Giardia

[snoboy]

Some intersting views on the real risk of contracting Giardia from wilderness water sources can be found here.

 

In summary, not very likely.

 

Any one have info on other waterborne pathogens like Cryptosporydium (sp?)

[Dru]

I know ppl who have got giardia. It isnt pretty when they are puking out mouth and ass at same time.

 

The chances are pretty low but its more of a factor when say 100, 000 people drink untreated municipal water than when one person drinks out of an alpine creek.

 

Ditto crypto, which is what killed all the folks in North Battleford, Sask. Generally though crypto is only a health hazard if your immune system is depressed like if you just had surgery or have HIV or are an infant or elderly or whatever. It kills the weak and helpless, mainly.

[Fence_Sitter]

It kills the weak and helpless, mainly.

 

population control!

[snoboy]

Dru said:

I know ppl who have got giardia. It isnt pretty when they are puking out mouth and ass at same time.

 

Ugly image there Dru.

 

So did they have a lab diagnosis, and if so, was it confirmed that the source was untreated water?

 

From the article in question:

 

Many people claim that they “got it” on a particular trip into the wilderness. Yet upon questioning, they usually report that the presence of Giardia was not confirmed in the laboratory.

 

The diarrhea being blamed on Giardia from that climbing trip a week ago may instead be due to some spoiled food eaten last night or Campylobacter in undercooked chicken four days ago.

 

Dru said:The chances are pretty low but its more of a factor when say 100, 000 people drink untreated municipal water than when one person drinks out of an alpine creek.

 

Especially if that municipal water has a higher concentration of cysts than alpine creek water.

 

~1000 Typical swimming pool contamination

~100 Giardiasis is plausible [**]

~10 Minimum needed to contract giardiasis**

~1 Some wilderness water outside California

0.12 San Francisco water

0.108 Worst Sierra Nevada water

0.030 Los Angeles water

0.013 Mt. Whitney at Trail Camp

0.003 Mt. Whitney at Whitney Portal

 

[numbers are cysts/liter]

 

[Dru]

Yes it was lab confirmed. The case I witnessed was source: Sukunka River near Chetwynd BC. Onset time: about 6 hours. Debilitated time: 2 weeks. Weight lost: 20 lbs.

 

Health officer for Hope, BC has told me of confirmed cases from drinking out of a creek near Boston Bar, BC.

 

The swimming pool figure you quoted sounds far beyond bogus to me. The pool would have to be non-chlorinated and breeding giardia big time like if you went away for a few moinths and your pool filled up with rainwater and a neighbours dog crapped in it.

 

90% of the dogs tested in a random sample (of size: about 65 dogs), tested positive for giardia IIRC, in a test done in 1997 in Boulder. Co.

 

~40% of humans are "carriers": they can be infected by the giardia parasite, pass on cysts in their feces, but never develop symptoms. If you are a "carrier" i wonder why you would bother to buy a filter?

 

Your source website there seems pretty pro: drinking untreated water outdoors and anti: drinking municipal water. I prefer not to be swayed by ideology

 

There is no giardia in beer

[AlpineK]

I almost never filter water or treat it, and I never get giardia.

 

There's my scientific study.

[EWolfe]

We used to drink water straight out of the creek on the south end of Squish Butt ( ) without concern for Giardia, and I never got sick - it has been a couple of years since then. Is that water still safe?

[Dru]

Therre is no such thing as "safe" water. There is only varying degree of risk. You decide what is acceptable, or whether you will drink untreated water from a creek that dozens of dogs are taken for hikes next to every day.

[snoboy]

Cool, kind of info I was looking for dru.

 

Boston Bar is relatively low elevation, no? The article implies that the higher you are, the safer the water.

 

I thought the swimming pool figure was pretty gross. But it seems possible. Lots of possibly unclean swimming around. Course the chlorine should kill it.

 

I dunno if they are "anti: drinking municipal water" though, I think they are just making the point that it is not a big a deal as a lot of people think it is.

 

I never treat my water. I drank from a single creek every day for 4 years at my house up in the woods. I have never suffered from anything I attributed to water.

 

One case does not uphold a conclusion though...

[catbirdseat]

AlpineK said:

I almost never filter water or treat it, and I never get giardia.

 

There's my scientific study.

You are probably a carrier. Don't poop near water, if you please.

