This Amoeba Eats Your Brain

The deadly micro-organism was recently found in a Texas water supply

Computer-generated representation of Naegleria fowleri in its ameboid trophozoite stage, in its flagellated stage, and in its cyst stage. via the CDC

Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse: imagine being told that you could die if you used tap water for anything other than flushing your toilet. This happened in Texas over the past week, as 8 towns were warned that their water supplies were tainted with a rare and deadly micro-organism, known as Naegleria fowleri or the brain-eating amoeba.

A six year old died in Lake Jackson, Texas, after apparently contacting the organism at a water fountain. The amoeba is generally not thought to survive in water supplies due to the water being treated, but tests for it did return a few positive results, and so the public was warned not to use the water, and to boil it if use was necessary. If the amoeba was living in the water supply of a town, residents could come in contact with it by simply taking a shower.

This amoeba occurs naturally in fresh water environments and lives in the warm water and soil. Since it prefers warmer climates, cases of this infection are more commonly found in the Southern states of America, such as Florida and Texas. While you can’t get infected with it from swallowing the water, if water that contains the organism enters your nasal passages, this is its entryway to your brain. This is why the infection…