rich people...
Wow, that is the absolute bare minimum and they even remove that.
I am not sure whether any recent restrictions against this site here.
Also if I don’t hydrate enough in this heat abd am really working then my kidneys literally hurt. It’s my reminder to stop and take a drink. I’ve been working outside a lot this summer and notice it’s much easier to get to that point when it’s over 105F. This summer has been a hot one even for Texas.
Anyways, there’s a cultural machismo amongst the Hispanic laborers that hydration is for putos. They do this with gloves too. I’ll offer gloves when handling materials and they always laugh and say no. Like their calluses hands are their resume. I have soft doctor like hands with no calluses so I do nothing without gloves.
https://www.mscdirect.com/knowledge-center/articles/cooling-...
Your bosses will never have as much of a stake in you as you do. Be your own advocate.
I’ve worked closely with hundreds of these guys for a span of about 25 years now. Have made some great friends but none long term. They travel or on the move and their phone numbers usually never last more than a few months or a year. Probably many of them are not here legally. But, having observed things like this almost from an anthropological standpoint, I often wonder what their lifespans are. When you work that hard and don’t manage simple things like hydration how long do they really have? My guess is it skews much less than median life expectancy.
I know America, and especially Texas, tends to take a more libertarian attitude - but is there really no form of mandatory building site inspection there?
Until it becomes mandatory I doubt anything would change. The machismo factor is such that anyone that can’t deal with the heat isn’t fit for the job. They’d probably get kicked off the crew quickly. I don’t employ anyone just strictly subcontract so it’s not in my interest to force them to exceed whatever their normal PPE requirements are.
It's aligned with your interests to have subcontractors who aren't heat drunk doing work for you. You're just not pricing it in because you never decided to look in on and optimize for the metric before.
I'm reminded of something someone'd said regarding PPE:
Who cares what a bunch of other construction dudes think about your hard hat anyway? Some people are just going to be stubborn about any change, no matter what it is. Your family doesn't give a shit what you look like at work. They give a shit that you come home in one piece. Your family would rather they didn't need to change your diapers and feed you with a spoon because some of your coworkers thought the new safety gear looked weird.
I searched a bit more and found this interesting bit from an article talking about a similar epidemic in Sri Lanka.
> An analysis showed that trace metal ions such as calcium and magnesium that naturally occur in the hard water reacted with glyphosate. This meant that, instead of breaking down rapidly, glyphosate was able to persist in the environment for up to seven years in water and twenty-two years in soil.
https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/mysterious-kidney-...
Bulllshiiiitttt. There are no reputable studies that show anything like this.
There is a study [1] which was via information from the link from the parent comment. Interpretation of results though is the issue. From their method of study, to myself it's clear that storing heavy mineralised ground water in a used Glyphosate spray tank or product drum, is a not a very good idea given the results of the study. It is though a different story for the groundwater given that degradation in soil [2] [3] is measured in half lives and depends on many factors. As for detection - there may well be some complex of Glyphosate that has resisted breaking down a couple decades later, but one would expect the amount would probably be far less that the allowable or typical amount of Glyphosate found in food from crops that have been sprayed with it prior to harvest.
The other question is what breakdown complexes are they measuring for detecting Glyphosate. For years roundup was though to be still be at higher levels of use than it should have been after it was phased out in some European countries ... based on levels detected in rivers. [4] [5] and the preprint via [6] indicate that some detergents were to blame for the higher detection level.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41580968/
[2] https://pdf.benchchem.com/1263/Glyphosate_s_Fate_An_In_depth... [pdf]
[3] https://greenfieldesg.com/how-long-does-roundup-last-in-the-...
[4] https://phys.org/news/2024-07-glyphosate-european-rivers-far...
[5]https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/university/news-and-publications...
[6] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378883530_Glyphosat... -> [Preprint] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3917957/v1
That it's bullshit. There are no reputable studies showing extended half-life of years.
> [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41580968/
In Zebrafish. Not even mice.
> [2] https://pdf.benchchem.com/1263/Glyphosate_s_Fate_An_In_depth... [pdf]
Half-life of weeks.
> [6] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378883530_Glyphosat... -> [Preprint] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3917957/v1
Nothing to do with soil persistance.
Farming systems that use herbicides, are going to cycle though every few years of using Glyphosate, so there's little point IMO of creating a special study that looks into Glyphosate residues over more than a few years where they are monitoring the degree of fractional amount that could remain - there are too many variations of soil types, rainfall and temperature to be greatly useful. Any results of how long it might persist would more likely come from real life examples - areas where its use has been phased out, but the difficulty most (if not all) would not have an accurate starting point of just how much Glyphosate was applied in total, time period and weather conditions to extrapolate carefully.
