Valley Fever

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May 13, 2013 | 8:40 AM | By

Valley Fever Cases Soar in West, Yet ‘Off The Radar’ of East Coast Policymakers

By Rebecca Plevin, NPR

(Daniel Casarez/Vida en el Valle/Reporting on Health Collaborative)

(Daniel Casarez/Vida en el Valle/Reporting on Health Collaborative)

When she was just 6, Emily Gorospe became very tired and sick. The spunky girl, now 8, developed a fever that wouldn’t go away, and red blotches appeared across her body.

“She’s got so much energy usually,” says Emily’s mother, Valerie Gorospe. “Just walking from one part of the house … she was drained.” The little girl was also very pale. “She just didn’t look like herself,” Valerie recalls.

Emily, who lives in the Central Valley town of Delano, was eventually diagnosed with valley fever, also known as coccidioidomycosis. She’s one of an estimated 150,000 people nationwide who get the fungal disease every year. There is no cure and no vaccine.

Valley fever has afflicted about four times more people than West Nile virus, with thousands more going undiagnosed.

Valley fever is well known in the Central Valley and other areas of California and Arizona. Tiny fungal spores live in the soil throughout much of this arid region. When the spores are disturbed, they can be inhaled into the lungs.

James McCarty, the medical director of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital Central California, says most people feel nothing, or experience symptoms similar to the flu. Common symptoms include fever, night sweats, weight loss, chest pain, cough and sometimes skin rashes.

Valley fever can be a very serious disease for some people, McCarty says. It can spread from the lungs to other parts of the body, like the central nervous system, bones or skin. It can be life-altering or even fatal. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Policy, Science, Valley Fever
May 1, 2013 | 3:49 PM | By

What Prisons and the Solar Industry Have in Common in California

It's all that land around the prison (Avenal State Prison seen here) that carries a health hazard, the same one that affects solar manufacturers. (Buzzbo/Flickr)

It’s all that land around the prison (Avenal State Prison seen here) that carries a health hazard, the same one that affects solar manufacturers. (Buzzbo/Flickr)

Normally, you wouldn’t put “prisons” and “solar” together when thinking about a significant health problem hitting California. But the two prisons in question are in the dry, dusty Central Valley. The solar manufacturing is on huge construction sites in the California desert. Anyone who lives in those areas of California might quickly add these two clues together and come up with an answer:

Valley Fever.

Valley Fever can cause something like a nasty flu, but some people, especially those with compromised immune systems, can die. It is not contagious. Instead the illness spreads when people inhale fungal spores carried in the dirt by the wind.

California’s prison system has been fighting a losing battle with Valley Fever since 2006. In particular, inmates in two prisons along the I-5 corridor are right in harms way. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Place Matters, Science, Valley Fever
March 29, 2013 | 4:33 PM | By

Valley Fever Cases Skyrocketing, Says CDC

BY RACHEL COOK, Reporting on Health Collaborative

Farming in California's Central Valley is a source of smog, a major contributor to the region's high asthma rates. (Getty Images)

Valley Fever is a disease caused by a fungus found in the soil in certain parts of the southwestern U.S., including California. (Getty Images)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms in a new research article this week what doctors, epidemiologists and people who suffer from valley fever have experienced first-hand — cases of the fungal disease rose at stunning rates over the last decade, especially in California and Arizona.

The CDC’s analysis addresses the findings reported in Just One Breath, a series of news stories on valley fever by the Reporting on Health Collaborative published in The [Bakersfield] Californian and other outlets. The series chronicled the rise in valley fever cases and deaths and the lack of attention by state and federal policymakers.

“I do think that the reporting series helped to put (valley fever) at the forefront, especially in California,” said Dr. Benjamin Park, medical officer in the CDC’s Mycotic Diseases Branch and the study’s senior author.

The total number of valley fever cases rose by more than 850 percent between 1998 and 2011 in the area where valley fever is most common.
People catch coccidioidomycosis, also known as valley fever, after inhaling fungal spores that are common in the dry parts of the Southwest as well as Mexico and Latin America. Experts say the lack of funding and serious attention to valley fever has stalled efforts to combat the disease.

But valley fever seems to be gaining policy attention. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden recently met to talk about valley fever’s impact in the Southwest. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: KQED blogs, Place Matters, Valley Fever
September 10, 2012 | 3:33 PM | By

Valley Fever Cases Soar, Harm Remains Hidden

Editor’s Note: This story is part of Just One Breath an initiative on valley fever from reporters with The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. 

By Kellie Schmitt, Rebecca Plevin and Tracy Wood

Dust storm. (Craig Kohlruss: FresnoBee)

A man struggles through heavy winds and dust blowing in downtown Fresno. (Craig Kohlruss: FresnoBee)

Valley fever starts with the simple act of breathing.

The fungal spores, lifted from the dry dirt by the wind, pass through your nostrils or down your throat, so tiny they don’t even trigger a cough. They lodge in your lungs. If you’re fortunate – and most people are – they go no further.

But if you are one of the more than 150,000 people stricken with coccidioidomycosis every year nationwide, it’s because the spores have sent roots into the moist tissue of your lungs.

They start to feed, and, over time, they can rob you of your health. In serious cases, your muscles waste away. Your bones become brittle. Pustules appear on your arms, neck and face and then erupt.

“Valley fever is not occurring in D.C., it’s not occurring in Atlanta, and it’s not occurring in Bethesda, Maryland. It’s invisible to the most important policymakers when it comes to health funding.

Once the fungus takes root, it never leaves you. In about 100 cases every year nationally the fever kills. That’s more deaths than those caused by hantavirus, whooping cough, and salmonella poisoning combined, yet all of these conditions receive far more attention from public health officials and are more widely known.

As horrible as the disease can be, people in Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Stockton and other parts of California’s San Joaquín Valley have come to accept it as a way of life. Everyone knows somebody who has had valley fever, and most have survived. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Place Matters, Valley Fever