Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Hookworm

Episode Date: March 4, 2016

This week on Sawbones, Justin and Sydnee have been working in the coal mine, and paying REAL close attention to where they step in the their history of hookworm. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, what time is it about? It's books! One, two, one, two, three, four! I'm not a sense of medicines, the escalant macaque for the mouth. Wow. Hello, everybody, and welcome to

Sobhounds and we're gonna do a misguided in medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. You're getting a little, a little radio voice there. Not intentionally. A little, coming at you with

this is fun. This is actually 70s, 80s, and today. It's actually funny because as soon as you and I recorded that last saw bones is when I got like super duper sick right right after we finished recording my temperature like spiked. I'm just down the road to recovery. Do you think it has something to do with me or our show or?

No idea. I'm allergic to learning. And then this shows late because we we were gonna record last night and Honestly, we pulled this curtain back Charlie vomited all over us before she went to bed. I just like couldn't Charlie of course is our 18-month-old daughter and She's okay. Don't worry. We're not making life She was like yeah, if she was if she was really sick we wouldn't be joking about it. She's not she just

Sometimes she eats more than she should, and she just kind of gets an upset tummy, and then blad. Especially if we're trying to put her to bench and want to, and she's yelling at us a little bit. We're not cry it out, people. That's okay if you are, we're just not. We don't let her cry a lot,

but she cries even a little and kind of just blad. Just blad. Like a South Park, like stand on South Park. Sure. Right. She just kind of looks at you and putes everywhere. Sitting. I love you, but I really, I haven't been feeling great and I really rather not talk about such gross things right now.

Is the is the puke too much for you? Little bit much. I'm sorry. It, you know, the doctor thing, nothing really bothers me. No, you make that very clear. Right. Well, okay. If you don't want to talk about puke, that's fair. A okay if you don't want to talk about puke That's fair a lot of people don't want to talk about puke, but maybe maybe instead we could talk about worms

Okay, that's fine. Have you I know we've talked a little bit about some worms before Yeah, the worm series is back. Yeah, maybe we could talk about have you heard of a hookworm? Really don't really know much about hookworms no, no, how you get them? It of a hookworm? No. No, not really. Don't really know much about hookworms? No. No, or how you get them? It's a roundworm. Yeah, that's right. You're reading ahead.

Be careful there. No. I just kind of knew that. Let's talk about it. So you don't know anything about them, right? No, not really. Then you don't want to hear about anything gross though. Nothing gross, and I don't know anything about worms.

Sure. Okay. Let's talk about hookworms. This would be fun. Okay. I wanna thank Beth and Lindsay and Adam. The cats biting me. Did we not feed the cats? Can we feed them after the show?

Yes, you can, no, okay. We'll feed them after the show. Okay, we will. We will definitely feed our cats, don't we? We love our cats and we will feed them. They're just biting me. I don't wanna support them. Yeah, well, just try to be a professional here.

Okay, I'm trying, it's just they're biting me and I want you to know I'm going through this. Can you please focus on the hookworm a professional here. I'm trying. It's just their body. I want you to go through this. Can you please focus on the hookworms? Yes. I'm so there. So in it. All right.

So as Justin mentioned, it is another roundworm. We talked about Ascrow's before, which was the first roundworm in our and our worm series that there are many worms. And I enjoy talking about that. The worm series has a lot of segments. Wakawaka. Wakawaka. So we're mainly talking about two kinds of segments. Waka, waka. Waka, waka. So, we're mainly talking about two kinds of worms.

When we use the term hookworm, we're really talking about more than one actual species of worm. There's Nikator, Americana and Anselistoma, Duodinoli, which really doesn't matter. I mean, they both do similar things and there's different parts of the world and there's some slightly different clinical centers, but we can lump them together. There are some others that can cause some minor diseases. And in addition, you can get dog and cat varieties. You find that for a lot of parasites,

there can be a dog variety of the parasite and a human variety of the parasite and different mammals and different animals can get that. And sometimes we can infect each other with the wrong flavor of that worm, like I get a cat flavor in me or whatever, but most of the time, you know, it kind of sticks to the right species. Gotcha. Now, I want to walk you through the life cycle of the hookworm. Okay. I'm ready. Because it's important to understand how it gets to humans and then

out of humans and then into other humans in order for you to understand why it gets to humans and then out of humans and then into other humans in order for you to understand why it is important. Got it. I'm ready. So, hookworm eggs, let's say that you already have hookworm. Okay, let's start there. I do. If I wanted to diagnose you with hookworm, what I would do is look at your poop.

