Hydatid Disease Isn’t About Fear But About Health And Education
January 19, 2010
I suppose much of the reactions from people about the announcement that wolves in the Idaho, Montana and into Canada regions are infested with worms that can spread hydatid disease, is fueled by the existing and ongoing emotional battle over how best to manage the canines in this region.
Anyone, including myself, who supports a more aggressive approach to limiting (I didn’t say elimination) wolf populations, who attempts to bring to light this public health issue, gets chastised for instilling fear in people because I hate wolves.
We’ve been down this road before and those who read my blog know that isn’t true. So let’s make an effort to dispense with the false accusations and more importantly, let’s not brush off this information as non factual and/or something we don’t need to concern ourselves with.
Dr. Valerius Geist began signaling a small alarm bell when he began reading about what he called, “cavalier attitude[s] towards the disease”. In an email sent to a handful of concerned outdoor sportsmen, Geist says:
The people and contra machinations pertaining to wolves are of little concern here. What is important is that people living or recreating in areas with hydatid disease take precautions, while steps have to be undertaken to eradicate the disease.
Geist’s concern about “cavalier attitudes” came because game officials and news agencies in infected areas was seriously playing it down. It is important to note that Dr. Geist makes the point that the precautions we should take are especially true in known infected areas.
Because the tiny eggs, liberated by the millions in carnivore feces, are dispersed even by tiny air currents, it is important for reasons of personal health not to poke or kick such feces. It will usually be dry. It will then liberate clouds of tape worm eggs and this cloud of eggs will settle on your clothing, your exposed skin, in your sinuses and wind pipe, on your lips and if you inhale through the mouth in your oral cavity. If you lick your lips, the eggs will get into your oral cavity. When sinuses and windpipe clear themselves of inhaled particles with your sputum the eggs will get into your mouth and be swallowed with sputum. If you touch the feces or even poke it chances are the cloud of tiny eggs will also settle on your hands, and may contaminate the food you handle or eat.
People with dogs are at risk because their dogs may feed unbeknown to them on carcasses or gut piles of big game infected with that disease, infecting themselves with dog tape worm. These dogs will defecate in kennels and yards, spreading these tiny eggs. They will also lick their anus and fur spreading the eggs into their fur. The eggs will cling to boots and be carried indoor, where they float about till they settle down as dust. Now everybody is at risk of infection, especially toddlers crawling around on the floor. Putty cats can also be involved.
Dr. Geist consulted with a game biologist colleague in Finland who is studying hydatid disease as there have been outbreaks there due to the increased population of wolves. Kaarlo Nygrén, Game and Fisheries Research Institute, expresses that Dr. Geist is accurate in his observations and says he is not exaggerating in his concerns about the disease. Nygren shares his homeland’s concern about the disease.
I am afraid it will not only affect our staple food and essential part of our heritage, moose, but also us directly. Hunters, dog owners, forest workers, berry and mushroom pickers will indeed be in danger. I agree in all you told in your paper; none of it is exaggeration.
Nygren recalls the last outbreak of the disease occurred in the 60s and 70s in Northern Lapland. The wolf population had grown and brought with it the worms. The reindeer were being destroyed from the disease. All means were used to drastically reduce the population of wolves; from aerial gunning with machine guns to public service announcement teaching people the best ways to kill wolves and deal with the disease.
The latest outbreak is now affecting Finland’s moose.
The moose was almost hairless (for a reason we were unable to confirm) but it had hydatid cysts in many organs, particularly lungs. I sampled the contents by injection needle and in a droplet placed on an objective glass, thousands of things like miniature human skulls with sharp teeth (my first impression!)were seen. This was the first case of E.granulosus for me. I have seen thousands of Taenia cysts in our moose after opening thousands of carcasses but this was something else.
Evidently the worms have been spread by wolves into Sweden.
Keeping wolf populations in check is only part of the equation. The disease has to be eradicated and Dr. Geist suggests the possibility of burning big game winter ranges to kill the eggs and/or beginning a program of establishing medicated bait piles to target certain packs known to be infected.
This isn’t fear mongering or trying to use scare tactics to support anyone’s agenda. This is knowledge everyone who goes into the outdoors or has pets, needs to know. It is extremely important to be aware of this if you know you are living in or being exposed to infected areas. If you don’t know, contact your state’s fish and game department. If they are not testing wolves and/or coyotes in your area, insist that they begin doing so and spread the word to your friends.
Again, this isn’t about killing wolves and coyotes, it’s about keeping you, your children, your pets, your livestock and wildlife healthy. Who can argue with that?