[Dru]

I don't use a filter, or treat water, but I wouldn't drink out of the Crooked River at Smiff either. I drink tap water.

 

Statistically, one person can drink water with minimal chance or getting sick, but if thousands drink that water, 10 or so are gonna get sick. Its like playing the lottery except chances are, you will win. But it sux to lose.

 

The higher the fresher thing only applies in that there is less source area above to source contaminate. But high is not necessarily safe. Local factors, like someone who just came back from Nepal taking a dump at a campsite 1km upstream, take a greater role in determining infection. I know from water tests I have done that fecal colifom loads in typical below treeline BC stream water are generally in the 1-5 bacterial count, but randomly spike up to 1000 level counts in a small proportion of samples. Where there's fecal coliform, there's potential for disease, and giardia and crypto counts usually, but not always, follow the same trend.

 

I would assume many alpine areas in WA to have a slightly higher count due to their greater use, eg Snow Creek or the creek near W side of Lib Bell probably has a higher coliform count than Tretheway Creek at the head of Harrison Lake does.

[estivate]

Dru said:

~40% of humans are "carriers": they can be infected by the giardia parasite, pass on cysts in their feces, but never develop symptoms. If you are a "carrier" i wonder why you would bother to buy a filter?

 

You wouldn't.

 

Giardia has probably been around for a long, long, time. Just part of people's intestinal flora. The problem is that Americans have gotten used to hyper-clean water, so many of them are very intolerant of such things. Consider "monetzuma's revenge", which only strikes foreigners, never Mexicans. A similar phenomenon.

 

Me, I grew up in Thailand, contracted worms, amoebic dysentery, and various skin parasites. I'm almost certainly a carrier, and I don't filter water. I do, however, exercise a preference for water out of smaller streams, with not much upstream. I wouldn't care to drink the skykomish unfiltered, for example.

[catbirdseat]

One way you can get giardia on a climbing trip is the following. Climbing partner is a carrier. Partner doesn't wash hands after defacating. You offer some gorp to partner. Partner reaches unwashed hands into gorp bag, contaminating said gorp. You eat gorp. You get giardia and blame it on the water.

[Tod]

Dru said:

The swimming pool figure you quoted sounds far beyond bogus to me. The pool would have to be non-chlorinated and breeding giardia big time like if you went away for a few moinths and your pool filled up with rainwater and a neighbours dog crapped in it.

 

Chlorine has little affect on giardia so the pool example does make perfect sense.

 

This article is only one of many that have been published before (usually in a magazine) that try to prove the unlikliehood of contracting giardia from wilderness streams. The articles that usually end up with the most errors or false info are the articles published by the water filter industry. The fact is (in the fine print of these articles) many filters do not even protect you unless they are used in a specific way.

 

Here was a good example:

Pur Explorer (Pur Outdoor division is no longer in business so thankfully you can't buy this filter/purifier anymore): In their own research done by the U of Arizona proving their filter/purifier they stated that the filter was only effective if pumped at well less than one stroke/cycle per second and you filter the water TWICE and then LET IT SET. The reason..... the filter itself was not small enough to get the some things, so they relied on granulated iodine to pass the water across, however the water needed to pass over this iodine slowly in order to have contact time to be effective (and pass over it twice and then the water needed time to set to have have the proper contact time). This all was pretty ridiculous since nobody would do this, but what was even more ridiculous was that this filter (and some current "purifiers") included a carbon filter attachment that would filter out chemicals that would not even let the iodine have the contact time that was necessary to make the filter effective. So, by their own research, filters that are both a filter and purifier were/are not effective unless you go through all the extra work to make it work. This isn't my research, this was PUR's research (and Sweetwater's since they copied or co sponsored the same research and distributed it too).

 

I don't suggest not treating your water, everyone can make up their own minds and decide on their own level concern. Me? The only time I've ever been sick was when I was using a water filter. I haven't filtered water in the last 10 years and have not been sick, just selective on where I get my water.

 

I used to sell outdoor equipment and decided that the only things that did work for treating water were either iodine (if you let it disolve THEN sit for 20 minutes), or ceramic filters.

 

Do the research, don't let the water filter industry scare you with their "research", and make up your own mind. But above all, practice good hygiene in the woods and your likely to stay healthy.

 

Not the gospel, just an opinion that was formed after being blasted for years with research from the water filter industry.