Okay. I'd rather we get a third-party involvement. You mean, okay. You mean, okay. You mean, okay. Who has hookworms? No, I mean, the different doctor. Oh, okay.

Dr. Oz. I thought we were using it. Dr. Oz has hookworms. No. Okay. So Dr. Oz has hookworms. Let's just use that as an example. I'm not saying he does. I have no, this is not.

Dr. Oz. I'm not spreading horrible rumors about I have no, this is not. Dr. Oz. I'm not spreading horrible rumors about Dr. Oz. In this fictional scenario, Dr. Oz has hookworms. Based on Oz has hookworms. And if we wanted to diagnose him with it, I would take a sample of this poop and I would spin it down and look at it under a microscope and then look for eggs. Now what am I doing in this?

We've introduced a third party, but I feel like I've kind of muscled out of the equation. Do you just want to like chat with Dr. Oz while I'm investigating this food? You want to keep him busy? Yeah, okay. You want to entertain him. Okay. So you're doing... I'm making some chamomile.

Okay, and doing some tricks for him. Some juggling. Oh, some yo-yo. Some yo-yo. Justin's great with a yo-yo. Yeah. You really are. Thank you. That's really nice of you to start. Charlie will actually ask for yo-yo tricks. I don't know that many yo-yo. Some yo-yo, yo-yo. Justin's great with a yo-yo. Mm-hmm. You really are. Thank you.

That's really nice of you to start. Charlie will actually ask for yo-yo tricks. I don't know that many yo-yo tricks, but thank you. But the ones you do impress her. Yeah, I mean, they're good enough to impress a baby. That's true. So Justin's doing yo-yo tricks to impress Dr. Oz and giving him some pain and guilty.

And he's loving it. And he's loving it. And meanwhile, I'm looking at his poop and there are some eggs in there because that's where you would find the hook or Megs are in his stool, but let's say that instead of me Examining his poop in a lab. He went and pooped outside somewhere. Okay. It sounds like Oz So he pooped outside so his poop is on the ground and then the place where he pooped somebody else walks through it barefoot

Let's say Dr. Phil Okay, Dr. Phil walked through Dr. Ozzy's dookie. Barefoot. That's important. Okay. So the larva that are now in that poop, so they've hatched into larva are going to burrow through his feet through Dr. Phil's feet and get in there, really get in there and get into his vascular system. Okay, so they're gonna travel through his vascular system and eventually end up in Dr. Phil's lungs. So these are, you remember this whole series of events, eggs were in Dr. Osis poop, the poop got on the ground, Dr. Phil walks through the poop,

they burrow their feet. Justin's doing yoga tricks. Sweet yoga tricks. Camer meal. Camer meal. At some point Dr. Phil is gonna, these larvae that are in his lungs, he's gonna cough them up, but then re-swallow them.

We've kinda talked about this before. Yeah. That's how they travel. First me out. That's how they travel. Yeah. Well, some of them, they like, you cough them up, you re-swallow them down into your gut,

which is where they wanted to be in the first place. So they've finally, they've finally arrived. And then they're gonna attach to your small intestines where they're gonna live and lay more eggs. And then you're gonna poop out more eggs. And that's the circle of life. It's gonna be Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz pooping back and forth. I would just like to mention at this point

that I have no reason to believe the doctor or doctor are odds are infected with hookworm or any other disease and I don't want to get in trouble for spreading rumors. And I would like to at this point say that I know for 100% that to be fact come at me. Just to say that it not me. Light up. Light up. Both you doctors. I am not their doctor. I know nothing about their medical history. So if you were to get hookworm, you probably would want to know what happens. Yes.

