I just wanted to share a list of my irrational disease fears here, mostly for the sake of posterity. Hopefully, I will look back on this one day and laugh...HA HA HA HA.
- Hepatitis C - More common than we know, as most people go years and years without discovering that they have it. No standard testing for it, hard to cure, no vaccine. Lives in even dried blood for days.
- HTLV-1 - I really think this is going to be the next HIV epidemic. Anti-retrovirals don't even work to cure it, and if it progresses to any complications there is no stopping it. And it's not at all common to test for, unless you donate blood, but they might not even notify you if they find it. FUCK.
- HIV - I don't think I need to comment on this one.
- MERS - Deadlier (seemingly) cousin of SARS, except they know very little about it even though the first case was discovered 3 years ago!!!
- Naeglia fowleri - Brain eating amoeba. So rare, but so horrible and deadly that I am still afraid of it and think of it whenever I am around a fresh water source. Ugh. Even bath water is a little scary because the amoeba has been detected in municipal water sources. WTF.
- Bubonic Plague - THIS IS STILL AROUND and there have been cases recently in the U.S. (although very few). I should learn more about it, maybe I will be more scared then. I actually don't think about this one too much at all.
- Anthrax - the spores live for 10,000 years and they are everywhere in the soil. A few cows IN THE FOOD SYSTEM get sick with this each year in the United States, but it usually doesn't get past meat processing. But imported wool, bonemeal, etc, could be from sick animals and can be infective if not treated properly. Death rate is VERY high if inhaled and not treated immediately (footnote - you'd need to inhale a lot of it to develop infection, so it's highly unlikely and that is comforting)
- Mosquito-borne infections - Dengue, St. Louis Encephalitis, West Nile, all that shit. FUCK YOU, MOSQUITOES.
And let's just add bed bugs to the list.
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