Word: fungused
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...dust-borne fungus causes misery in California...
...years in Hawaii. A few months later, Crown, 35, was suffering from severe headaches, a prolonged fever of 102 degreesF, swollen feet and painful bumps on her hands and legs. The diagnosis: "valley fever," or coccidioidomycosis, a dust-borne disease caused by the microscopic spores of a fungus, Coccidioides immitis...
Valley fever does not spread from person to person but is contracted by inhaling airborne spores from the fungus, which is endemic to dry areas of the American West and Southwest as well as parts of northern Mexico and Central and South America. Face masks offer only limited protection against the infinitesimal spores, and efforts to design a vaccine have yet to succeed. The fungus multiplies dramatically whenever the soil becomes damp after a protracted dry spell. Swept into the air by winds, construction equipment, even the passing feet of farm workers, the spores can travel up to hundreds...
Those lucky enough to ingest the spores without becoming seriously ill seem to acquire immunity. More serious cases are often mistaken for pneumonia, since the fungus flourishes in the moist, warm environment of the lungs. In about 1% of victims, the disease spreads beyond the lungs through the bloodstream -- typically to the skin, bones and the membranes surrounding the brain, causing meningitis. "There was a time when I saw three new cases of cocci meningitis a year," says Dr. Royce Johnson, chief of infectious diseases at Bakersfield's Kern Medical Center. "Not long ago, I saw three new cases...
...body. It became the centerpiece of a press conference in the local morgue. While the Iceman and his tattered belongings lay on a dissecting table under blazing klieg lights, reporters and other hangers-on joked, smoked and even touched the body. Not until late afternoon did someone notice a fungus spreading on the Iceman's skin...