So at the site of where the like the larvae enter. So in your foot per se or it can be anywhere. We just use feet because people often get it that way. You're going to get something that we would call cutaneous larva migraines, which looks like these little what we would call serpigenous trails on your foot, these little... On the surface of your foot? Yeah, these little red itchy, scaly tracks like a rash on your foot or whatever area it entered. Ground itch is another name for this. So you're going to have some sort of red itchy area where the where the worm got in. When it gets to your lungs, you could get a cough, you could get inflammation

of your lungs, you know, some of those kinds of symptoms. And then when it gets into your gut, so you get, you know, different symptoms to pin on where it is, when it gets into your gut, you can get some diarrhea, some abdominal pain, cramping, you know, general stomach upset, that kind of stuff, okay? Okay. The big problem though, all that, all that you could deal with. But the big problem from these worms is that when they attach inside your intestines, they can cause over time a fairly significant amount of blood loss.

You won't be all at once, not like you just gushed blood. Are you drinking it? No, it's just where they attach. You're losing it. They're kind of, I mean, we call them blood sucking parasites and they are getting nutrients from you, but the bleeding more has to do with where they're attaching. Okay. So you're consistently losing blood and you can get anemic. You also, because they are sucking your nutrients, you're getting malnourished. So over time, this is a big problem, especially in kids for growth and cognitive development. It causes people to be tired all the time. They're anemic. You get all the symptoms associated with anemia.

Basically, it can cause a lot of absenteeism from school and a lot of delay and learning and growth. So it's a big problem, especially for kids, especially for pregnant women who can also get this, but then for anybody. I'd imagine in developing nations, it's probably a huge deal. A huge deal. And the more worms you have, the bigger of a deal it is, because people are infected with multiple worms, you know, not just one. Right. And that can make you sicker.

Where is it anywhere that's warm and moist in the world? The body or in the world. In the world. Anywhere in the world that's warm and moist. It used to The body are in the world. In the world. Anywhere in the world that's warm and moist. It used to be, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about this incredibly prevalent in this other US. Really? Yes.

We'll get into that a little bit more. But right now, it's anywhere in the world that's hot and wet, you will find hookworm. Got it. So how long have we known about this? Probably a long time. If you go back to there are some writings that the Egyptians did and the hypocritees did about some sort of intestinal disease and they were so it was associated with you know that we talked about this in green sickness like a green

complexion or a yellow complexion and that was anemia. So somebody had something not wrong with their stomach, and then they also were anemic. We even see Avacena who he's spoken about before the Persian physician right about a connection between these symptoms with some sort of worm. So there's been writings about this for a very long time, but we didn't actually isolate the hookworm itself until 1838 in Italy, Dr. Dubini, who described the worm and after an autopsy, he found it during an autopsy and he named it and he was the first one to kind of call it what it is. This is a problem. We know this worm is doing things to humans. We don't know exactly what it's doing or how it does it, but we know this is a problem. A few decades after that, we figured out how to diagnose it by looking for the eggs in the stool.

But in 1898, we figured out a lot more about hookworm by accident. Now, let me, let me derail you for a second. Is this visible in the stool? Is this like without a microscope? No. Okay, so that's why we had trouble diagnosing it before we got it. If they had been visible without a microscope, we probably would have been on on top of this a lot earlier. Exactly. We've talked about before that when the ascarus worm, another round worm eventually comes out of you. It's like it's a big worm. Right. You see it. It's a big worm. You don't see, I mean, like with the hook worm, when it's attached inside you, you don't see the worm, but the eggs that are later microscopic. So you wouldn't know they were there

unless you know how to look at poop under a microscope. But actually, I do. I've actually had special training to do this. Yeah. If you like that kind of thing, which I do. But you can't see the trails, yes. On the foot or whatever? The trails left by, are very literally like tunnels

at the hookworm left behind or this? Like on the site that they entered the ground Edge so like on your foot or whatever you could I mean they look like little tunnels on your foot or your hand or wherever they entered Yes, but then they go away like that heels and goes away long before it. It's completed its journey inside you got it Okay, in 1898 Arthur loss Determined the life cycle of the hookworm, and he did it accidentally. He was studying the hookworm, and he was trying to drop some of the larva of the hookworm

into some guinea pig's mouths. Oh, cool. That's a cool day for this guinea pig, sir. I know. There was an unfortunate guinea pig that he was trying to infect with hookworm in order to study it more. While he was doing that, he, I don't know, I don't know why he wasn't wearing gloves.

