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Re: [at-l] Re: Low level exposure



--- Tim Hewitt <thewitt@fairchildsemi.com> wrote:
> "W F Thorneloe, MD" <thornel@attglobal.net> wrote: 
> > The controversy is whether us ultra-clean Americans have made ourselves
> > more at risk [clip]
> 
> Yeah, how dare we. It is of course that same squeaky clean behavior that
> freed us from cholera, 45% infant death rates due to uncontrollable
> diarrhea and ugh, intestinal parasites.> 
> I'll take the intolerance to the occasional nasty introduced into my
> otherwise squeaky clean world, thank you. 
> Paddler
> GA>ME Class of 99
> http://paddler99.trailstories.com

Went on a delightful little overnight this past weekend with the Indiana AT
Club, and on Sunday, all hot and sweaty and nasty, we arrived at the massive,
motorboat ridden Lake Monroe -- reservoir to Bloomington, Indiana. Everyone,
I think, ended up wading in, plopping down, and enjoying the soothing waters.
By the way, they also exposed numerous cuts, bug bites, and mucous membranes
(two eyes, two nostrils, one... well, you get the idea) to unfiltered water.
That water held, (along with the motorboat oil) all the upstream, upslope
spit, pee, poop, decomposing body parts, etc., of every fish, tadpole,
turtle, bacterium, upstream raccoon, deer, tick, deer tick, fishhawk, fish,
hawk, possom, blah blah blah....., but nobody seemed to care. (Certainly not
my kids.)
And then, some got out their filters to get drinking water.
(Madge comes to mind: "You're already soaking in it.")

Now, I'm not *against* water filters. I know I even stated that, were I
forced to backpack *only* in Indiana, and thus limited to the mostly fetid
water supplies available in the backcountry here, I would consider...
FILTERING water. But as I mostly dayhike Indiana, I just avoid the whole
business and carry the day's supply from home. (This is also a *limiting*
behavior, and deserves reexamination.) Likewise, were I with Gimme Chocolate
(Como de Cocoa?) doing MEHheecoe, I'd be making friends with the iodine
salesman each night, in prep for the next day....

But no matter how hard I look, I have *yet* to find other-than-hearsay
evidence that there is any greater threat of "bad water" along the AT than
when I hiked it in '79. (Which is to say "me and thousands of others, before
we were saved from our ignorance by those wishing us to buy 1-2 pound
time-eating hundred-dollar devices.")

The BPL's Mary recently noted the tragedy of persons' dying from drinking
public water supply poisoned with a new breed of bugs. Let's keep some
perspective, though: If ten THOUSAND people are killed in North America each
year, by nasties in the water supply, and if there are 300,000,000 living in
North America, then you have a 10,000/300,000,000=.0000333 chance of dying
from water consumption in any given year. Now, the numbers are pretty rough,
but I think it's roughly equivalent to your chance of being hit by lightning.
That strikes me (pun intended) as curious: as I packed up my car to head out
for this particular weekend, a neighbor abruptly ended his conversation with
me, RUNNING into his house, because he heard thunder and saw some lightning.
I am PACKING MY CAR to go OUT IN IT. .....

=====
"The tragedy of man is not that a man dies,
     but what dies within a man while he's still alive."

               Mind your soul.

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