TITLE: Hopkins, UM to examine 8 watermen; State health secretary calls in physicians to check lesions, rashes; No concrete link to fish; Medical team to study patients over a month to determine cause
BYLINE: Dennis O'Brien
CREDIT: SUN STAFF
EST. PAGES: 2
DATE: 08/06/97
DOCID: BSUN526710
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun; BSUN
EDITION: FINAL; SECTION: METRO; PAGE: 1B
CORRECTION: CORRECTION
NOTES: CORRECT SPELLING IS Pfiesteria piscicida
(Copyright 1997 @ The Baltimore Sun Company)
The name of a toxic organism that causes fish lesions was
incorrectly spelled in yesterday's editions. The organism is Pfiesteria
piscicida.
The Sun regrets the errors.
A team of physicians from Johns Hopkins Hospital and University
of Maryland Medical Center will examine eight watermen whose illnesses
may be linked to contaminants in the Pocomoke River, where fish
with sores have been found for nearly a year.
The measure announced yesterday by Dr. Martin P. Wasserman,
secretary of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,
is a step beyond what he promised watermen last weekend at a seminar
in Salisbury sponsored by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
Wasserman said the physicians will examine the watermen over
the next month to try to determine the causes for their rashes,
lesions and flu-like symptoms, and devise a course of treatment.
The physicians will either travel to the Pocomoke River communities
on the Eastern Shore to examine the watermen or arrange for them
to come to Baltimore for treatment, he said.
"We are absolutely not blowing this off. We are going
to address this problem, but we're going to do it thoroughly and
carefully," Wasserman said.
Since lesions started appearing last fall on as much as 40
percent of the fish caught along the 50-mile river, watermen and
some members of their families have suffered serious respiratory
problems, including pneumonia and lung infections, according to
watermen and a Pocomoke physician.
Scientists at the forum in Salisbury said that the lesions
on the fish could be caused by either higher acidity or reduced
salinity of the water, or by Pfisteria piscida, a micro-organism
that secretes a toxin and attacks the nervous system and flesh
of fish.
Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin met with watermen
in Shelltown on the Pocomoke River yesterday to plan for setting
up a field laboratory, where state biologists will study fish
and take water samples to try to determine the lesions' cause,
said Liz Kalinowksi, a DNR spokeswoman.
Wasserman emphasized yesterday that no concrete link has
been established between the watermen's sicknesses and whatever
has caused lesions on the fish.
The river will remain open until sufficient evidence is collected
to indicate health problems are being caused by exposure to the
water, he said.
The measure was announced a day after the Chesapeake Bay
Foundation issued a public advisory recommending a series of safety
precautions for anyone using the lower Pocomoke.
Health officials called the foundation's advisory "irresponsible."
"Since when are they health experts?" asked Michael
Golden, a state health department spokesman.
Michael Shultz, a foundation spokesman, said the guidelines
were based on similar recommendations from health officials in
North Carolina, where similar contamination problems have occurred.
"We think they {state officials}ought to make sure the
public understands what safe uses for the rivers are and what
safety measures people should take," Shultz said.
State health officials sent letters to all the physicians
and hospitals on the Lower Eastern Shore in June asking doctors
to report any findings of illnesses, lesions or rashes stemming
from exposure to the Pocomoke.
To date, eight people have reported symptoms, with two of
the cases under investigation.
The six other patients have been examined and the results
were inconclusive, meaning the ailments could not be linked strictly
to the river, state health officials said.
But Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker, who has set up a clinic to treat
Pocomoke watermen and their families, said he believes their ailments
are linked to whatever is sickening the fish.
"We have a cluster of six to eight sick people, and
we don't know why," Shoemaker said.
Shoemaker said James Aravanis, 23, of Pocomoke City came
in for treatment with 30 dime-sized lesions on his body after
skiing in the Pocomoke last week. He said Aravanis contracted
a form of encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain usually caused
by a viral infection that can be fatal.
"This is a big deal," Shoemaker said.
Aravanis was admitted at McCready Memorial Hospital in Crisfield
on Sunday. State health officials and the hospital physician who
treated him say it is too early to say what caused his ailments.
Dr. Vijay Karumbunathan, the McCready physician, said he
is awaiting results of a series of tests before he can say what
caused the lesions, headaches, memory loss and difficulty walking
and speaking.
"We don't know what the rash was from. It could have
been from an insect bite," Karumbunathan said.
He said Aravanis continues to suffer from headaches but that
his condition is not life-threatening.
Karumbunathan said Aravanis could be discharged today but
that he is waiting to hear from state health officials, who indicated
that they may have other physicians examine him.
Pub Date: 8/06/97