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Forum on Valley Fever
Topics: health, valley fever, cure, disease, spores, cocci, infected, soil, Nicole Parra, Stanley Clark, legislature, funding, physician, symptoms
Posted by LisaW Wed Sep 27, 2006 09:21:07 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments Lamont, Calif. — Funding for valley fever research, its symptoms and effects were the topics discussed at a town hall meeting put on by the Dolores Huerta Foundation and Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, Sept. 21 in Lamont.

“I’m here as a student to listen to Dr. Stanley Clark (a Cal State Bakersfield professor) and learn about the numbers, so I can take them back to Sacramento and then we can see what can be done legislatively,” Parra said.

The legislature recently appropriated $1 million for valley fever research.

“No one in Sacramento was talking about funding this research until Dolores Huerta came to Sacramento,” Parra said. “I’m here to fight for more money in Sacramento for this very important issue.”

Clark’s presentation centered mostly on urging the attendees to be aware of the symptoms.

People should not hesitate to ask a doctor to be tested for valley fever if they are exhibiting symptoms, he said.

“If the doctor doesn’t think you need to be tested for valley fever, then you need to go to another doctor,” Clark said.

The spores that cause valley fever are found in the soil of California, Arizona and parts of northern and central Mexico. When the spores get dislodged into the air by construction, agriculture or wind, people breathe them in and contract the disease.
“Every population group gets valley fever,” Clark said. “A lot of people have had it and did not know they had it.”

Visitors and tourists in the region may also contract the disease, but be misdiagnosed when they return home to areas where valley fever is not recognized as an illness, he said.

Not being a physician, Clark did not get into specifics about the disease or treatment options. As a political science professor at California State University, Bakersfield, Clark’s role is to work with legislature, physicians, research scientists and community groups to secure funding for work on valley fever, he said.

“The drug companies will not pay for this research because it is not profitable enough for them. Valley fever is a regional disease where the cases can be serious and even deadly, but there’s not enough product that they would sell to justify their research from their point of view,” Clark said.

It is difficult to get money from the government because they receive many requests for other diseases that affect larger populations such as AIDS and breast cancer, he said.
Clark also noted the importance of working with Mexico because there are incidences of valley fever there, too.

In fact, a representative from Bakersfield’s sister city, Querétaro, Mexico — who is also a co-owner of a laboratory with her husband — has invited Kern County to send a valley fever expert to Mexico in September 2007, so more can be learned about the disease and how to diagnose it, Clark said.

Research into a vaccine for valley fever was put on hold for nearly 25 years because of a lack of funding, according to Clark.

However, recent funding has allowed scientists to get close to possible vaccines and human trials, he said.

More than half the cases of valley fever in the state of California occur in Kern County each year, Clark said.

And in areas of high incidence, more than half the population has been affected by the disease, according to the Valley Fever Vaccine Project of the Americas.

Valley fever facts
•The technical name for valley fever is Coccidioidomycosis, or “Cocci” for short.
•Valley fever is not a contagious disease; it appears that after one exposure, the body develops immunity.
•Of all the people infected with valley fever, one or more out of 200 will develop the form that can be fatal, when the disease spreads beyond the lungs through the bloodstream — typically to the skin, bones and the membranes surrounding the brain, causing meningitis.
•Valley fever may feel like a cold or flu; it can be serious, with pneumonia-like symptoms, requiring medication and bed rest.

On the Web:
•Valley Fever Vaccine Project of the Americas.: www.valleyfever.com

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