* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    ITV Studios Launches New Entertainment Label – Global Bulletin – IMDb

    ITV Studios Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Label

    TS Entertainment bringing Malibu Jack’s to former Owensboro mall – Lane Report

    TS Entertainment Launches Malibu Jack’s at Former Owensboro Mall Location

    Jenny Han Dropped a Major ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg Revealing [SPOILER] – yahoo.com

    Jenny Han Just Unveiled a Huge ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg That Changes Everything [SPOILER]

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer With Emotional Song ‘Bones’ – yahoo.com

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer with Emotional New Song ‘Bones

    Country music star apologizes after drunken show ends with cops taking him down: ‘I’m not OK’ – PennLive.com

    Country Music Star Apologizes After Drunken Show Ends in Police Intervention: ‘I’m Not OK

    Comanche Nation Entertainment closes casino near Devol – KSWO 7News

    Comanche Nation Entertainment Closes Casino Near Devol in Surprising Move

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

    Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

    Gene Associated With Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers Identified – Technology Networks

    Breakthrough Discovery Uncovers Gene Behind Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers

    Monkey Island LNG Picks ConocoPhillips’ Liquefaction Technology – Hart Energy

    Monkey Island LNG Selects ConocoPhillips’ Advanced Liquefaction Technology for Next-Gen Energy Solutions

    Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (CRDO) Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates – Yahoo Finance

    Credo Technology Group Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Expectations

    The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent – The Economist

    Exciting Opportunity: Become Our Next Science and Technology Correspondent!

    Blockchain lender Figure Technology seeks to raise up to $526M in IPO (FIGR:Pending) – Seeking Alpha

    Blockchain Lender Figure Technology Sets Sights on $526M in Thrilling IPO Launch

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    ITV Studios Launches New Entertainment Label – Global Bulletin – IMDb

    ITV Studios Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Label

    TS Entertainment bringing Malibu Jack’s to former Owensboro mall – Lane Report

    TS Entertainment Launches Malibu Jack’s at Former Owensboro Mall Location

    Jenny Han Dropped a Major ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg Revealing [SPOILER] – yahoo.com

    Jenny Han Just Unveiled a Huge ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg That Changes Everything [SPOILER]

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer With Emotional Song ‘Bones’ – yahoo.com

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer with Emotional New Song ‘Bones

    Country music star apologizes after drunken show ends with cops taking him down: ‘I’m not OK’ – PennLive.com

    Country Music Star Apologizes After Drunken Show Ends in Police Intervention: ‘I’m Not OK

    Comanche Nation Entertainment closes casino near Devol – KSWO 7News

    Comanche Nation Entertainment Closes Casino Near Devol in Surprising Move

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

    Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

    Gene Associated With Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers Identified – Technology Networks

    Breakthrough Discovery Uncovers Gene Behind Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers

    Monkey Island LNG Picks ConocoPhillips’ Liquefaction Technology – Hart Energy

    Monkey Island LNG Selects ConocoPhillips’ Advanced Liquefaction Technology for Next-Gen Energy Solutions

    Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (CRDO) Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates – Yahoo Finance

    Credo Technology Group Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Expectations

    The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent – The Economist

    Exciting Opportunity: Become Our Next Science and Technology Correspondent!

    Blockchain lender Figure Technology seeks to raise up to $526M in IPO (FIGR:Pending) – Seeking Alpha

    Blockchain Lender Figure Technology Sets Sights on $526M in Thrilling IPO Launch

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Valley Fever Is a Growing Fungal Threat to Outdoor Workers

September 24, 2023
in Science
Valley Fever Is a Growing Fungal Threat to Outdoor Workers
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Farmworkers in California’s Central Valley know that when the tule fog settles over the ground after a heavy rain, some of them are about to get sick. Within a few weeks of the dense fog’s arrival, many of the laborers grow tired and develop headaches and fevers. Each time, those who have evaded illness wonder whether they will be next. Experienced farmworkers expect this affliction, but when Rosalinda Guillen arrived from Washington State 25 years ago, she had never seen anything like it. She watched, helpless, as other farmworkers coughed and tried to catch their breath.

That was the first time Guillen, a seasonal farmworker and agricultural justice leader, heard the term “Valley fever.” The disease is caused by two species of shapeshifting fungus in the genus Coccidioides, both of which flourish when exposed to moist springs and arid summers—like those in the San Joaquin Valley, where the fever got its name. Guillen had not encountered such a thing in her home state. But because of drier landscapes and warming temperatures, the fungus’s range appears to be spreading.

