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Short Stuff: Cyclospora · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Jerry's here sitting in for day. So this is the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: short Stuff. Let's go.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: That's right. Today, we're talking about the recent cyclo sporiasis
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: outbreak that everyone heard about, notably with like tainted lettuce
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: usually is what you're hearing on the news, and Taco
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Bell was in the news because it turns out that
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: the supplier that they used was seems to have been
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: ground zero for this outbreak. But we're gonna explain what
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: cyclospora is all about.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's this outbreak as of August thirteenth, which was
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the latest data we could find. It's August twentieth, now,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: so this is old. Okay, it's twenty eight fifty six
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: people have been sickened with I'm gonna I'm going with cyclosporiasis.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: It sounded like you gave the British pronunciation boreassis. Yes, yeah,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: it suddenly sounded like you had tea in your hand. Yeah.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So twenty eight thousand plus people have been sicken, two
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: people have died, and just a month before it was
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: at nine four hundred and eighty one cases. And you're like, wow,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of people, and it is. This is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: actually the third biggest food born outbreak in US history.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: From what anyone could tell, it's the biggest cyclospora outbreak
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: in human history. And even with those eye popping stats
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: associated with it, that twenty eight thousand case number is
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: probably just a fraction of the actual number of cases
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of people who have gotten sickened by with cyclosporiasis.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I think there were only thirty eight
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: states reporting the you know, as far as reporting goes,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: it's like people who went to the hospital and a
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: lot of people just like wrote it out, I'm sure.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: And then even at the hospital you have to have
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: a special test to see if it's actually that, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: not all the hospitals probably did that test, so they
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: probably just treated people for dehydration and diarrhea. So it's
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: a much bigger number than that. And let's talk about
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: what this thing is. Because it is a not a plant,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: it's not a fungus or an animal. It's not a
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: bacteria or a virus. It is a protozoan and it's
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: a parasite and the human is the host.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not brand new. But the reason we
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: can pretty confidently say that in all of human history,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: this is the biggest outbreak of cyclosporiasis. Is because the
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: first case that anyone's ever documented was in like nineteen
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: seventy eight in Papua New Guinea, and it's even newer
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: here in the United States. The first outbreak was in
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, in Chicago, only twenty three cases. Then there
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: was one in Florida the next year, about forty five cases.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Those were raspberries from Guatemala. And every summer basically there's
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: a little something, but nothing like we saw this year.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: They you know, this stuff can live. This protozoan can
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: live in rivers. It lives in water drinking water, rivers, lakes,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: swimming pools, and it likes to hide in like berries
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and leafy vegetables because there's lots of little crevices and
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: nooks and crannies where it won't get washed out even
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: if you're like rinsing your stuff. Also on knives and utensils,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: and also from unwashed hands.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Gross very like just let's be clear. It passes through
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: human sewage. That's its mode of transportation, right, So that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: means that somebody had human poop on their knife or
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: their hands, if that's where you got it.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we should talk about the life cycle because
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: it begins when it enters your mouth. It is in
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: what's earliest stage. It's an infectious o cyst. Did you
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: know how that's what was pronounced.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: That's the British way pronouncing it. I'm going with ossist.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: It is osis to actually look that up. And it
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: is an egg that basically protects it from the outside
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: world until it gets into the human system where it
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: latches onto your gut and starts a fourteen stage life cycle,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: which takes two days to two weeks to incubate before
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: it becomes an infection.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the reason it takes so long is because
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: that HSIs. Is that what you said?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, with emphasis on the first ooh ooh or osis
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: sorry o sist.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like ooh ooh sis. It's very tough. It's like
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: a tough container like you said, that protects the actual
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: infectious part and it has to break down, and it's
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: evolved to break down in the human gut thanks to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: your digestive juices and your bile and the temperature of
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: your body inside your gut, all those things come together
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: and break the oos this down, and now all of
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a sudden, four sausage shaped spoiulets get dumped out into
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: your gut and start going to work and essentially making
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: it really hard for your gut to absorb water. And
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: because your body's trying to poop this stuff out, you
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: have water butt like you have never had it before.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: That's right. And every time you do poop, you pass
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: along up to ten thousand osis per cubic centimeter of feces.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: That's a lot ooey gooey. Theces it says, should we
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: take a break?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, we'll be right back. Sweat shot shot stop,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: all right, so we're back. You said, the main symptom
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: is really really bad diarrhea, which obviously was going to
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: lead to bad dehydration, like dangerous dehydration and electrolyte imbalances,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: potential kidney damage, risk, maybe hospitalization. As we've seen up
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: to ten percent body weight weight loss.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: That's nuts.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: That's a lot, you know, depending on who you are.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: But that's a lot no matter what, because it's ten
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: percent of whoever you are, you know.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's interesting is there's not an inflammation or fever
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: that's usually associated with a stomach bug. It's just a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: lot of pooping and the risk of really bad dehydration
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and then all the stuff that comes with that, right.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: So once you poop that stuff out, it makes it
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: back into the water supply, it gets back into your
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: food stuff we'll talk about in a second, and then
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the cycle begins again. And that's probably what happened. The
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: water supply was used on food crops where really, if