He probably should have been wearing gloves. I think this was around the time of the invention of gloves, maybe slightly before. Yeah. But anyway, he dropped some of it onto his hand. And it doesn't take a lot of contact. So at the site on his hand, where the larvae were dropped, he got grounded.

Growsed out. And then he thought, you know what, I see all this red itch area, I wonder if worms got in me. So like any good scientist, what did he do? Check his poop. Checked his poop. I was kidding.

No, you're right. He continued to check his poop every day until voila, he found eggs. Is there anything checking your poop can accomplish? No, Justin. No. No. Now one really interesting thing about about hookworm and this was something I didn't know even though as you may already be aware Justin and I are from West Virginia and West Virginia, one of the things we're known for is mining. I think that there's a fair association of the state with coal mining. Yeah.

And this is the same. But at least now, come on down turn. That's true. People aren't so hot on coal as much anymore. Well, that's true. I'm just saying that from a historical perspective, you can attach coal mining to our state. And this is weird.

Actually, as I was mentioning this even at work, I had people who knew about hookworm because they had family who worked in the mines. And if you have family who worked in the mines or if you worked in a mine, you know about this already. Because hookworm has a strong association with mining. Why? Okay, so let's think about that.

Because you're like covered up by a large, right? Well, unless you're sure you're... Or you always covered up? Unless that part in zoo lander, We're just wearing suspenders and a tank top Which I do not think is what I don't think that's a traditional minors uniform So think about this

these worms like warm moist places, right? Yeah, they like especially soil soil that's warm, like low-me soil, warm moist soil, like you would find deep underground. Okay? This is also soil that's rich in minerals, which is good for these worms. So if the worms can get to that soil, they're happy. That's a good soil for these worms. They like that soil, right? Okay. Okay. So let's say that you're a minor. It's back in the 1800s, in the US, we're using the US right now, although this could be anywhere. You really don't have... Oh my god, I just forgot. You don't have... Oh my god, stop the show, I want to get off.

You don't really have any rights at this point as a minor. This is something we know well in West Virginia, and you may know just from your history books. Yeah, you get a vision. Miners and script. Yeah, miners were not treated well. They were basically owned by the company. They would be sent down into dangerous conditions and left there for hours.

And I mean, I guess you would be allowed to come up and take a bathroom break. Yeah, but everybody would make fun of you. They would call you a sissy married. And almost certainly they wouldn't pay you as much And you might get fired and who knows what because you didn't have any rights so You had to go to the bathroom

Sid there were a lot of dark abandoned Corners places you could go turn off your headlamp and hide. Can I save you some there's poop everywhere? There's poop everywhere. Okay. Yeah. There was poop everywhere in the minds. How could you do this? So also because you aren't getting paid real money and because you don't have a lot of a lot of things, the shoes you're wearing are probably pretty worn out.

Right. Or maybe you don't have shoes anymore. Right. I know that sounds crazy, but there was a time where you may have been down in a mind barefoot. So you've got people pooping everywhere and you've got people walking through the poop everywhere. Or even if that isn't, even if you didn't walk through it, you're tromping it up the ladder on your boots, you're taking it home, you're going to take your boots off at some point with your hands, which you probably don't have gloves on. One way or another, those worms are getting in you. You lay your egg salad sandwich on the ground

and then pick it back up, oops, hookworm. Ew. Why do you have an egg salad sandwich down in the mind? She's the greatest of the sandwich I can think of. Because that's what you want down. What'll keep well? Wait, hey, hey Bob, what do you think will keep well down in the mind?

