The Hunt for Brain Eating Amoebas of Yellowstone

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

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I've heard of these brain or flesh eating amoebas in the news usually found in warm water lakes and ponds, now they are present at Yellowstone. I have no desire to swim in any warm water areas, although I never really have in the past, just cold lake or ocean waters. More here.

It was a lovely September day in Yellowstone’s Boiling River, which was not, in fact, boiling. Tourists trundled through the shallow water and dipped in where it was deeper. A herd of elk even waded through unconcerned. And among it all, a team of researchers in waders sampled the water for a brain-eating amoeba that kills 97 percent of the people it infects.


Not that anyone here has ever fallen victim to the amoeba, Naegleria fowleri. Scientists just know that the Boiling River, which gets its warmth from geothermal energy upstream, can harbor the little nasty. Accordingly, signs posted onshore warn swimmers: This thing can ruin your day, and most likely your life.


Wading in that river was an odd mix of scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute—650 miles from the nearest ocean—and the United States Geological Survey, which, as it turns out, is interested in far more than just rocks. They were collecting water samples to ship off to a rather more obvious participant: the Centers for Disease Control. There, scientists would analyze the water to help unravel the mysteries of the brain-eating amoeba—and hopefully, protect America’s waterways from nasties of all types.


Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Naegleria fowleri is that it has no business eating human brains. The amoeba prefers smaller game, scooting around freshwater ecosystems gobbling up bacteria. But if you happen to be swimming in one of those ecosystems and get a snout full of water, the amoeba can make its way into your brain and start eating tissue, leading to something called primary amebic meningoencephalitis.

With the brain swelling come the fever and vomiting, then the seizures and hallucinations. It kills in an average of five days, and claims 97 percent of its hosts.

Naegleria fowleri loves warm waters, hence its presence in the not-quite-boiling Boiling River. But it can survive when things cool down as well. “When in cooler temperatures, it goes into a cyst state, which is kind of an egg-like state that's very hardy,” says Mia Mattioli, an environmental engineer in CDC's Environmental Microbiology Laboratory. “But it's not viable, it's not moving, it's just persisting. When it becomes more favorable and warm it goes into the infectious state.”


Naegleria fowleri's sensitivity to temperature makes it maddeningly difficult to track down, since lower temperatures lower its concentration. Scoop up other kinds of freshwater lifeforms and you might get 100 organisms in a liter of water. With Naegleria, you might be looking at 100 organisms in 100 liters of water. (This rarity, plus the fact you have to somehow get the microbe up your nose, is part of the reason why only 40 people picked up the amoeba in the US between 2007 and 2016.)


So the USGS and MBARI want to get better at detecting the menace. They descended on the Boiling River with two complementary missions. One was to hike out of there with water samples, which they took back to Montana State University and shipped off the CDC for analysis. The second was to test MBARI’s Environmental Sample Processor (known as ESP, of course), which the group hopes could one day have the power to detect the amoeba in real time.
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I love Wired and Outside and have subscribed to both of them for many years. Thanks for posting this. I was pretty horrified when I read it.

I'm pretty there's also a brain-eating amoeba living in my television set.
 

I worked in a hospital where all of the MRSA infections in this area were treated. Those cases were heart-breakers. We got one young guy who fell in a gravel parking lot. Even after weeks of 2x/day debriding, both of his legs had to be amputated.

I've used a neti pot for many years and I'm amazed when I hear about people using regular tap water in their neti pots and dying from brain-eating amoeba. Common sense, people.
 
If you're going to use a neti pot (which I highly recommend if you ever have sinus/ear congestion/allergies), always use distilled water. I boil distilled water for about 15 minutes just in case, then store in the refrigerator. Himalayan sea salt is a must, and I always clean the pot with soap and hot water after every use. I'm a believe in Ayurvedic medicine after I attended a series of seminars years ago when I worked in a med school. I began using the neti pot from there. I'm lucky enough to have a very good Ayurvedic clinic within easy walking distance of my home. It's enlightened medicine.
 
I used a neti pot for a short time years ago, using filtered water and non-iodized sea salt. I didn't like using it, so I stopped the practice. I'd rather just use a saline spray in my nose if needed. One time at work I had a terrible pain under one of my eyes, then later on uncontrollably some solution drained out of my nose. Luckily I was alone and no harm was done to any papers or anything. Neti pot is not for me, I still have mine under the cabinet, should use it as a creamer, lol. :playful:
 
Pappy said:
Just another darn good reason why not to use a public hot tub. Yuck....
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Only salt water swimming in the ocean for me Pappy. (from the CDC website)

Naegleria fowleri is a heat-loving (thermophilic) ameba found around the world [SUP]1,[/SUP] [SUP]2[/SUP]. Naegleria fowleri grows best at higher temperatures up to 115°F (46°C; see Pathogen and Environment page) and can survive for short periods at higher temperatures [SUP]3,[/SUP] [SUP]4[/SUP].

Naegleria fowleri is naturally found in warm freshwater environments such as lakes and rivers [SUP]5-9[/SUP], naturally hot (geothermal) water such as hot springs [SUP]10[/SUP], warm water discharge from industrial or power plants [SUP]11, 12[/SUP], geothermal well water [SUP]13, 14[/SUP], poorly maintained or minimally chlorinated swimming pools [SUP]15[/SUP], water heaters [SUP]16[/SUP], and soil [SUP]5[/SUP], where it lives by feeding on bacteria and other microbes in the environment.

Sampling of lakes in the southern tier of the U.S. indicates that Naegleria fowleri is commonly present in many southern tier lakes in the U.S. during the summer [SUP]5-9[/SUP] but infections have also recently occurred in northern states [SUP]17[/SUP].

Naegleria is not found in salt water, like the ocean.
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Amoeba Awareness

I just heard these parents of a boy who died 7 years ago from swimming in a lake and river in Texas, they didn't know he had the amoeba eating his brain until after he was already dead. They started a website, seems that Canada had a drug to treat it and they helped get it here to the US. Website here.
 
Given all the pollution and waste that has been flowing into our rivers and lakes in the past several decades, I would Never want to swim in any of our inland waterways, anymore. While the water may "look" clean, there is no telling what is really floating around in it.
 

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