[Ursa_Eagle]

In an incident in New Jersey a child had a “fecal accident” in a 700,000-liter swimming pool, and nine swimmers came down with the disease.

 

One of the many reasons I don't live in NJ

[Gordonb]

Dru said:

Yes it was lab confirmed. The case I witnessed was source: Sukunka River near Chetwynd BC. Onset time: about 6 hours. Debilitated time: 2 weeks. Weight lost: 20 lbs.

 

 

If onset time was 6 hours, it wasn't that trip. Giardia take over a week from ingestion to symtoms.

[ChrisT]

Is vomiting def a symptom? A friend of mine has been seriously ill recently. She started with a UTI but developed high fever and chills. Subsequent tests revealed ecoli (sp?) and now doctors even suspect malaria (she was in Panama back in Feb.)

[chelle]

Dru said:

Yes it was lab confirmed. The case I witnessed was source: Sukunka River near Chetwynd BC. Onset time: about 6 hours. Debilitated time: 2 weeks. Weight lost: 20 lbs.

 

 

Dru - I thought Giardi had an incubation time of like 9-21 days. Maybe he'd already been infected from a previous trip or got some kind of bacterial or amoeba thing.

 

[chelle]

ChrisT said:

Is vomiting def a symptom? A friend of mine has been seriously ill recently. She started with a UTI but developed high fever and chills. Subsequent tests revealed ecoli (sp?) and now doctors even suspect malaria (she was in Panama back in Feb.)

 

That totally sucks, E. coli is a nasty little f'er. Hope they get it under control. She should get to a good travel medicine doctor if her docs can't figure it out.

 

Never really heard of vomiting as a symptom of Giardia. Just gas that smells like rotten eggs and intermittent diarrhea with lots of abdominal bloating.

[Mr._Natural]

ehmmic said:

ChrisT said:

Is vomiting def a symptom? A friend of mine has been seriously ill recently. She started with a UTI but developed high fever and chills. Subsequent tests revealed ecoli (sp?) and now doctors even suspect malaria (she was in Panama back in Feb.)

 

That totally sucks, E. coli is a nasty little f'er. Hope they get it under control. She should get to a good travel medicine doctor if her docs can't figure it out.

 

Never really heard of vomiting as a symptom of Giardia. Just gas that smells like rotten eggs and intermittent diarrhea with lots of abdominal bloating.

 

yummers, is it lunch time yet?

[Dru]

ehmmic said:

Dru said:

Yes it was lab confirmed. The case I witnessed was source: Sukunka River near Chetwynd BC. Onset time: about 6 hours. Debilitated time: 2 weeks. Weight lost: 20 lbs.

 

 

Dru - I thought Giardi had an incubation time of like 9-21 days. Maybe he'd already been infected from a previous trip or got some kind of bacterial or amoeba thing.

 

Well - we had been drinking out of that creek, and nothing else, for like 2 months and then one day he got sick. So whether it took 6 hrs or 21 days is a moot point. I didnt get sick so I guess Im a carrier Anybody want some gorp

[chriss]

Tod

 

"Chlorine has little affect on giardia so the pool example does make perfect sense."

 

Chlorine does affect Giardia. Crypto however, not so well.

 

I have to agree with you, use judgement.

 

 

chriss

[tshimko]

Interesting article at the beginning of the thread. And yes, personal hygeine is important in prevention.

 

Note the lack of actual Giardia data in backcountry (i.e. many miles from the trailhead) streams...there's a reason for that. The amount of water needed to be filtered and analyzed in order to determine a decent Giardai count is in the 100's of liters. So sampling needs to be done in the backcountry (or try packing 100's of liters from each stream out to your mobile lab at the trailhead!!). Processing the 100's of liters in the backcountry requires more than a few pounds of equipment that you need to drag up that trail to that backcountry stream, also quite impractical. Thus not much actual data on Giardai in the type of water sources climbers in the backcountry. If you'll note, almost all such data comes from streams you can drive to, not the ones you and I use when we are out in the Cascades or Olympics, or Sierras for that matter.

 

Is there Giardia in streams in the high backcountry? Probably.

Does anyone really know if there is enough to cause people to get sick? Nope.