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: you step back and think about it for even a second,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: it shouldn't be. But let's talk about Chuck. Why this
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: US outbreak in twenty twenty six is the biggest one,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the biggest cyclist bariasis outbreak in human history.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, one is a climate change, you know, with
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: rising temperatures across the globe. These you know, I don't
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: think we mentioned that this thing used to be found
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: only in the tropics, right, but now these pathogens can
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: be found elsewhere because of rising temps. The second one,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: and you know, we're not getting political, but this is
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: just a stone cold fact. This presidential administration is cut
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: funding for food safety programs, including two key ones that
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: might have stopped this the Food Emergency Response Network. They
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: grant states funding to test for food pathogens like this,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: and food Net which track outbreak causing pathogens, and food
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Nets specifically literally, because of a lack of funding, stopped
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: tracking six of the eight pathogens that it used to
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: always track, and cyclospora is one of those.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: So you know, that's just the deal.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Plus the federal agencies that are responsible for basically taking
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the lead and guiding healthcare providers and public health officials
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff throughout the country just sat on
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: their hands for months. As a matter of fact, it
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: was about two full months before the CDC stepped forward
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: with guidelines and essentially basically really started talking about this publicly.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, this outbreak was bad enough that somebody
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: had to do something. So Michigan ended up stepping forward
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and filling the role that the CDC was just dropping
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the ball on. They ended up issuing guidelines and stuff
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: that obviously weren't you know, regulations or anything, but that
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: other healthcare providers in other states were like, Okay, good,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: now I know what to do thanks to the state
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of Michigan, not the federal government, which is supposed to do.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And if you put all that together, you're like, wow,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: this happened really fast, and to me, it gives a
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: picture of like the United States built a really impressive
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: food born illness surveillance network that was fragile apparently, but
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that really worked because if you just pull that stuff
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: away and then this is the stuff that happens. I
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: think there's twenty food born outbreaks right now going on
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in the United States. It's in a way, it's really
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: impressive how effective it was before.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, And boy, hats off to you Michiganers
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: for taking the lead on that. One of the other
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: big reasons is big agriculture. When it's you know, something
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: like that has been consolidated so much an industry has
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: that means that you know, Americans are getting their crops
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: from just you know, the same places basically, So if
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: something like this happens, like happened at Taylor Farms, this
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: was Tailor Farms to Mexico, which was the agricultural site,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: even though it's a California based company, all of a sudden,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: this stuff's going out all over the country. There's also
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Tailor Farms is also being identified as a source of
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the other outbreaks, a couple of them, the salmonilla outbreak,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: at least from Jalapenos. I think. Yeah.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And for those who don't speak Spanish, Taylor farms
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: to Mexico means tailor farms of Mexico. So and it's
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: not just Mexico or Guatemala where you're going to find
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: tainted produce. Something I was kind of alluding to earlier
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: is that the cyclospora find its way finds its way
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to your food crops through human sewage. And that can
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: actually happen in the United States because there are, let
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: me find it, more than half. I think twenty seven
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: states allow for treated sewage water to be used to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: irrigate food crops.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I did not know that, I did neither. Nine states
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: don't have any policy, four have guidelines, and fourteen states
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: allow it for crops but not food crops. Yeah, and
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, that's where it's coming from.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, so they and we did say treated sewage waste, yeah,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of course, right, So it's not like they're just spraying
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: like feces all over your lettuce, but essentially on a
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: microscopic level, they often are because a lot of sewage
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: treatment plants aren't set up to handle cyclospora. Because again,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: this is not your average bacteria or virus. This is
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: its own thing. So thecites cysts can make it through
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: onto your your lettuce or whatever. And then also sometimes
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: those bacteria and the viruses that the sewage treatment plant
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: is set up to take care of make it through anyway.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: So this is what I was saying. It seems pretty
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: smart to just stop using treated sewage on food crops.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe fund the agencies that are responsible for
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: keeping track of the stuff, would be AWES. Sure.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you feel at all like you should
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: go to the hospital, if you have cyclo spiasis right now,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: or if you have really bad water, but for any reason,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: just go, like, don't risk it. Whatever. But if you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: don't want to get cyclosporiasis, there are some steps you
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: can take. One of them is, at the very least
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: wash off all of your stuff, because that can help.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: But cyclosporiasis can still hide, right Chuck.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we talked in Act one about the
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: little nooks and crannies, and it's hard to get through.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the only thing to kill it is to cook
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: it to one hundred and sixty degrees fahrenheit. But you're
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: not cooking your let us for your taco.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: No, that's great. That's like the Mom and Better Off
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Dead who boiled the bacon.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a really silly part of that movie,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: that whole mom's scene. Yeah. Stuff that's you know, like
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: stuff that has a nice wrapper around it, like a
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: banana and avocado. You're doing okay, and you know, do
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: plenty of handwashing obviously as well.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: For sure. And if you are on the vergeer, I've
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: already started an email telling us how you used to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: like us before we became political. Just stop, don't bother short.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Stuff's out.
• 13:36
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• 13:39
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