Tom Remington
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I received this from a cousin in Idaho who has a subscription to the online version of the Lewiston Tribune.
Here is the article:
Tapeworms found in transplanted wolves
Wildlife officials say threat to humans is minimal
By Eric Barker of the Lewiston Tribune Online Edition
A tiny tapeworm likely sneaked across the Canadian border in the bellies of wolves when the animals were reintroduced to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming in the 1990s.
The worm, Echinococcus granulosa, which had not previously been found in Idaho or the other states, is now present in a large portion of the Northern Rockies’ wolf population and wildlife officials say it is not likely to go away. It also has been found in elk, deer and mountain goats and it can be transferred to humans.
But wildlife officials do not consider it a significant risk to humans.
It is (not) a human health risk, said Mark Drew, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game veterinarian at Caldwell. The risk for most people in Idaho, including wolf hunters, is going to be relatively small, particularly if they take appropriate precautions.
Bill Foreyt, a veterinary parasitologist at Washington State Unisity, said the risk posed to livestock is also low. He authored an article on the worm’s discovery in Montana and Idaho that appeared in the October issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management.
The news media have overblown this – that it is going to affect people and animals and it really is not. If this wildlife strain ever does affect people, they usually don’t produce any serious problems.
Some hunters and critics of wolf reintroduction see it differently. George Doval of Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, recently wrote an article on the worm in his niche publication, "The Outdoorsman." He quotes Canadian wildlife biologist Val Geist as saying “These cysts can kill infected persons unless they are diagnosed and removed surgically. It consequently behooves us (a) to ensure that this disease does not become widespread, and (b) that hunters and other outdoorsmen know that wolf scats and coyote scats should never be touched or kicked.
Drew said people diagnosed with the worms can be treated with medication.
Elk and other wild ungulates are central to the worm’s lifecycle. When wolves are infected with adult worms, the worms produce eggs that are excreted in wolf feces. Deer and elk that graze near the feces can ingest the eggs. Drew said the eggs hatch and the larvae migrate to the abdomen or lungs of deer and elk, where they form fluid-filled sacks, known as hydatid cysts, that can grow as large as baseballs and contain hundreds to thousands of immature tapeworms.
When a wolf kills and eats an infected elk or deer, the sack goes into the wolves and the cycle starts all over again, he said.
The only way people can become infected is by ingesting the eggs found in the feces of wolves or other canines. The cysts found in deer and elk occur in parts such as lungs or abdominal cavities that hunters discard. Even if they did eat them, Drew said the chemical makeup in the human digestive system won’t support the larvae.
Our stomachs have the wrong pH, we have to be exposed to eggs, he said.
Drew said for most people, the risk of ingesting the eggs is low, especially if they take simple precautions such as washing their hands and wearing latex gloves when handling harvested wolves or touching their feces.
"If you harvest a wolf, it’s probably reasonable to wear gloves when (dressing out) the animal," he said. "All the things you learned in kindergarten – wash your hands and general hygiene precautions – would probably make the risk of getting infected with echinococcus from wolves or wolf feces pretty low, not zero, but pretty low."
He said wolf biologists who frequently handle wolves and collect their scat have a much higher risk.
For our wolf biologists and tribal wolf biologists dealing with trapped wolves, the risk is potentially high, he said. Again, simple hygiene things are going to make the difference.
Drew also said hunters should not feed their dogs discarded organs and tissue of deer or elk they kill. If domestic dogs ingest the cysts and the worms become established in them, their human owners could be more readily exposed to the eggs.
We don’t want people feeding carcass remnants to dogs,he said.
Most cases of humans being infected with the worms have been documented in native populations in Alaska and Canada where people often live in close proximity to sled dogs and feed their dogs animal scraps. Foreyt said there have been no documented human cases in Minnesota, which has had a large wolf population for three decades.
That is good evidence that it doesn’t infect people very easily, he said. That will help sooth people’s fears even though the anti-wolf people pick it and try to sway it the other way.
Drew said the worms don’t appear to have a negative effect on deer, elk or other ungulates.
In deer and elk it’s just there. Basically there are no clinical problems, at least that we are aware of, he said. The presence of golf ball- to baseball-size fluid bags in your chest probably causes something, but we can’t ask deer and elk what it is and they seem to function in the environment and in their daily lives adequately, so we can’t attribute a negative aspect to deer or elk.
There is also no visible effect on wolves infected with the worms.