No one knows for sure whether wind is moving Coccidioides north or whether it has been there undisturbed until now. But even as researchers have been discovering it in new pockets throughout the western U.S., many state health departments have failed to track it. What limited data exist indicate that 40 percent of cases become symptomatic, and among those the people most at risk of life-threatening disease are Latino, Asian and Native American people, who contract Valley fever at two to four times the rate of white people. That increased risk seems to be primarily attributable to their frequent exposure and long hours spent in dusty outdoor locations, although genetic variations haven’t yet been ruled out.

Many of those affected lack basic health care, and some are afraid to seek medical help for fear of employer retaliation or even deportation. As a result, Valley fever is undersurveilled and underdiagnosed, and its study and treatment are underfunded. Research on the condition has remained limited, but it’s clear that the disease disproportionately strikes people in the most vulnerable populations.

After decades of neglect, however, there’s a new push at both the local and federal levels to find out more about the extent of Valley fever’s threat. In addition, a small group of researchers is working to understand how to treat and even prevent it. That knowledge can’t come soon enough, Guillen says: “All we really know is that farmworkers may already be sick.”

Growing Evidence

Valley fever thrives both in dirt and in human lungs. After a heavy rain, the fast-growing Coccidioides spreads through the wet soil like mold through bread. When it dries out, its spores mingle with dusty topsoil and can be inhaled as airborne pathogens. Once they’re in the lungs, those spores take on a wholly different form, each morphing into a reproductive cell in which new spores multiply. The full cells burst within five days, releasing spores that travel throughout the body. The fungus can cause coughing, fevers, body aches, fatigue, rashes and appetite loss. In up to 10 percent of those infected, some symptoms can last for years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that about 200 people die from the disease every year.

Bridget Barker, a mycologist and geneticist at Northern Arizona University, has spent her decades-long career figuring out how to detect Coccidioides and understand its role in the larger ecosystem. She and her team designed a probe to extract it from the soil so they can analyze it. Their research has revealed the fungus’s resilience: Coccidioides needs moisture to grow, flourishing when the rains arrive, then stagnating when the ground dries up again. Its spores remain in the topsoil, where they can survive for years.

Barker and others refer to this process as the “grow-and-blow” cycle: once the fungus stops growing and becomes dehydrated, wind picks up the spores and carries them to new areas. This may be one way Coccidioides has expanded into the Pacific Northwest from the southwestern states, such as California, Arizona and New Mexico, where it is endemic. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, predict that if warming trends continue and droughts persist, Valley fever could eventually stretch as far north as the U.S.-Canada border and as far northeast as North Dakota.

Amanda Gomez-Weaver, a doctoral student in environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, has been investigating the correlation between climate-influenced dust exposure and Valley fever epidemiology. Previous research had indicated that spores can become airborne anytime dirt is disrupted, making people working in construction and agriculture particularly susceptible. Gomez-Weaver has also found a strong association between Valley fever incidence and ambient dust, indicating that spores become suspended in the air and linger there much like other atmospheric particulates. This work has convinced her that anyone who spends most of their day in dusty outdoor areas in the western U.S. would need a Coccidioides vaccine to remain uninfected. To date, however, no vaccine is available for any fungal disease. A vaccine, Gomez-Weaver says, “would be the most powerful tool in our arsenal.”

The Data GAP

Valley fever’s mortality rate is about one death per 1,000 infections, according to infectious disease physician John Galgiani, director of the University of Arizona’s Valley Fever Center for Excellence. It doesn’t need to be so high. There are medications to treat it, but patients often receive incorrect diagnoses.

Physicians and other health-care practitioners who work where Valley fever is prevalent often don’t know to test for it, because there’s a general lack of awareness about the disease and because its symptoms can be mistaken for other respiratory illnesses, such as pneumonia. Patients usually end up with antibiotics or other medications that kill bacteria but not fungi.

The CDC estimates that only one in 33 cases is reported and has suggested that hundreds of thousands of infections have probably been missed over the past 10 years. Because the organization does not mandate that public health departments report Valley fever—only 26 states have submitted case numbers—it has no data at all from some states where the fungus is endemic, such as Texas and Idaho.

Farmworkers and laborers who toil in the dusty outdoors, most often people of color, have been trying to get the attention of state and federal agencies for decades. “If something is harming us,” Guillen says, “it’s hard to prove based on the way that data-collecting systems are structured.”

Proof of Concept

To show that a vaccine could be effective protection against Coccidioides, Galgiani and his team started by focusing on an immunization for dogs with the infection. Dogs are vulnerable to the disease, too. Because they explore the environment through their noses and can inhale large quantities of fungal spores in a short time, they contract Valley fever more often than humans do, and their symptoms can be more severe.

