Deadly cholera outbreak in north Iraq

September 1, 2007 SULAYMANIYA, IRAQ -- A cholera outbreak in northern Iraq, where thousands of people have sought refuge from sectarian violence, is overwhelming hospitals and has killed as many as 10 people, health officials said Friday.

The outbreak in Sulaymaniya and Kirkuk is seen as the latest example of the displacement and deterioration of living conditions caused by the Iraqi conflict.

The water-borne disease has struck more than 80 people in the two cities, which are about 100 miles apart, said Claire Hajaj of the U.N. Children's Fund, or Unicef. She said cholera had been confirmed as the cause of five deaths and was suspected in five others.

Local officials said more than 2,000 people had been affected...

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And we read it and say, hmm, oh my, well, you know...

Because 99 out of 100 Americans are truly fortunate to know nothing about this disease:

This from Doctors Without Borders:

In 1817, a new and terrible disease moved out of Bengal and began to spread across the world. It caused profuse diarrhea and vomiting, and its sufferers died of profound dehydration, sometimes within a matter of hours. By the end of the nineteenth century it had killed many hundreds of thousands of people across Asia and then Russia, Europe, and the Americas. Like many diseases it was given a Greek name... cholera. The word means diarrhea...

How cholera kills

The bacteria Vibrio cholerae is excreted by an infected person in the stools and vomit. It can then be spread directly to other people if they touch the patient and then fail to wash their hands before eating. The germ can also contaminate food or water supplies. In the latter case this will cause an explosive outbreak because many people will ingest the vibrion in a short period of time.

Once inside the intestine, the organism multiplies and produces a toxin. This toxin causes the cells lining the intestine to secrete massive volumes of fluid and leads to diarrhea and vomiting. A patient under treatment can lose more than 50 liters of fluid during a bout of cholera.

A person who is not treated will die of dehydration well before this. In fact, death usually occurs when 10 to 15 per cent of the total body weight is lost. In severe cases this may take only a couple of hours.

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And this from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) --

What is cholera?

Cholera is an acute, diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The infection is often mild or without symptoms, but sometimes it can be severe. Approximately one in 20 infected persons has severe disease characterized by profuse watery diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps. In these persons, rapid loss of body fluids leads to dehydration and shock. Without treatment, death can occur within hours...

How does a person get cholera?

A person may get cholera by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the cholera bacterium. In an epidemic, the source of the contamination is usually the feces of an infected person. The disease can spread rapidly in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water.
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So when you have a bunch of people shitting explosive diarrhea and vomiting, where it goes to is a big question -- answer, often into the untreated water supply. The more people who drink the water the more people are blowing it out their asses and contaminating more water.

And when they're shitting themselves to death in a few hours, well, the dead bodies provide that option of adding other nifty diseases to the mix.

So my question is this: haven't we killed enough people in Iraq?

Do we have to kill thousands more just so Monkey Boy doesn't have to tell his mommy he fucked everything up?

Unless, of course, the original plan was to fuck things up to the point where American military bases and troops would have to stay there FOREVER.

Remember, Poppy Bush 41 faked Saddam Hussein into Kuwait so we could convince the Saudis to let us set up a military base in Arabia. And then when Osama ben Ladn came home for a visit and discovered how the sacred soil had been defiled, he swore to get even ... the first World Trade Center Bombing didn't work, but the second one sure did.

Yes, I know I'm pointing at George W. Bush as the cause of 9-11.
And his friends in the Carlyle Group.

The scum rises to the top.

("What's your act?"
"Well, first we tell enough lies to scare the crap out of everyone, then we go in murdering people and blowing up their homes, spreading disease and death until the entire world screams in pain. And we keep doing it until we've made so much money, we can't even count it all."
"What do you call yourselves?"
"We call ourselves 'The Aristocrats.' ")

And by the way -- while we may lose this ill-advised criminal venture, the bullshit "We can't surrender!" is such crap as to be unbelievable.
There's no one to surrender to.
The only surrender that's taken place is that we've surrended to a bunch of reptilians and insects posing as humans and calling themselves Americans, Christians, and, when they can't avoid that sleazy name -- The Bush Administration.

They call it patriotism, this perversion of reality they love so much -- but in fact:

"Patriotism is the religion of hell."
James Branch Cabell



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