[at-l] Medical Risks of Wilderness Hiking

[thornel at attglobal.net (W F Thorneloe)]

I am off in San Francisco at a convention, enjoying clear skies
and long indoor meetings with a bunch of other psychiatrists.
Shortly after the list crashed (or contemporaneously), I sent
the list the email address of the author of the article from the
American Journal of Medicine that was previously discussed. The
message went out to at least one lister, who took me to task for
suggesting LNT endorsed the use of alcohol gels rather than his
preferred measure of soap and water. As alcohol gels weren't
available when LNT was first formulated, he was quite correct.
This misses the fact that LNT isn't a fixed Gospel, but a
wilderness ethic which will evolve with technologies and
experience.

The article is excellent, with subtle but well presented
statistical analysis. The graphics are not well translated into
text format. The article is copyrighted to the Journal, hence
should be distributed only by the authors, including "David
Boulware" <boulw001@umn.edu>. The article and my correspondence
with the authors suggest that further study is ongoing. We have
discussed my dream study of alcohol gels, a study that will
remain a dream in the absence of unlimited time and funding.
Given that alcohol gels are state of the art in hospitals, are
widely available in the real world, are easily packaged with
toilet paper, do not need water, can be used immediately post
toilet, and have a double use for fire starting - I recommend
them highly.

The article does not clear water sources as a major source of GI
events, but handwashing and other hygiene appear to be related
toward prevention of backcountry diarrhea. I encourage
interested hikers to write the author ("David Boulware"
<boulw001@umn.edu> ) if you would like information directly for
the source.

OrangeBug