SLUDGE VICTIMS

Microbiologist David L. Lewis, PhD stated in an email to Dr. Joel Hersh of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Health:

"An otherwise healthy 11 -year old boy rides his motorbile across a mining area ankle deep in sewage sludge." "Within hours he develops lesions on an arm and a leg, runs a high fever within two days, and is dead in eight days from Staph aureus septicemia."

"It shouldn't be surprising that covering a child with wet caustic sewage sludge (containing strong irritants to skin, e.g. lime, ammonia, organic amines) is likely to give him a superficial Staph infection that may progress to septicemia.
(Some of the Staph comes from what gets flushed down toilets in hospitals where people are being treated for virulent strains of the organism, and what goes into sewer fines from mortuaries where they drain all the bodily fluids.)"