Re: [pct-l] Guardia

["Joanne Lennox" <goforth@cio.net>]

Obviously the point about filtering water is not to become infected in the
first place, either as a carrier or somebody that comes down with the
disease.

Your are sure right about filtering water after you become a carrier. Coals
to Newcastle. If I knew I was a carrier, I would get treated, and treat the
water subsequently so that I would not just be another person spreading the
disease.

I do not believe that this situation is analogous to males being carriers
of pregancy, Giardia endospores are extremely long-lived, very resistent,
and difficult to "disinfect"; they can be carried by wind and dust, they
can be multiplied by intermediate hosts that walk all over the place(
marmots, beavers, rodents), there are a number of fecal and toilet paper
eating animals that also spead this disease, and endospores do not require
the
fusion of two haploid cells from both a male and female to began gestation.
Sex is a matter of choice, shitting is a matter of necessity, and a
function according to the numbers that we do far more frequently.  

Goforth

----------
> From: CHARLEY_RENN@ex.cv.hp.com
> To: PCT-L@backcountry.net
> Subject: RE: [pct-l] Guardia
> Date: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 1:51 PM
> 
> Joanne,
> 
> 	This is too big a leap.  Just because I, as a male, am a 'carrier' 
> of pregnancy, doesn't mean I am constantly spreading it.  Where and how 
> I dispense my pregnancy 'germs' has a lot to do with their
'infectousness'.
> If Giradia 'carriers' use the standard 200-feet-from-water rule, there is

> no reason to expect they are comtaminating as they go.  Being a Giardia 
> carrier is no more threatening than being a male.  It's the degree of 
> intelligent bahavior on the part of the carrier that creates or mitigates

> the threat.
> 
> 	Also, treating your water when you are already a carrier does not 
> change the equation, as your last sentence seems to imply.
> 
> Charley
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joanne Lennox [mailto:goforth@cio.net]
> 
> 
> Tom you wrote "The decisions to ignore the dangers of giardia endangers
> none but yourself"
> 
> <<Stuff deleted for space efficiency.>>
> 
> Thus, somebody who does not treat their water, and does not get sick,
does
> not necessarily harm only themselves.  Their inaction may in fact may be
> the genesis of others getting sick.
> 
> These are suppositions of course. But If I could get away with not
treating
> my water, and not getting sick, I would do it.  If I knew I was a
carrier,
> I think it would be different.
> 
> Goforth 
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