A lot of you’re going to the beach this holiday weekend. There’s a hidden danger you
need to be aware of a rare
flesh eating bacteria is on the
rise. Just last month 2 people
contract ID necrotizing
fasciitis right here in
Florida, 77 year-old Kara Lynn
Fleming died Saturday 2 weeks
after she cut her leg on a
beach near Petersburg early
last month, 12 year-old
Kiley Park a contract that it
when she scratched her foot in
Destin. She had several
surgeries and is undergoing
physical therapy so she can
walk again. Jacksonville
University biology professor
doctor Anthony will let joins
us now. Now the CDC says there
are 700 to 1100 cases recorded
every year we’re going talk
about the warning signs things
you need to know, but first I
think it’s important to point
out. It’s not common but we
need to be aware of it
that’s right. It’s actually
quite rare. The bacteria are
common in coastal waterways in
terms of people actually
becoming infected
and then for to rise to the
point of an actual disease
states which is what you were
just talking about that is very
rare. OK so we’ve got to be
prudent here. If you’ve got it
caught an open wound or
something like that should you
not go in the water. Well.
If you’re healthy. Chances are
you’ll be
totally fine. It’s so really
our immune systems are very
robust. So it’s the people with
weakened immune systems or with
liver disease that raises the
levels of iron in your blood
which those bacteria
just love 5th kidney disease
and if your type 2 diabetes so
few of those preexisting
medical conditions you’ve got
some type of open cut wound a
fresh had to
I would recommend not going
into coastal waters other than
that most people me I’ll get in
that all the time, no words you
mentioned coastal waters that
mean I don’t have to worry
about the beach be more
concerned about the Saint
Johns River ah well it’s it’s
really these will now grow in
full strength ocean water
so wherever you got rivers
streams going into the ocean
it’s mixing that fresh water to
the estuaries lagoons bays
things like that that’s where
you can find the highest
numbers, OK and it’s not just
cuts and things like that we’ve
got to worry about and sun
bathing or swimming,
but also because of climate
change we’re finding that it’s
a problem in some marine life as well you tell me or tell me that you know if we consume
oysters, it could become a
problem for us
that’s right and so raw oysters
particularly the real villain
if a case is there is the
bacteria we’re now starting to
talk about and
on the leading cause of seafood
related deaths in the United
States 95% of cases are from
eating a row weezer’s or
shellfish to have this very
real vulnificus and so they do
go to very high levels but if
you if you cook those oysters.
No undercooked or raw.
And you can get a big load of
this bacteria and you can die
from a primary step to see me
uh which is where they get into
your bloodstream
and they they release a lot of
toxins and essentially your
your immune system. Ramps up
and you can go into septic
shock and died. I know that you
and your students study this
bacteria in your lab at jey uso
I’m sure you got a lot of
people come up to you and say
hey Doc a and
I know you do a lot of studies
about this one of the questions
they ask you.
One of the questions that my
students often get is aren’t
you afraid to work with it and
they say now because you know a
modern biosafety level to add
their everything safe,
everybody’s properly trained.
Yeah, my my students are out
there they’re they’re analyzing
these bacteria when my students recently isolated 30 different variables if this were local
waters and through the battery
of tests that she’s right it
looks like none of them are
pathogenic and that’s the thing
all the approval of the cuts
are not the same summer
pathogenic very very small
concentration of them and
others are just out there
living their life doing their
thing would never hurt us
all right so when do you know
you have a problem signs and
symptoms you’ve got to go to
the doctor. So there’s 2 ways
to so you can guess trying to
write us from eating raw
oysters and so if you’ve got a
dominant cramps up pains
vomiting nausea that type of
thing you’ve eaten some type of
of of shellfish lately
definitely go to the doctor and
tell them what you’re eating
if you bad at the beach or
you’ve been crabbing you you’ve
been checking oysters you’ve
got to cut or you go in the
water with the cut.
And it’s unusually painful, you
know we all have scratches were
like I it seems like a scratch,
but it’s like she is
I know this seems a little bit
more painful than normal
particularly the pain is
extending further from the the
redness area and that is a sign that you definitely do not want to ignore you should definitely
get it but but again you know
people even healthy people with
with cuts going into the waters
is typically not a problem, I
know one of the cases that was
in the news, the Lady said it
started off and became a little
discolored and then the part of
her leg became really black is
that a good sign too.
Well, yeah that’s that’s what a
bad sign, but it’s definitely
an indicative sign of what I
did me good a good way at
so these bacteria other called
flesh eating is a wide variety
back to the can do this but the
kind it’s more common you know,
which is still uncommon right
in Florida that this of all of
this, but they do is they
release these
molecules and like I like our
digestive enzymes that are air
intestines and so they degrade
molecules and they also
released these molecules that
cause ourselves actually
commit suicide and so then you
get this black and area that
gets filled with blood and what
happens is in that and
obviously if you’ve got a big
blister you know after
something like this definitely
go seek
medical attention and what
happens is a treatment of that
if you do get this truly
question is debridement of the
tissue so removing lost the
tissue. If you think she’s
really taken hold
what can happen is you you may
need medication that’s not
uncommon when you’ve got flesh
eating disease ice would be
prudent to know clean and a