[at-l] giardia

[kborski@yahoo.com (Karen Borski)]

--- Sloetoe <sloetoe@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ### FWIW, your practice of the Jardinesque
> "conditioning", though,
> fell down when you went south of the border:
> different plants,
> insects, birds, mammals, lizards, etc -- didn't it
> seem likely there'd be different protozoa too?

Well, therein lies (one of) the problem(s) with
Jardinesque waterborne pathogens conditioning.  Since
the difference between the mile inside the Mexican
border and the mile outside has nothing to do with
different animals, plants and protozoa, but everything
to do with how they treat their water in El Paso
versus how they treat their water in Jaurez, then I
had not considered that the issue that perhaps
different native strains of protozoa lived in Mexico
versus the US (protozoa are not subjected to border
checks and required to flash passports to my
knowledge).  So, despite native Texan status, having
grown up in the deep piney woods of the Gulf Coast and
had been drinking ground water from the hills of
Tennessee for a year during the conditioning, I was
therefore not immune to the bugs in the Mexican water.

The problem then, is that you become accustomed to
what is normal for you.  So, if you lived on the East
coast, far from the different species of all kinds
that inhabit the West coast, then what good would it
do you to regularly drink the cold waters of the
Nolichuckey or the runoff from the Whites when you
bent down to sip from the warm Kern or the snowmelt
off Baden-Powell?  Probably no good at all.  Except
for things like giardia, which you could willingly
acquire (and cover with Vodka or moonshine) that don't
change from coast to coast.  Or do they?  Hmmm.  Food
for thought.

Nocona




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