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Comment by angry_octet | Hacker News Reader

I'm stunned at how many people are commenting that they will continue using untreated water. You can end up having your brain eaten and die, I can't think of a PSA any more convincing.

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There's been ~100 cases in 40 years. That's less than 3 people per year, so it's very rare.

There's about 10 shark attacks per year in the U.S. Now that you know that, will you stay out of the ocean forever? Or will you maybe take the risk and go for a dip if you go on a beach vacation?

edit Plus, of those 40 cases the vast majority are from swimming in lakes. So there's only a handful of cases where the infection was due to neti-pot usage. I could only find 3 confirmed cases. That's extremely rare.

>Now that you know that, will you stay out of the ocean forever?

No but I might avoid areas known to host sharks.

This is exactly the point. It's just a curiosity, nothing more. There's no reason to believe that you should change your behaviour in any way.

Crossing the street once is more dangerous.

And yet, how little effort is it to use saline or boiled water? Boil the kettle, leave to cool. Warm water is more comfortable anyway.

Also, it might be incredibly rare because most people follow the instructions, and/or the people who follow instructions poorly live in areas with highly treated water (essentially the entire urban population). In warmer rural areas, using rainwater or borewater, it is likely to have significant growth of Naegleria fowleri. Children are particularly susceptible.

https://healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/A_E/Amoebic-meningitis https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/naegleria/pathogen.html https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/professor-encouraging...

There is a similar problem where cleaning contact lenses with untreated water leaks to Acanthamoeba infection, leading to possible blindness of loss of an eye.

It's more likely to die from an infected burn caused by an accident while handling boiling water to prepare your water for rinsing - I suppose.

Are you going to stop bathing or showering in untreated water because it might get inside you that way?

We all weigh risk against convenience. This is very low risk.

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