Maybe egg salad, Bob. Maybe an egg salad sandwich? It's cool down there, I think it'd be fun. And everybody's doing this because everybody's got a poop. Everybody poops and not everybody has great shoes. And so everybody's down there doing this. There was probably poop all over the minds up until the 20th century. And that's why we get this association with minds.

For instance, hookworm is also known as minor's itch, tunnel disease, brick makers, anemia, there's also a minor's anemia, which is just if you if you've ever conjured up this kind of image of like a minorist, somebody who's like kind of pale and gawnt and they're coughing all the time and they look malnourished. We always think that's a long problem and certainly that's part of it. But the other thing was the, was the anemia that a lot of miners had because they were all infected with hookworm. Interesting. And, and didn't know it.

And this wasn't, again, this wasn't just in the U.S. I'm talking coal mines because that's what I'm familiar with. But this is, wherever there were mines. So the golden silver mines of Hungary, the sulfur mines of Sicily, all throughout Europe, different coal mines, there were miners infected with hookworm all over the world. We figured out this association when the St. Goddard Tunnel was being constructed

in the Alps. A lot of men got sick, got diarrhea, they started studying them, they published the findings, and they figured out that the majority of these men had gotten hookworm. And in fact, during the Gold Rush, it was estimated that half of all the miners out in California had hookworm. And in some areas, they studied certain mining camps like all but two men had hookworm.

Have we done anything to like try to stand a thwart history and say, stop here? Like just like no more hookworms or sick of it? Well, Justin, of course we have. But before I tell you about that, why don't you follow me to the billing department? history and say stop here. I just like know more hookworms or sick of it. Well Justin of course we have. But before I tell you about that why don't you follow me to the billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God before the mouth. So I want to fight these things. Sydney I'm done with hookworm. I'm going to take the fight to them. Well that's exactly what I'm in.

Because I'm a human being and you made my feet itch. That's always the way it goes. We get fed up with things that are smaller than us beating us. Listen, watch ID4. We get fed up with things that are bigger than us too. Just don't inconvenience us. Yeah. We just want to win again.

Yeah, we just want to win again. Can we just win again? Welcome to Earth. So in the early 1900s, there were huge eradication efforts to get rid of this worm. Now we figured out what it is and where it is and how it gets from person to person and the poop thing and the egg thing.

And we know it. So we're going to start getting rid of it. So like one really impressive effort was actually done in Puerto Rico where a third of the population was cured. A third of the population had hookworm and they were cured when there was a US Army-led effort to go in and eradicate it. By then, we had come up with some medications that worked.

We've got better ones now, but we had come up with some deworming medications. And then just sanitation efforts, wearing shoes and not, you know, defecating in public places and things like that, education efforts, and the death rate there from Anemia dropped 90%. Nice. Which was amazing. Hygiene's always the first step. So, once we had success there, in 1909 in the US, we saw a similar effort here.

So the problem really stemmed from the fact that Rockefeller, the millionaire, the billionaire, the millionaire, probably millionaire at the time. Rockefeller wanted to open more businesses, wanted to employ more people in the American South. But he had an issue with, he felt that by and large, his employees in the South were not as productive or as punctual or came as to work as often as his employees in the North. So he began to study why this was happening and his thought is that it had to do with the hookworm. And to be fair, maybe as many as half of the population of the South was infected with

hookworm at the time. This is something we never talk about. This is in the 1900s. Like half of the South had hookworm. So he created the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the eradication of hookworm disease. And this sounds like a wonderful and theropic effort. And I mean, yes, he helped erad of hookworm disease. And this sounds like a wonderful, anthropic effort. And I mean, yes, he helped to eradicate hookworm. But what he also was trying to do

was get his people to come to workworm. He wanted more money. So they began some public health efforts to educate people, again, just telling them how you get the disease, just getting people's shoes, again, building like one of the biggest things they did was to build these pit privies.

