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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHookworm, a disease of extreme poverty, is thriving in the US south. Why?
Children playing feet away from open pools of raw sewage; drinking water pumped beside cracked pipes of untreated waste; human faeces flushed back into kitchen sinks and bathtubs whenever the rains come; people testing positive for hookworm, an intestinal parasite that thrives on extreme poverty.
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These are the findings of a new study into endemic tropical diseases, not in places usually associated with them in the developing world of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, but in a corner of the richest nation on Earth: Alabama.
Scientists in Houston, Texas, have lifted the lid on one of Americas darkest and deepest secrets: that hidden beneath fabulous wealth, the US tolerates poverty-related illness at levels comparable to the worlds poorest countries. More than one in three people sampled in a low-income area of Alabama tested positive for traces of hookworm, a gastrointestinal parasite that was thought to have been eradicated from the US decades ago.
The long-awaited findings, revealed by the Guardian for the first time, are a wake-up call for the worlds only superpower as it grapples with growing inequality. Donald Trump has promised to Make America Great Again and tackle the nations crumbling infrastructure, but he has said very little about enduring chronic poverty, particularly in the southern states.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty
This is outrageous...............
Doreen
(11,686 posts)microscopic creatures than many know. If you have ever seen the TV program "The Monsters Inside Me" you know that we have a lot of those problem right here in the U.S.A. It is first the failure of proper cleaning and care for the environment and second bad health care.
msongs
(67,193 posts)Willie Pep
(841 posts)There is so much that needs to be fixed in this country but we can't get things done because the Republicans have made "tax and spend liberal" such a powerful concept that even people who desperately need these services vote for politicians who cut them or eliminate them.
I don't mind paying taxes to live in a modern, first-world country where I have clean drinking water, nice roads and strong public safety services.
dalton99a
(81,065 posts)davekriss
(4,608 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)And folks like the erects and the Koch's are working hard to make the rest of the US follow suit.
Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)"Hookworms are a state of mind."
Yeah, you tell them Benny. I'm sure these people decided to be poor so they could contract hookworms.