 

Tad has his info on the PUR products a bit wrong. PUR was manufactured by a company called Recovery Engineering (an industrial filter manufacturer) out of Minnesota, and was bought by Proctor and Gamble, a few years ago. P&G wanted the PUR brandname for home filtration products. When the whole deal with problems related to the use of iodinated resins came up (more on that in a minute), P&G bumbled around for a while thinking it was an easy problem to solve (it isn't...I know, I've tried), but eventually sold the backpacking filter line to Katadyn, with the proviso that Katadyn lose the PUR tradename within a year (P&G wanted the PUR tradname for the home filtration business). So the old PUR products are still out there, just not called PUR any more.

 

I used to work on water filters for Cascade Designs, maker of Sweetwater filters. I was behind Cascade's withdrawal of the ViralGuard product (the iodinated resin portion of the product, not the mechanical filter part). I also developed the current Sweetwater purifier product, called ViralStop (if I remember the name correctly). Iodinated resins (or other chemicals) are used to deal with virus (like polio) which are orders of magnitude smaller than bacteria (like e.coli), which in turn are orders of magnitude smaller than Giardia cysts, in turn somewhat smaller than the active Giardai microorganism. It's relatively easy to filter out Giardia and even bacteria, nearly impossible (at practical flow rates) to remove virus. Thus virus are dealt with chemically. The iodinated resins as used by Sweetwater, and PUR, and frankly everybody else, don't work as well as they are required to, in order to prevent viral contamination. PUR (P&G) tried to get more contact time with the resin by pumping slowly, and double passing. It never really worked. For virus that is. Not sure if the makers of the old PUR products ever admitted that.

 

Other stuff for those who care:

--Virus in backcountry water is generally not a problem.

--While backcountry water does contain some animal virus, virus is generally species specific, so animal virus is not a problem. Although what with mad cow, west nile and a few others, those generall accepted lines are being crossed.

-- Some sources tell you to boil water for 10 minutes. That's bogus. As the original article mentions, one minute at 170 F (about 75C) will inactivate all pathogens, and thus just bringing water to a boil will be more than sufficient. Even at altitude (bp of water, 100 C at sea level, drops almost exactly 1 degree C for every 1000 feet of elevation gain).

 

Me? I carry a very small dropper bottle with a solution of pure crystalline iodine in alcohol such that 1 drop contains 8-10 milligrams of iodine. Make it myself. One drop per liter and 30 minutes. Never been sick from water.

 

Carbonation kills pathogens given enough time!!

 

 

[Tod]

Good info.

 

The whole thing with PUR and Sweetwater pushing iodinated resin purifiers was really stupid to me.

-They downgraded the filter from ~.3 microns to 1 micron because the iodinated resin was suppose to take care of everything that that the 1 micron filter couldn't take care of.

-Then they used their research to prove their product (which when you actually read the researcher notes disproved their product).

-When the sh*t hit the fan and it was publicly known that their filters didn't work they pulled them from the market (the Explorer and the Scout(?)) and like you say, couldn't figure out how to make the technology work effectively and safely.

-In the end people were using filters that were as effective as the $5 piece of crap that you can buy from the Army Surplus store.

 

Admittedly some of my info is old, outdated and hazy, but I still remember that a lot of the filter info was pushed on the public falsely and using fear as their greatest marketing tool...

[DPS]

Interesting post. I did my graduate research on Giardia and Cryptosporidium 10 years ago. This was about the same time that the PUR water filter was introduced. AAI slapped their Guides Choice award on it. I challenged the gear manager about this and said that the guides liked it because it was easy to pump. I expained that the iodine matrix is worthless because there is no residence time. He was not impressed with my argument.

 

A number of years ago I interviewed with Cascade Designs to do testing on the Sweetwater filter. They had just aquired the company and wanted to prove it could remove/kill virus particles. I ended up not getting the job because they were looking for a virologist and my experience was with bacteria and protozoans.

 

At any rate, I ran into the fellow who interviewed me last week. (We live in the same neighborhood). He said that their microbiologist tested PUR filters along side Sweetwater and found both to be ineffective. My friend brought this to management's attention who refused to believe. He eventually left the company.

 

For what it is worth I use chlorine dioxide to disinfect water, a two part chemical that is mixed and added to the water.

 

Also, for what it is worth, I found Giardia and cryptosporidium in every stream I tested, including streams in protected watersheds (pristine forests that the public is not allowed in to protect water quality). My results were similar to those of other reasearchers such as Ongerth and Le Chaviler.