So there were a certain kind of outhouse that had a pit in them that dropped, you know, whatever you put in the outhouse, four feet. Because four feet is as far as these worms can go. Okay. So if you dug a four-foot hole and your poop dropped four feet, then you don't have to worry about somebody walking in there and walking through worms. Because

people are going to outhouses barefoot. There's the truth. So you build these outhouses, which were really a revolution. You get people to wear shoes. This was actually a huge feature of the Mississippi State Fair in 1909. There was this giant hookworm exhibit, which I wish I could go back. If I could go back in time to one thing, it would be the Mississippi State Fair in 1909, because I would love to see what that hookworm exhibit looked like. And how freaked out. Can you imagine if you're standing there looking at a sign that says like half of you have this and it came from poop and it crawled through your foot and it's in your intestines.

I know it's a hangout with a guy named Chad the day after the 2004 presidential election and all the hubbub about hanging Chad's and what have you because that guy knew the jig was up. That's gonna be his home month, you know, I'm thinking about that. That's that's what you do if you go back in time. Yeah, go hang out with a guy named Chad. That after that election, you and I never have good answers to what we could do for you go back in time. No, I like it here in the here. I know. So Rockefeller to his to his credit did help solve this what he referred to as

the germ of laziness. The rate one one really good example is the rate of hookworm infection among school kids went from 40% to basically zero as a result of these efforts. And this was only over the course of a few years. Again, they also had deworming medications back then they were already starting to use. And it greatly increased productivity and work attendance, as well as school attendance really turned around. And this was a big deal because kids with hookworm can't learn as much or as fast and it really does stunt their growth in development. can't learn as much or as fast and it really does stunt their growth and development. That's the absolute truth even today. So before I get into just real quick where we are today with hookworm, because we didn't really do a lot of crazy things through the years to try to treat hookworm,

because we didn't know it was there for a long time. We didn't know what to treat. So we've talked about crazy things we've done for anemia or for stomach problems or that kind of thing, but we weren't ever trying to treat hookworm in a weird way because we didn't know about hookworm. Right. There are still some natural things that you'll read that you could do to deworm yourself because it's really what we're talking about. Like you would your cat or your dog, you want to deworm yourself. Yeah. You can take the cat or dogs or medication. It's one thing. No, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that thing. Don't do what Justin said ever. It's one thing you can do.

So you may, instead of going to a doctor and getting treated appropriately, you might decide to consume some pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and figs three times a day on an empty stomach. Yeah, sounds awesome. Or maybe you want to drink only bottled mineral water. I mean, just because you're fancy. Yeah, it's a fancy, it's a fancy treatment. Or if you're feeling really, I don't know, masochistic, eliminate all sugar fats, beef, chicken, lamb, and pork products from your diet. It's not bad enough for my feedage, it's not too limited, all good food.

Now, I did find some good advice out there that you want to wash your hands frequently, you want to wash your underwear. Sure. Sure. I mean, like, I'm a big fan of that, no matter what. want to wash your hands frequently, you want to wash your underwear? Sure. Sure. I mean like I'm a big fan of that no matter what. Yeah, wash your underwear. You should wash your underwear. I mean if you're going to wear I mean you might as well wash them right? That can't be real if I wash your underwear. Wash your underwear. I mean yeah obviously. Also avoid scratching your anal area. Just like by and large again, yes. I mean, just to be polite, or at least in public. Yeah, it's worth the decorum.

Yeah. But along the same line and the same place where they would tell you, like, don't scratch your butt and wash your underwear, eat some papaya. Yeah, I mean, that's good advice. They're just delicious. Yeah, but if you're eating papaya in hopes to deworm yourself, again, just check with a doctor. And there is an interesting theory now, which may not actually be entirely wrong, but I'm

not advising it, I'm not saying do this, I'm just saying that we're still figuring it out. Helmet therapy, where this is based on, I think I may have mentioned before, the hygiene hypothesis, people are too clean now and that's why we get asthma and allergies and everything. We're not exposed to enough stuff. And they think that part of that is that we should have worms, that humans should, like we've evolved, that we should have, there's some scientists who believe this. I would not say I believe we should have worms necessarily because it cause problems. So they're parasitic. They give you anemia. This is like a AB, like it's not hard to test this, like they're bad.. They give you anemia. This is like a A, B. Like, it's not hard to test this.

