TheAgitator.com
Stuff to Worry About
Friday, November 21st, 2003From Tyler Cowen:
Have you ever heard of Chagas disease? It is rare in the United States but common in Latin America, where 18 million people are infected and 50,000 die of it every year. Some little thingie crawls down your mouth and sucks your blood when you are sleeping (lovely), beware the thatched hut, and next thing you know, maybe about ten or thirty years later, your weakened heart or organs explode. There is no known vaccine, cure, or treatment.
Thanks to FDA turf protection, the disease has found its way into the U.S. blood supply. There are about 30 tests for it, but the FDA won’t allow any of them.
Then there’s this, from Jesse Walker:
In November 1999, 57-year-old Judi Roberts of Sarasota suffered a stroke that left the right side of her body paralyzed. She was also unable to speak. After months of physical therapy, she was no longer paralyzed and was able to speak with some difficulty. Her speech gradually improved during the next year until she was speaking with the same fluency as she had before the stroke. However, instead of the familiar New York accent she once had, she spoke with a British accent.
Apparently, it’s entirely real.
An even rarer, more sinister form of the condition: You recover from your stroke to find yourself speaking in an accent you basically made up yourself, one that has no discernible origin.
Doctors suspect that’s what happened to William F. Buckley.
Well thinking along the same lines you could be born with some inherent genetic defect.
Or perhaps the laws of physics cause your tire to blow out while you are traveling at a high rate of speed thus facilitating a horrible crash.
Or perhaps one day the stochastic nature of quantum mechanics causes the atoms in your brain to make you go home and gun down your entire family before swallowing a round yourself.
Might I suggest â??prayingâ? for good luck â?¦ ?
did Madonna have a stroke?
AFTERNOON ROUND UP
My brain hurts and I can’t write…but that doesn’t mean I can’t link! Lileks is always amazing, but reading his response to a letter from Salam Pax had me in awe (it’s the last item on the Bleat). Frank J….
The Changas thing cheeses me off. It’s something we could have prevented, but our government decided to be safe. As a result, we’re decidedly less safe.
The question is how does she say “schedule”? Either “Skeh-dule” like the Yanks, or “shed-ule” like a Brit. If it’s the former, even though the accent is “British”, then no big shakes, but if it’s the latter, than that would be truly scary, especially for someone who has never been there and professes no special knowledge of British ways and means. Oh, and if she wears a Man U kit, then it’s for real.
I recall that the French government did the same thing with regard to HIV, with disastrous results.