Caroline
Current Event Post #1
Mystery Disease Kills Thousands in Central America
Huffington Post: Political - Health
1/12/12
Main Idea:
In central America a mysterious illness is killing thousands. It attacks the kidneys and is believed to be caused by doing manual labor with a lack of hydration. Most of the victims are involved in some sort of manual labor. Some start as early as ten and the continuous strain that is put onto them is another factor in them being more susceptible to the illness. There was a health department emergency and it was requested that other come in and help due to the overload on the health care system. One victims level of creatinine was twenty-five times the normal amount.
Conclusion:
There may be a link between the cane cultivation and harvesting and the mystery illness. A problem being faced though is that those who have damaged kidneys cannot do anything else but this. They will take false ID's and go to work, or they will steal those of their healthy sons and go to work. Or they will go to work for subcontractors who have less regulations on what they can or can't do for the work. Because there is no proven link between the two nothing much can be done.
This is a tragic issue which should be looked into further detail. I hope this disease can be identified soon and save the lives of thousands. I think it is wrong for children to participate in such strenuous labor in the first place and also be a potential victim of the disease.
ReplyDelete- Shreya Rao
Period A