Chronic kidney disease has killed tens of thousands of young men and is becoming more deadly. But nobody knows exactly what it is, or what to do about it
It is stage five they fear the most. Stage five is the mysterious sickness in its deadliest form. "I'm entering stage five," Edilberto Mendez tells me as his wife looks on fretfully. I'm in their small home on the floodplains of Lempa River, in the dank sugar-lands of rural El Salvador, where they live in a community with about 150 other families. "How many others in the village have died of this?"
……But academics in the US who have been trying to solve the mystery believe these El Salvadorians to be mistaken. Professor Daniel Brooks….tells me: "It's natural to think that, on the one hand, workers have been exposed to pesticides and on the other they have this disease, therefore pesticides must have caused the disease. It's very human to make that connection. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are causing CKD. While I'm aware that the group in El Salvador has this hypothesis, and I'm always open to being convinced, our data just don't seem consistent with it."……
And then, a twist. A new professor with a new idea…..the problem might have its genesis in a strange mechanism that his team discovered in rats. When they were fed vast amounts of sugar, an enzyme in their kidneys reacted with the fructose in a way that was "like a little bomb.............And this process gets turned on when you get dehydrated. So suddenly we have a mechanism of how dehydration might cause [tubular] kidney damage."…… To Read More…..
……But academics in the US who have been trying to solve the mystery believe these El Salvadorians to be mistaken. Professor Daniel Brooks….tells me: "It's natural to think that, on the one hand, workers have been exposed to pesticides and on the other they have this disease, therefore pesticides must have caused the disease. It's very human to make that connection. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are causing CKD. While I'm aware that the group in El Salvador has this hypothesis, and I'm always open to being convinced, our data just don't seem consistent with it."……
And then, a twist. A new professor with a new idea…..the problem might have its genesis in a strange mechanism that his team discovered in rats. When they were fed vast amounts of sugar, an enzyme in their kidneys reacted with the fructose in a way that was "like a little bomb.............And this process gets turned on when you get dehydrated. So suddenly we have a mechanism of how dehydration might cause [tubular] kidney damage."…… To Read More…..
My Take - I spotted this on Jon Ray's site, GREENIE WATCH. Jon left this comment.
The death and illness described [above] is no laugh but the Green/Left diagnosis of the causes is. The Green/Left often talk about the planet but they are very unworldly. Am I the only one who knows that you can easily make alcohol out of sugarcane? That is where rum comes from, after all. So I will eat my hat if the poor workers above are not making hooch from it. And the sort of hooch they produce in poor countries has a long track record of damaging and killing people. Do I need to say any more? But I suppose it is politically incorrect to suggest that poor people might be responsible for their own misfortune. - Jon Ray.
I will say this. I am always disturbed when I read that pesticide applicators aren't instructed properly in the safe handling and application of pesticides. I really dislike reading that workers, who make little money, are expected to provide their own safety equipment, and no matter how this turns out, and I think it will be shown that pesticides aren't responsible, that should not be happening. RK
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