June 05, 2004

6/5 - A Malibu Surfing Souvenir: Hepatitis A

It's fairly unbelievable. It's just hard to accept. The ocean is so vast, so diluting, how could it ever be dangerous to swim in? I think there is a built in time lag in accepting this. It will probably take a generation for it to really sink in. The idea that you are risking your health by immersing yourself in the supposedly-healing waters of the sea.

After a morning surf around Ventura yesterday, we stopped into a surf shop in Malibu where they were all talking about a local dentist who recently went surfing at Surfrider Beach in Malibu (which by the way got an "F" on Heal the Bay's annual report card a couple weeks ago) and immediately came down with flu-like symptoms, swollen glands, fever, and within hours tested positive for Hepatitis A.

Someone pointed out "the good news" is that you can get a shot and a booster for Hep A and be immune for up to 10 years. Oh great. So someday we will all have to go to the doctor to get shots in order to go surfing, just like getting ready to visit some distant country with poor health conditions ... but within driving distance.

THIS is the relevance of the term "shifting baselines" to everyone at Surfrider Foundation -- the idea that the public shifts its baseline to accept that certain beaches are bad news and you just have to know to avoid them ... and to never go swimming after it rains ... and to check the latest beach closure reports ... and ... all this, rather than get angry and do something about the unhealthy state of these beaches.

Posted by Randy Olson at June 5, 2004 04:18 PM