It is a normal parasite for wolves and ungulates in Alaska, Canada, the Northwest and Yukon territories. It’s part of the system, so finding it here with wolves and ungulates you would expect it to operate the same way it does in other species in Canada and Alaska. Does it cause any problems? Not any clinical problems that are well documented.
Wildlife officials began to test wolves killed in the Idaho and Montana for preying on livestock. They found 63 percent of the wolves were infected with the worms.
Foreyt said it is likely wolves transplanted in central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s were infected with the worms. Those wolves were given medication to kill any potential parasites, but the drugs may not have been 100 percent effective. Drew also said it’s reasonable to assume transplanted wolves brought the worms, but wildlife officials will never know for sure.
Could they have brought in echinococcus? They possibly could have. Could it have come from wolves migrating from Canada itself? Possibly. Could it have been here and took wolves reaching high enough numbers that it is now detectable? Yeah, it’s possible. We won’t know with finality how it got here.
And herein lies part of the problems that some of us find a bit disturbing. This article is wrong or misleading in a couple of ways. Barker says the disease can be treated with pills in humans. Perhaps so, however once the cysts are prevalent only surgery, which can be tricky, will do the job. It has been pointed out from those who have treated the disease in humans that it is hard to detect until cysts form and then it depends on where the cysts are located.
He also refers to the lack of hydatid disease in Minnesota as proof. Two questions. Have the worms been found in Minnesota wolves and referring back to what I just said, if it is so difficult to diagnose in humans, we may not know.
It is also unfortunate that Drew, Forseyt, Barker and others can’t leave the U.S. and Canada long enough to talk with colleagues in other parts of the world, i.e. Finland, Sweden, Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe where they’ve dealt with this since forever and find out that it presents bigger problems than what officials are telling us here. Are they afraid of the truth?
With all this said, why is it so damned important to repeat, repeat, repeat that the risk is minimal. It’s like the same crap we hear about being attacked by a bear, or wolf, or coyote? Sure the chances are not great but it does happen. So go tell the first human who contracts hydatid disease that we didn’t think it necessary to be honest with the population and tell them there are risks.
Lee, you are perfectly capable of reading the medical journals, yourself, and you know they are online…..I’m sure you could show me where they are, but I have already read them, myself…..perhaps you have, as well….Why, then have you referred “us” to this incompetent article written by another incompetent journalist, which tries to make the problem insignificant?
We both know how this parasite could and will infect wolves and ungulates, and cause serious problems for anyone who could get infected, yet you and he both want to belittle the question of transmission, just for the sake of preventing your “precious” wolves from suffering the “indignity” of being recognized carriers of a deadly strain of parasite…Could it be, simply because you could be sure that it would not infect you, knowing that you would not be in the same area where there are wolves? Or do you just not want the wolf to be a recognized carrier….By the way, have you actually read the journals?
By the way, Lee….you’re a little late and a dollar short! Greg already showed us this article which was in the Billings gazette…where were you earlier?
http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/article_dc285eb4-fb34-11de-9b39-001cc4c03286.html
I see ” Don’t Appear ” ” do not consider ” ” relatively small ” ” Val Geist said ”
And then ” Drew” said. ” the risk of ingesting the eggs is low,”
And then the contradiction >
” The worm, Echinococcus granulosa, which had not previously been found in Idaho or the other states, is now present in a large portion of the Northern Rockies’ wolf population and wildlife officials say it is not likely to go away. ”
” Foreyt said it is likely wolves transplanted in central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s were infected with the worms. Those wolves were given medication to kill any potential parasites, but the drugs may not have been 100 percent effective. Drew also said it’s reasonable to assume transplanted wolves brought the worms, but wildlife officials will never know for sure.”
One of the political contradictions that doesn’t look like a contradiction, ha ha.. Just some good bullshit going on..
Now that is some darned good science if i ever saw it before… Funny, we know about every other filthy little bug or worm which has been around in Idaho, but now this is just showing up right now and somehow we missed it the last eighty years… And Canada has 25 cases of it in humans annually but not one in Idaho that we know of since 1937… A heck of a lotta deer and elk have gone down the human pie hole in that time.. That worm was not here is why no one caught it..
Many hunters eat the Liver, the heart, and I have to, also having been in the guts of these elk and deer over 50 times I never noticed any of those cists, and i would have, as well I eat my meat blood rare. and I never caught this either, or any thing else.
Now I cook all meat well done.
