Wading or wet wading with a contagious communicable disease....

[Nighthawk]

If we wade or wet wade with a contagious communicable disease are we putting our felllow fly fishers and the environment at risk? I mean think about Typhoid Mary. Another factor is are we putting our weakened immune system at risk of cotracting something in the environment that we could normally fight off. Somthing that could enter through a lesion on the skin, mucous membrane, eyes or even injested by accident?

I am not worried about myself but more of any harm I may casue someone else or the environment. I have active MERSA through open sores on my legs. Now bear in mind please that other physical factors have put an end ot my wading/fly fishing in general. However even if I could do it I don't know if I am putting other fishers and the environment at risk even if I wear my waders. I would hate to think that I brought harm to another person or to the critters in the creek. I surely do think that an extra level of sterilization of the inside of my waders would be a good precaution too.

So when we wade are we putting others, our selves or the environment at risk?

[bigfin56]

I think the risk is extraordinarily low. Staphylococcus aureus is ubiquitous, it's everywhere. MRSA, the methycilin antibiotic resistant form is all around as well. We're all exposed anyway. If the wound is covered the microbe would not be transmitted to water very well and survival rate of the bacteria in freshwater might not be great. Either way, the state of a person's immune system is a larger factor, I think, than the presence of the bacteria.

I could be wrong though, ... I'm often wrong but never in doubt.

[maodiver]

I also gotta think that the dispersal of the pathogen has gotta be pretty great...but I still wouldn't wanna take the chance.

[NewTyer 1]

Here are a couple quick exerpts from just a search so you should be able to find more data than you want.

Beaches throughout North America are riddled with a drug-resistant staph bacteria called MRSA that can live in salt or fresh water, on beach sand, your wetsuit, and any piece of gear for days, weeks, or even months. Unlike most pathogens, MRSA doesn’t need a warm host to survive. If it’s alive, it will find a way to spread to a living creature. And yes, it can kill you.

As for what’s causing the rise of MRSA, Roberts says it’s the over-prescription of antibiotics to treat non-bacterial infections: We’re making the drugs weaker by exposing bacteria to them. When some percentage of the germ survives, it mutates and becomes resistant to the antibiotic. And she says MRSA isn’t an end point. There are other bacterias with genes never before seen, and this, too, is in part because antibiotic use is rampant, especially in factory farming.

[Nighthawk]

Since I spent many hours in my grandpa's small hometown butcher shop I should lhave remembered that about the commercial or factory farming industry. All of our beef and poultry was raised naturally with no steroids or antibiotics. Our beef and poultry industrial farms pump a lot of antibiotics into the critters. It is unavoidable that when you have the huge numbers in close quarters like they do they will spread disease fast.

See I was also thinking about the girl that contracted flesh eating bacteria on a float trip. She was very healthy and barely survived from a minor wound that was given first aid I think though I could be wrong on that.

[garthman]

i can't specifically answer your question, but when i was coaching youth wrestling , we had guidelines form the doctors about MRSA:

• if one of the kids had anything that you suspected was MRSA get it treated soonest

• disinfect (we used a hospital strength disinfectatnt which claimed to kill the staph involved) the mats and other surfaces that the wrestler was in contact with

• no return to the mat for the infected until they had doctor's clearance

I would suspect the risk to others is pretty slim if you stayed in your waders, but I would think there is a high probablity you could reinfect yourself if the inside of your waders were contaminated

[Uncle Jesse]

See I was also thinking about the girl that contracted flesh eating bacteria on a float trip. She was very healthy and barely survived from a minor wound that was given first aid I think though I could be wrong on that.

I believe you are referring to the college student who was injuried on a zip line in a small river west of Atlanta. Her injury did require stitches as I recall. The drainage of the stream, Tallapoosa River, is likely to contain a little of anything, the area would be considered the x-burbs of Atlanta. She survived through extraordinary effort, resolve and strong medical expertise, but a the loss of both hands and feet I think.