3 ms·

Mystery of deadly US infections solved; aromatherapy spray at Walmart to blame

18 points by sohkamyung 5y ago

1cvmask 5y ago
A $4 aromatherapy room spray made in India. These types of micromorts really sometimes give pause to me when buying impulse products and not knowing the supply chain behind it. But of course we have never been safer statistically (at least in developed countries).
fragmede 5y ago
Given that the US doesn't have a healthcare system, but a collection of hospitals and clinics and a random smattering of offices instead, I've always wondered how long, if ever, Covid-19 would have taken before being discovered in the US, had there been no outbreaks in China, nor internal investigation by Chinese doctors. I find stories like these about the competence of CDC, worthy of Doctor House, reassuring.
- aaron695 5y ago
  > worthy of Doctor House, They knew since March. People died because they didn't get on top of it. How is this Doctor House? How many items do people own, imported from South Asia, recently, it will probably not be from big companies. This product literally had rocks in it and was aerosolized from India. Once they had more case genetically linked they also know it was a nation wide supplier. And the slow amount of cases meant it probably was not a common product, and you'd expect the same batch, nothing fresh. House would walk in and see the product, a more realistic (in TV land) show like ReGenesis would barcode everything, digitise receipts and crosslink it with the intern a week later. This is also a bio weapon that has actually been deployed in the USA, so there's also that, as a reason to be better. The contaminated product has probably sold out and naturally moved on to an uncontaminated source.
- 8bitsrule 5y ago
  When I read "CDC investigators quickly began hunting for a common source, sampling soil, water, and various products from in and around the four patients' homes." I also thought of House (though it was usually his assistants invading people's homes...) I'm not sure what you mean by 'a healthcare system' (you may by thinking of the UK or Canada, I guess) but the US certainly has a large Federal health establishment; the United States Public Health Service started in 1798. The US DHHS has 79,000 employees, including a thousand researchers and a $1.2T annual budget; the CDC (of which 'Epidemic Intelligence Service', founded 1951, is just a part) is only one of DHHS' 14 agencies. I'm sure all of the for-profit hospitals in the US greatly appreciate that taxpayer-funded, non-interfering cornucopia of information. Imagine what it could do if it had the right to put educational programming on national television (ad-free, for free) ... without presidential interference.
- refurb 5y ago
  “Doesn’t have a healthcare system”?
phnofive 5y ago
Active conversation from a few days past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28981861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28981861

18 points by sohkamyung 5y ago

A $4 aromatherapy room spray made in India. These types of micromorts really sometimes give pause to me when buying impulse products and not knowing the supply chain behind it. But of course we have never been safer statistically (at least in developed countries).

fragmede 5y ago

Given that the US doesn't have a healthcare system, but a collection of hospitals and clinics and a random smattering of offices instead, I've always wondered how long, if ever, Covid-19 would have taken before being discovered in the US, had there been no outbreaks in China, nor internal investigation by Chinese doctors. I find stories like these about the competence of CDC, worthy of Doctor House, reassuring.

aaron695 5y ago
> worthy of Doctor House, They knew since March. People died because they didn't get on top of it. How is this Doctor House? How many items do people own, imported from South Asia, recently, it will probably not be from big companies. This product literally had rocks in it and was aerosolized from India. Once they had more case genetically linked they also know it was a nation wide supplier. And the slow amount of cases meant it probably was not a common product, and you'd expect the same batch, nothing fresh. House would walk in and see the product, a more realistic (in TV land) show like ReGenesis would barcode everything, digitise receipts and crosslink it with the intern a week later. This is also a bio weapon that has actually been deployed in the USA, so there's also that, as a reason to be better. The contaminated product has probably sold out and naturally moved on to an uncontaminated source.
8bitsrule 5y ago
When I read "CDC investigators quickly began hunting for a common source, sampling soil, water, and various products from in and around the four patients' homes." I also thought of House (though it was usually his assistants invading people's homes...) I'm not sure what you mean by 'a healthcare system' (you may by thinking of the UK or Canada, I guess) but the US certainly has a large Federal health establishment; the United States Public Health Service started in 1798. The US DHHS has 79,000 employees, including a thousand researchers and a $1.2T annual budget; the CDC (of which 'Epidemic Intelligence Service', founded 1951, is just a part) is only one of DHHS' 14 agencies. I'm sure all of the for-profit hospitals in the US greatly appreciate that taxpayer-funded, non-interfering cornucopia of information. Imagine what it could do if it had the right to put educational programming on national television (ad-free, for free) ... without presidential interference.
refurb 5y ago
“Doesn’t have a healthcare system”?

phnofive 5y ago

Active conversation from a few days past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28981861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28981861