Hookworm, a disease of extreme poverty, is thriving in the US south. Why?

[soleiltropiques]

Hookworm, a disease of extreme poverty, is thriving in the US south. Why?

Exclusive: in America, the world’s richest country, hookworm, a parasitic disease found in areas of extreme poverty, is rampant, the first study of its kind in modern times showsChildren playing feet away from open pools of raw sewage; drinking water pumped beside cracked

Comments

[lovedforaday]

my mom said she had hookworm back in like 1956 when the family still had an outhouse.

[suzycat]

How can the. County justify having no infrastructure???

[amw]

I'm not sure if I recommended it on here before, but Paul Theroux's Deep South is a great book on this topic. It's not a reference book, it's a travelogue, but as usual for him it doesn't try paint some kind of flowery picture of the place. His takeaway was also that poverty in the south is equivalent to and in some ways worse than in the third world. I wouldn't call it much of a secret - it's always been like this in America - but perhaps it's a truth many choose to ignore. I'm glad it's getting some press at least.

[meadowphoenix]

I feel like the title answers the question, tbh. Keeping slavery until it had to be abolished federally, and therefore immediately, and then driving their newly freed workers away with lynchings was always going to fuck up the economy of the South.

[tilmon]

Assuming that the county supervisors would get on board with it, it seems like incinerating toilets would be a great idea.