🚀 go-pugleaf

As klaatu implies, the truly frightening aspect of pfisteria is that the
neurotoxicity causes *permanent* short term memory loss in humans, and
people may be effected simply by breathing the fumes produced by blooms
of the microorganism.  

-- 
Kim Buttleman 
U. S. Geological Survey, Reston, Va., USA

*******************************************************

klaatu wrote:
> 
> "Brian Raines (TheChesapeakeBay.com)" wrote:
> >
> > Possible Estuary-Associated Syndrome (PEAS)
> > Centers for Disease Control Pfiesteria-related Notice Issued
> >
> > A federal health agency has told the nation's doctors to watch for
> > problems that could be associated with Pfiesteria, the microorganism
> > blamed for sickening Chesapeake Bay watermen two years ago. The alert
> > from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not prompted by
> > a specific public health concern - it comes as warmer, drier weather
> > arrives to make conditions ripe for Pfiesteria piscicida.
> 
> Hrm - and it does indeed look as if we're in for a repeat of last year's
> weather pattern, La Ni~a notwithstanding. And in fact, we may get even more
> dry weather than we got last year.
> 
> Okay, just to be a science-fiction-y sort of guy, I will indulge in some
> wacky prophecy. (a rehash and update of a story written in 1992)
> 
> Well, basically, I predict that for no particular reason, _pfisteria_ will
> not only infest eastern-shore estuaries of the Chesapeake, but will also
> infest, and intensely-so, the tidal Potomac and Patuxent rivers, from which
> the Greater Washington Metropolitan Region draws its water supply.
> Marylanders will of course remain mostly unaffected, due to the effective
> and competent efforts of the WSSC, but the District's poorly-maintained
> water supply will become infested with a chlorine-resistant strain of
> _pfisteria_, which will of course cause everyone in the District to develop
> colonic colonies of the Cell from Hell, which has at least 17 major
> life-cycle forms, most of which do not produce neurotoxins.
> 
> At this point my prophetic vision becomes rather vague, but seems to center
> around a strong suspicion that as people overheat at July 4th, due to
> insufficient consumption of beer on the Mall (due to annoying Park Service
> regulations), the internal _pfisteria_ colonies will undergo a sea-change
> into neurotoxin-emitting forms, causing everyone in the city of Washington
> to forget where they live, or for that matter that they should go home. With
> their short-term memories suppressed to the point where they live entirely
> for the moment, mobs of forgetful people will wander the streets of their
> capital, convincing the entire world that we've gone not only barking-mad,
> but certifiably and televisably so.
> 
> Georgetown will become swarmed with people who are obsessed with wearing the
> latest fashions, which they will be totally unable to remember and must thus
> mob to the trendy stores to gawk at mannequins. On "K" Street NW, lawyers
> will forlornly flock the streets, begging people to give _them_ their
> business cards so that they will know who they are. And in upper NW, bereft
> of their memories, citizens will start a campaign drive to re-elect Marion
> Barry...
> 
> >
> > Find out more at the URL:
> > http://TheChesapeakeBay.com/cdc_pfiesteria_peas_notice.shtml
> >
> > Brian Raines
> 
> --
>                     "We look through a glass but darkly:
>                  What we see is more colored by our beliefs,
>                than what we believe is colored by what we see."
>                 "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
>         purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"  - P. Henry