The CDC is warning of the spread of Apophysomyces, a fungus found in soil and normally harmless to humans, but which, if it penetrates the skin through punctures and lesions will literally eat the flesh and bones, causing massive necrotizing damage. Predictably, global warming alarmists have leapt on to the study, as puncture wounds caused by flying debris (as you might expect in a tornado, for example) and warm weather are two of the contingent conditions for the fungus to affect humans.
David Engelthaler, the lead author of the study that unravelled the genetic code of the fungus warned it was unlike anything ever seen before, leaving one patient needing a titanium ribcage after it had eaten him away:
The fungus that grows in soil and water usually doesn’t cause harm unless it penetrates the skin. Lesions form that destroy the soft tissue of the body, eating away at flesh and bone. According to the CDC, infection with the spore can cause “rapid and fatal” disease in humans and is often unreported because it’s difficult to identify.
When the fungus enters the body it seals of capillaries that supply blood to the skin, causing it to rot. “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before,” said Engelthaler. It’s unreal. It looks like there is no way this person can be alive.”
This terrifying fungus is not actually new at all, it’s always been around, but was only identified in 1979. Normally, India and other warm countries with poor medical care see sporadic cases of it affecting humans, but following the tornado which struck Joplin, Missouri, recently, it is being blamed for five deaths there as people whose skin was ruptured or punctured by flying debris succumbed to it.
Of course, whilst this is a case of an ancient and extremely rare problem being identified by modern science and medicine, rather than the emergence of an entirely new threat, it didn’t take long for the global warming alarmists to spot the possibility for linking it with global warming. Requires a warm climate? Check. Recent cases caused by skin punctures after natural weather disaster? Check. Very little real information on spread and incidence? Check.
Treehugger immediately launched a breathless piece on the issue, ludicrously entitled “How Climate Change Can Spawn Flesh-Eating Fungi”. Of course, climate change can’t “spawn” the fungi at all, and the study says nothing of the kind. But that doesn’t stop the alarmists at Treehugger who simply juxtaposed two entirely unrelated studies next to each other as though that constituted rational analysis:
All together 13 people were infected with Apophysomyces, which occurred when their injuries were contaminated with debris from the storm, including gravel, wood and soil. The five who died did so within two weeks.
“This is one of the most severe fungal infections that anyone’s ever seen,” said David Engelthaler, Director of Programs and Operations for TGen’s Pathogen Genomics Division.
Meanwhile, a report from the U.S. Global Change and Research Program, the federal research program overseen by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, found that more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could lead to an increase in extreme weather conditions that make tornadoes possible.
Treehugger: “How Climate Change Can Spawn Flesh-Eating Fungi”
Do you see what they did there? A study which unravelled the genetic code of a newly identified fungus was linked with global warming, thus justifying (if that word can be used here) the headline about climate change “spawning” flesh-eating fungi. In reality, there is no link of course, but by journalistic sleight of hand, the gap between the two issues is elided, and the unwary reader is led to believe that rather than bare-faced alarmism, this is the result of calm scientific analysis.
And in a way, the headline to Treehugger’s story is the only real point to them publishing the story. It allows them and others to forge a link, however tenuous, between the theory of global warming and the terror of having our flesh and bones eaten away by a mindless fungus or bacteria we can’t even see. Fear short circuits reason, and simply by juxtaposing the two unrelated issues next to each other it now becomes possible to suggest and insinuate a causal link between the two where absolutely none exists. In this way, a panic might be whipped up, a hysteria that demands “Action!” rather than analysis. And so alarmism trumps analysis once again.