The canine vaccine Galgiani helped to develop has already proved itself. It uses attenuated live spores of Coccidioides that can’t reproduce but still prompt an immune reaction in the body. The response they elicit is so robust that a veterinary pharmaceutical company has licensed the rights to the vaccine and is seeking approval from the Department of Agriculture for its use in pets. Galgiani has now moved on to humans.

One potential benefit of a Valley fever vaccine is that it could be a one-and-done kind of thing—unlike those for influenza or even tetanus, which must be updated regularly. According to studies by microbiologist Deborah Fuller of the University of Washington School of Medicine, people who get Valley fever develop lifelong immunity. That, Fuller says, “is the golden egg.”

Fuller’s team is pursuing both DNA- and RNA-based vaccines, each of which would prompt the body to produce proteins that trigger an immune response. Fuller notes that any vaccine against Coccidioides would serve a greater purpose than just fighting Valley fever: it could allow researchers to understand immune response to other fungal diseases and provide insight into how to better treat such conditions.

Galgiani believes that if funding allows, a human version of his vaccine could be ready for approval within eight years. That funding may finally be within reach. After Valley fever’s annual incidence surpassed 20,000 cases in 2019, two congressional representatives—Kevin McCarthy of California and David Schweikert of Arizona—called on the National Institutes of Health to make a substantial investment in Valley fever research. Last year the NIH complied, dedicating $4.5 million in funding to the cause.

It’s about time, Guillen says. She has seen how agricultural workers are made vulnerable just by the dint of their surroundings, toiling in jobs that expose them to agrochemicals, dehydration, extreme heat, and more. Growing up in Washington State, working in the fields herself starting at age 16, she never had to worry about Valley fever. But now she’s watching it creep in and threaten the people she’s tried so hard to protect. She’s fighting to make sure some of the most invisible workers are seen.

This article is part of “Innovations In: Environmental Health Equity,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Ashli Blow is a journalist who covers environmental
science
and justice with a focus on climate adaptation.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Scientific American – https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/valley-fever-is-a-growing-fungal-threat-to-outdoor-workers/

Tags: feverscienceValley
Previous Post

Online Ads Can Infect Your Device with Spyware

Next Post

More People Die from Venomous Snakebites Each Year Than Have Ever Died from Ebola

Blending art, culture and native plants at Wakamatsu – Mountain Democrat

Discover the Harmony of Art, Culture, and Native Plants at Wakamatsu

September 6, 2025
The Two-Body Problem for Women in Science – Nautilus | Science Connected

The Two-Body Problem for Women in Science – Nautilus | Science Connected

September 6, 2025
How AI and Automation are Speeding Up Science and Discovery – Berkeley Lab News Center (.gov)

How AI and Automation Are Accelerating Breakthroughs in Scientific Discovery

September 6, 2025

American Trust Investment Services Serves as Exclusive Placement Agent in $9 Million Follow-On Offering for Nova LifeStyle, Inc. – Morningstar

September 6, 2025
Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

September 6, 2025
EA SPORTS™ and New York City FC Extend Partnership to Power the Future of Football Fandom in NYC – New York City FC

EA SPORTS™ and New York City FC Join Forces to Transform Football Fandom in NYC

September 6, 2025
News – Ancient DNA Pinpoints Culprit Responsible for World’s First Pandemic – Archaeology Magazine

Ancient DNA Reveals the True Cause of the World’s First Pandemic

September 5, 2025
Fears of US recession as economy adds just 22,000 jobs – The Times

Fears of US recession as economy adds just 22,000 jobs – The Times

September 5, 2025
Musiq Soulchild Surprises Fan’s Bride With “Dontchange” Wedding Serenade – yahoo.com

Musiq Soulchild Captivates Wedding Guests with Heartfelt Serenade of “Don’tchange

September 5, 2025
States fight feds over future of school mental health services – Courthouse News Service

States Clash with Federal Government Over the Future of School Mental Health Services

September 5, 2025

Categories

Archives

September 2025
MTWTFSS
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930 
« Aug    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (809)
  • Economy (827)
  • Entertainment (21,704)
  • General (16,879)
  • Health (9,868)
  • Lifestyle (840)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (829)
  • Politics (834)
  • Science (16,038)
  • Sports (21,326)
  • Technology (15,808)
  • World (808)

Recent News

Blending art, culture and native plants at Wakamatsu – Mountain Democrat

Discover the Harmony of Art, Culture, and Native Plants at Wakamatsu

September 6, 2025
The Two-Body Problem for Women in Science – Nautilus | Science Connected

The Two-Body Problem for Women in Science – Nautilus | Science Connected

September 6, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version