Foreclosed Homes Becoming Breeding Ground for Mosquitoes, West Nile Virus
In the Greater Los Angeles area, where backyard swimming pools are common, the county’s Vector Control District is getting an alarming number of calls about the abundance of mosquitoes breeding in swimming pools abandoned to foreclosure. They’ve also seen a spike in cases of West Nile virus this year, although this is earlier than usual for the virus’s typical summertime appearance.
This past May, the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District got 288 requests for mosquito control, topping last May’s 145 calls. Thus far, 18 counties in California have documented cases of West Nile virus, doubling last year’s nine cases documented by the same date.
Foreclosures of homes have skyrocketed over the last year in California. The rate of foreclosures in the San Fernando Valley alone is up more than 200% from this time last year. In Los Angeles County, there are an estimated 4,000 homes with swimming pools thought to be abandoned due to foreclosure.
And it isn’t just the foreclosed homes that are becoming hazardous to the health of the neighborhood as far as mosquitoes are concerned. Many Californians struggling with finances are finding themselves able to maintain the appearance of their front lawns while neglecting their back yards and their pools.
While officials from county and state health departments have no way of knowing what to expect for the coming summer months, they report some dramatic increases in incidence of West Nile virus this year.
Even though no reports have been filed yet about humans being infected with the virus, the cases of the disease in birds has gone from 25 to 100 in just one year. Over all, a small percentage of mosquitoes carry the virus, but those that do carry it get it from feeding on birds already infected with it. They then pass the virus on to people.
The American Red Cross screens blood donors for a history of infection from the West Nile virus even though it cannot be passed from one person to another. In 2006, only 14 donors tested positive for presence of the virus. In 2006, 29 donors tested positive.
Public health officials use aerial photography to locate abandoned pools and calls from concerned neighbors are becoming more common. To combat the mosquitoes, vector control agents prefer using the mosquitofish to feed on the mosquito larvae. Said to be worth their weight in gold for this reason, the agents say the fish attack the larvae with a Pacman-like intensity.
In spite of the growing need to treat these abandoned and neglected pools, vector control agents are caught between the need to protect public health at the same time they must preserve the privacy of the home owner, whether that be a private individual, a bank, or some other lending institution. To help avoid privacy violations, agents are working more and more often on Saturdays when the home’s occupants are most likely to be home.
Source: LA Daily News
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My biotech company has had encouraging results treating West Nile virus encephalitis since 2003: 81% treatment success rate in people (22 of 27), 75% in horses (6 of 8), and 50% in birds (6 of 12).
Our approach works best when people first have symptoms of a fever and headache. But we’ve been able to help people even a few years after the initial episode of WNV encephalitis.
Our first 8 WNV patients were published in a peer-reviewed medical journal in 2004 (1). We’re eager to see if our approach works again this year.
The drugs we use are already approved by the FDA for blood pressure. They seem to be anti-inflammatory, too. People with a normal immune system who get sick from the West Nile virus appear to overdo their immune response to the virus. Our approach is meant to gently calm down their exaggerated immune response, the so-called “cytokine storm.” It can be used in the very old, the very young, and everybody in between.
It can also be used for almost any virus except the herpes viruses, which is why our approach was included in the BioShield II Act of April 28, 2005, co-sponsored by Senators Lieberman, Hatch, and Brownback. The bill was never debated, but our approach was mentioned in Section 2151 (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s109-975). In 2004, I briefed the White House and the Dept of Homeland Security about it. The UN is aware of our approach in the context of bird flu, although they haven’t tested it, preferring to push Roche’s drug Tamiflu instead.
Although our approach looks quite useful, the CDC no longer even talks to us. State public health authorities, taking their cue from the CDC, tell reporters that they’ve never heard of us, or that we’re making up our data. This isn’t the least bit helpful. If they don’t believe our data, they should at least put our method to the test. As fellow professionals, they owe us that much. Pontification without experimentation is the opposite of the scientific method.
Public health authorities used to run clinical trials. Now they merely test blood samples. In effect, the CDC has become like the Hanes lady. Nobody dies of WNV unless the CDC says they did. The CDC’s total lack of interest in testing a promising treatment boggles the mind.
The CDC reminds me a lot of FEMA.
On the other hand, this vacuum in public health represents an enormous business opportunity, akin to IBM’s sticking to hardware and leaving software to people like Bill Gates.
The drugs we use cost about $1 a tablet. We use one or two pills a day. They’re carried in every drugstore on earth. We don’t sell the tablets, we just sell the license to use them. But we have no great illusions that we’ll be able to collect license fees for such short-term use. Frankly, this is a loss-leader for us, equivalent to AOL’s handing out free Internet hours.
But if our treatment works, it will be a sweet deal for public health, which is GenoMed’s main concern.
Anybody who wants to download our WNV trial protocol can do so for free at any time by clicking on the “West Nile trial” link on our company’s homepage at http://www.genomed.com.
Incidentally, contrary to popular belief, the people who get sick from West Nile have unusually strong immune systems, not “weakened” ones. Only if you’re taking chemotherapy or Prednisone is your immune system weak. Otherwise, you should hope for no cytokine storm with WNV, I believe.
Reference
1: Moskowitz DW, Johnson FE. The central role of angiotensin I-converting enzyme in vertebrate pathophysiology. Curr Top Med Chem. 2004;4(13):1433-54. PMID: 15379656 (For PDF file, click on paper #6 at: http://www.genomed.com/index.cfm?action=investor&drill=publications) — see Table 2 for WNV patients
Sincerely yours,
Dave Moskowitz MD FACP
CEO, GenoMed, Inc.
http://www.genomed.com
“The public health company™”
Ticker symbol: GMED (on the Pink Sheets)