This story reminds me of one of my hero’s I watched over the years, Sherman Skolnick, now Sherman was a city man, and he was a pit bull for the truth and the law.. He often exposed judges lawyers, and politicians for their illegal activities and back door deals.. He was responsible for many of them being charged, convicted, and sent to prison.. Sherman was belittled by the Media, and government paid back peddlers just like George Dovel and Val Geist…
Sherman was hated by everyone who hated the truth, and so is Dovel and Geist… Unless you believe in the truth over the agenda… Then you appreciate them..
Lee is a liar.
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Lee, here’s a few source for you:
“Prevention and control are by thorough cooking (to temperature > 57° C [> 135° F]) of pork, beef, lamb, game meat, and fish; regular worming of dogs and cats; preventing recycling through hosts, such as dogs eating dead game or livestock; reduction and avoidance of intermediate hosts such as rodents, fleas, and grain beetles; meat inspection; and sanitary treatment of human waste. Prolonged freezing of meat is effective, pickling is variably effective, and smoking and drying are ineffective.”
http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec14/ch184/ch184a.html
“Frequency
United States
Despite the rise in occurrence, echinococcosis remains a very rare disease (<1 case per 1 million inhabitants) in the continental United States. Northern Alaska has endemic areas of E granulosus, but the frequency of infection remains low (<1 case per 100,000 inhabitants).
International
Echinococcosis is also unusual in northern Europe. The endemic areas are the Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, the southern part of South America, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and southern parts of Africa; the latter 5 are intensive endemic areas. The incidence of CE in endemic areas ranges from 1-220 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while the incidence of AE ranges from 0.03-1.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, making it a much more rare form of echinococcosis. Infestation with E vogeli is the most rare form of echinococcosis and is reported mainly in the southern parts of South America."
(CE=cystic echinococcosis)
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/178648-overview
Mortality/Morbidity
* Morbidity is usually secondary to free rupture of the echinococcal cyst (with or without anaphylaxis), infection of the cyst, or dysfunction of affected organs. Examples of dysfunction of affected organs are biliary obstruction, cirrhosis, bronchial obstruction, renal outflow obstruction, increased intracranial pressure secondary to mass, and hydrocephalus secondary to cerebrospinal fluid outflow obstruction.
* In CE, mortality is secondary to anaphylaxis, systemic complications of the cysts (eg, sepsis, cirrhosis, respiratory failure, or operative complications.
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/178648-overview
Now, the facts are, in areas where there is abundant interaction with wolves, foxes, dogs and humans, there is likehood of endemic prevalence….and even though Hydatid disease (which is caused by this parasite), is not fatal in itself, it contributes to fatal complications, such as sepsis, respiratory failure, etc…..and is definitely a threat to humans in the regions where it is found…..and now, that is Idaho and the surrounding areas where wolves have spread it.
jes
I apologize for having sent the article regarding Echinococcus granulosa, which I had not read before, as a comment to Tom’s more recent post about this disease. I had read, but did not add to the comments in the earlier article regarding this parasite by Duvel as I felt more learned individuals were doing that; thus I missed Greg’s already having sent the same article from a Montana paper. I shall try to be more attentive in the future. I thought I was sending an article that might be of interest.
Regarding this issue, it seemed to me that since wolves ranged from Alaska into Mexico prior to their extermination in the lower 48 by the 1930s and that other canids carry the parasite the assertion that Echinococcus granulosis was not found in the states other than Alaska prior to the “reintroduction” of wolves might not be probable. So I went to the net. Here are just a of the few that I found:
central utah 1980
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/116/3/463
California
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3277559
http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/content/abstract/10/3/225
and world distrubution
http://www.cdfound.to.it/html/echi1.htm
Harley,
I hear pacific tree frogs in my ponds – a start for the new seasonal cycle of reproduction for amphibians.
It becomes clear that the more a person is exposed to the outdoors in infected areas, the risk of contracting hydatid disease increases. It’s easy to sit in an office building in downtown Manhattan and say there is no risk of humans getting infected.
History accounts show that the more directly people are exposed to animals that carry the E. granulosus, the greater the risk. It only makes sense. Thanks for the links, Lee.
[...] on the disease, the risks and what you can do to reduce chances of infection, follow these links, here, here, here. I also plan to cover this issue more at a later date. Stay [...]
I shall in the future continue to eat rare meat. I have had salmon, caribou, and moose from Alaska since 1982, and elk, deer, and bear in Idaho for over 60 years. I still dirink out of clear streams in the wilderness areas while on rivertrips. Others I travel with even filter the water with which they cook spaghetti or pancakes – the protect everyone from everything syndrome.
In my opinion, the only good steak of any kind is a rare one.
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