Detection is different to a noteworthy amount of product that is bound to clay or other particles which has prohibited biological degradation. Many who conduct studies in complex systems are usually focused on just a small number of instances they feel might encompass most of the issue they believe to be at heart ... to the point of dismissing local / on the ground knowledge.
Yes the study used fish which can be useful ... however they tried to simulate using the raw product. It would have been better had they had some water from a month after a paddock was sprayed and used surface or underground flow. What it actually means, for example to those like myself who use it regularly, is there is certainly evidence we have to be doubly careful to ensure no or as little as possible over spray of waterways occurs which contain aquatic life.
A better study might be what results might be when groundwater that has a noteworthy amount, is then heated with bound Glyphosate and it's by products, to simulate cooking and boiling of the water.
>"Nothing to do with soil persistance."
Do you think that if soil was measured for a study it was watered only with distilled water? The purpose of mentioning was to suggest that there's an uncertainty as to what may have been measured.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
Edit: as not was
It typically is shorter, as real systems are often hyper-exponential. And if you're talking about persistance in isolated clays, then it's by definition is not a bilogical system. A sealed glass vial is technically a type of clay, and glyphosate can survive in sealed vials for decades.
There's a thing about glyphosate: it's the safest pesticide. It's non-toxic to mammals, is not carcinogenic, non persistent, and is highly useful. And this somehow triggers all the cranks because it apparently MUST be hiding something.
And glyphosate has been _extensively_ studied by legitimate scientists.
So at this point, pretty much all articles about glyphosate's harm are pseudoscience and/or transparent grifting.
Glyphosate and the by products are certainly safer than many registered herbicides currently available to much of the western world.
The wetter in the formulation of the official Roundup has certainly changed - what I used in the 1990's a few drops of the diluted ready to spray mix accidentally making skin contact would give me a bad headache even if I noticed it right away and washed it off ... when I used the official brand again (for a time, mostly 00's) they priced Roundup out of my farming budget) in the late 10's I noted that I was able to easily wash off any splash back without resulting in a bad headache.
I have been long following the twists and turns that certain big companies, one of which used to own the patent on Glyphosate until 1999 when they let it expire, with a plan to simply create a very large plant in iirc South America which would chase off the competition that have sought to produce Glyphosate for export usage. Unfortunately they put the price up (3x retail here in Australia) due to oil prices costs during the 00's and then China stepped up. I also know they have in place $$$$ BS products to suit their new patented seed which is herbicide ready which when I look over application requirements, complete 100% leaf coverage to work properly implies it is no where near as easy to use as regular roundup.
To be clear I really value Glyphosate as a herbicide as for agriculture it saves fuel, equipment wear and time when used properly. Even so since many are pointing fingers, it is important not to just gloss over any problems that using it might cause, even though I am quite sure there are worse herbicides to be had coming into use having observed this in my immediate locale.
Pretty much every time you see something like "glyphosate reacts with kidneys resulting in hard water staying around for 111 years in dry soil" - you can be sure that it's this.
The crew (10 guys) that showed up to roof my house went through at least 5 cases of Gatorade, I have a fridge in the garage that I filled with drinks. I told them to help themselves after seeing them pull a hot bottle of water from one of the trucks. These guys didn't even have a cooler with cold water.
I suppose at some point water/hydration isn't good enough, they need salt and electrolytes to balance things out. They think wearing long pants and shirts acts as an insulator from the heat but in my opinion it's nuts, they need to cover up but, in the lightest possible clothing they can wear that breaths. The same goes for the landscapers who work outside all day. It wouldn't surprise me if they are dying from the heat, it is merciless here in the summer. Even the birds fly away....
With the initial heat temperature, workers would need to be provided water and a break area that's shaded or air conditioned (it can also have a fan but employers must evaluate that the fan is used at the appropriate temperature and humidity and not cooking or dehydrating people). Interestingly the CDC warns not to use fans above 90F, which is much lower than the ~102F limit OSHA suggests. [1][2][3]
With high heat temperature, 15 minute breaks in the cooling area are required every 2 hours along with some buddy system/monitoring requirements. [4]
The notice of proposed rulemaking has a wealth of interesting study citations for risks (including kidney health issues) and risk reduction but it's a lot to even skim through.
I think a systematic review they cited suggested "hats; loose fitting, light/brightly colored/reflective, breathable, clothing; ventilation patches in PPE" for optimal clothing. But I do wonder if optimal clothing might vary based on temperature and humidity.
