Eating beach sand can be messy - at both ends
When it gets hot in Kansas, we go to Florida.
We're leaving in a week, with a little work along the way before we settle into our rental on sexy Venice Beach, Florida. It’s the antithesis of places like South Beach, Miami, where celebrities flock and appearances rule. Venice – founded as a retirement community by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in the 1920s – is about as quiet as it gets.
With good beaches.
This year we’ll have 7-month-old Sorenne, and she’s starting to crawl (see below). If she can do this on hardwood, sand will be a breeze.
So we have to aware of sand in the mouth.
Besides the yuck factor, researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that digging in sand on beaches near water with high levels of fecal bacteria could be a risk factor for developing the drips.
For the study, reported in The American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers got contact information for more than 25,000 people visiting seven beaches within seven miles of sewage treatment plants.
About 10 days later, the researchers called and asked how they had spent their day at the beach and whether they had experienced problems like vomiting or diarrhea since then.
Those who dug in the sand, the study found, were significantly more likely to report having been sick — with those who had allowed themselves to be buried in the sand most affected. Children seemed to be at extra risk.
The best advice: wash your damn hands, especially before eating.
This isn’t the first time sand has been implicated in human illness.
In May, 2008, children's playgrounds on Sydney's northern beaches were closed after a rare form of salmonella normally linked to tropical fish made dozens of toddlers seriously ill.
Beach playgrounds closed after 23 Sydney toddlers stricken with Salmonella
Authorities are now trying to figure out how sand used in at least two popular kids' playgrounds has become contaminated.The rare bacteria strain - salmonella paratyphi bio var java - has been linked to 23 cases of children struck down with severe vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pain.
Tests have revealed the sand at both the Winnererremy Bay and South Avalon playgrounds are contaminated.
But health officials cannot rule out other playgrounds along the peninsula being affected. They are waiting for test results on other play areas.
Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service's public health physician Michael Staff said,
"In the past there have been cases of humans becoming sick from it when they have contact with their tropical fish tanks. But to our knowledge this is the first time in Australia a playground has been shut because salmonella is in the sand."
The source of the contamination is not known, but the pathogen is generally carried by certain species of birds and aquarium fish.
(from http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23710202-5005941,00.html)