Like, they're bad. But there's this theory that if you could give people very small doses of worms for limited periods of time, like just until they got sick and then you would deworm them, that you would be able to treat things like allergies and asthma and Crohn's and that kind of thing. Autoimmune type diseases by dampening your immune response and it would help fix that.

It's interesting, I think that's fascinating to kind of as a thought exercise and to investigate, but I would certainly not recommend intentionally infecting yourself with worms in order to treat your asthma. Like we've got medicine for that and I would go get that instead, would be my advice. Today, we have a largely eradicated hookworm in the US, although it can happen and does happen. So don't feel like just because Rockefeller did all that back in the early

1900s, you're safe. You could still get hookworm. But it is a much bigger problem outside the US. 700 million people worldwide are infected with hookworm. And as I mentioned, it is a leading cause of anemia, protein-mountedrition. It's a big problem for pregnant women. And it is considered one of the neglected tropical diseases like guinea worm, which we've spoken about before. So it is something that impacts a huge number of people, children, pregnant women, you know, adults to everybody. And it is definitely something that needs to be addressed. And how do we do that? Well, with a lot of public health efforts, stuff that we did in the 1900s still holds true now, wearing shoes, don't, you know, stay away from dirt, stay away from, you know, don't poop outside, don't touch or eat dirt, improve sanitation, access to a, what is, it's a very cheap medication.

So we have good medications against this now. Albin is all me bend is all there good anti-parasitic deworming medications that are cheap as dirt we just need to get them to people. So you may be wondering if there's anything you can do. I am wondering that. So aside from all those things you can do for yourself to prevent yourself from getting hookworm. I feel very good about it. I have one good thing I found was a resource called globalnetwork.org. They're dedicated to the eradication of neglected tropical diseases. So you can look at all the other ones there too, but one of those are soil transmitted

helmets. Okay. And that includes hookworm. Oh, all right. And so if you're interested in donating money to those efforts or seeing if there's anything else you can do, I would go check out globalnetwork.org because this is again something that, you know, while I don't see cases of hookworm very often here, although that doesn't mean I've never seen one. Yeah. It is certainly a much bigger problem outside the US. And it causes, like I said, a significant impact on childhood development, cognitive growth,

attendance in school and that kind of thing. So you know, check it out, see if that's something you're interested in helping out with. Well, I like that. I call that action. We should really have something that we can do. I like that. There is something we can do. We know how, and the medicine is cheap. We know how to do this.

USAID is actually making huge efforts in this as well. So, so really check into this if this is something this, this is something I feel passionate about. So check out. Hey, listen folks, 2016 Max Fund drive is just around the corner. Join us for the best two weeks in podcasting. Show your support for solbones, maximum fun. We have great shows that week.

It's the best two weeks in podcasting. We're going to have, if you're new to solbones every year, we do this where we ask you to help give back to our network. And in exchange, you're going to get a lot of cool gifts, a lot of cool prizes, a lot of bonus content. There's tons of extra solbons on there and then we'll have another bonus one for you. So mark your calendars that it's going to kick off March 14th is going to run for just two weeks.

So don't miss out on all the fun. It's going to be huge. Thanks to taxpayers for letting us use your song medicines as the intro and outro of our program. And we'd also like to thank. Did you think that first off did you think the folks that suggested the topic? Yes I did. Thank you to Lauren for the beautiful books. Yes that's who I want to thank. Okay we we'll do it. I want to thank Lauren. I didn't say that then. Thank you, Lauren.

For these beautiful books that she sent me, I mean, I really think they're for me. You can look at them. Never look at who's looking for a Lauren. Now, I was about to, you interrupted me. For beautiful books about Lister, they're bound and they're gorgeous, and they're like, it's like numbered,

so it's one of a collection of books, all of his writings. They were lovely. Thank you so much. Thank you. And folks, that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for listening. So we're a little late. We'll get you back next time. I made up for it by making it about Worms and Poop. And doing some good. so it's like your favorite solbona stew. You're welcome. Like like all right and that's about tourism. Until the next time we have something to talk with you about. My name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy and as always don't Trilla Holy in your head. Maximumfund.org

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