As a Louisianian, I don't know how the roofers do it. Sometimes it's so hot and humid it's rough to breathe outside just standing doing nothing.
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-14824/p-2907
[2] https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-14824/p-596
Could be culturally diet influenced as well.
My urologist after I had my first oxalate kidney stone said "you can drink a litre of water a day, or you can pay for my yacht upgrade. It's your choice" -but the main thing was to limit oxalate rich foods or take adequate citric acid alongside/soon after. Obv there are many kinds of kidney disease aside from stones, but the commonality here about 'use it or lose it' with heat, fluids, work strikes me.
It could also be interactions between the cultural diets and new products historically unavailable to that culture, which are either improperly processed (maize caused a lot of pellagra in europe) or has problematic interactions with components of the cultural diet (I don’t have an example for that, but grapefruit is famous for its medical interactions so nutritional interactions don’t seem impossible).
I don’t think it should be the first thread of investigation but it certainly should not be dismissed out of hand if nothing else bears fruit. That is how you get scurvy.
FTA: “Fischer and her collaborators combed through the medical records of patients who had received emergency dialysis between 2012 and 2015 at any Harris Health hospital. Out of the 346 cases of kidney failure in uninsured or undocumented patients, 17 percent had no readily identifiable cause. That percentage was staggering to the researchers. It suggested that thousands of emergency-dialysis visits in Texas annually may be attributable to CKDu“
⇒ it seems (part of) the reason we suddenly started seeing this is that we recently started looking for it.
It is conceivable that social/natural changes might bring to dietary changes whose damage at scale is only visible on hindsight.
buncha glyphosate in batches of corn and masa could absolutely hit that big and mess up kidneys that much
Oxalates are present in tea too, though not coffee, IIRC.
'Cos I eats my spinach,
I've kidney the failure, man
Like, "maybe the people whose job is to consider the cause and spread of disease never considered diet and hydration!"
Much like public debates over climate change, discussions about the role of heat stress in CKDu can be contentious. Some close observers, such as Glaser, have argued that heat alone is sufficient to cause CKDu. His stance has been bolstered by the success of interventions that encourage sugarcane cutters to rest more often in the shade and stay hydrated. Such measures have slashed rates of kidney injury among workers. Yet other experts, including Fischer, aren’t convinced.
Fischer doesn’t doubt that heat is involved, only that it’s the sole cause. She cites findings from studies that were unable to conclusively rule out pesticides, heavy metals, and other environmental conditions as factors. And some of the highest rates of CKDu in Central America are among shrimp farmers, for whom heat stress is far less of an issue than it is for sugarcane cutters. She says high temperatures and dehydration likely amplify kidney damage from other contributors. “I think the role of heat is a complicating factor. It complicates whatever the disease pathology or physiology is,” she says. “I don’t think it’s a disease initiator.”
"has arrived"
Did working condition worsen over time? if yes, then maybe
If not, then COVID proved that we are past the idea of a theoretical biowar, it is already happening
I've read in this thread that Texas removed provisions for a mandatory hydration/sunscreen break after 4 hours of work.
Is the LatinX the new release after the Latin8?
> Latinx does not adhere to conventional grammatical gender rules in Spanish, is difficult to pronounce for Spanish speakers, and is criticized as showing disrespect towards the Spanish language as a whole.[1] In Latin America, terms such as Latine and Latin@ have been used to indicate gender-neutrality
How stupid can you be, forcing your employees to work while tired? Give them a break to drink water, they'll have more energy and get more stuff done.
Maybe someone needs to buy these businesses and run them in a more efficient and humane way.
The best guesses are both chronic rather than single acute injuries. High heat, dehydration, hard work, exposure to nitrites and who knows what else.
It’s mysterious because the specific etiology is unclear and therefore hard to prevent, since telling field workers not to work in the heat will be ignored by all involved.
I found this: (2010) Positive association of renal insufficiency with agriculture employment and unregulated alcohol consumption in Nicaragua
https://doi.org/10.3109/0886022X.2010.494333
Essentially moonshine consumption.
Interestingly drinking more water was associated with worse outcomes. I would hesitate to point to dehydration without evidence, as a harmful remedy is worse than doing nothing.
Moonshine consumption could probably be investigated further as it carries explanatory power.
I'm not a doctor, but if its sudden onset, all in a similar socio-economic-cultutal group, i would assume there was some sort of toxin they were all exposed to, perhaps at work.
Anecdotally, I have chronic kidney disease that would not have shown up on routine bloodwork / urinalysis. Only after multiple acute episodes did I get a biopsy for a diagnosis, and even that took a year of bouncing between specialists in a big city with good healthcare.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/26/7538343...
*they said crying