paper<\/a> Sept. 1 finding that oil and gas development in the San Joaquin Valley correlates with an 11% greater chance of contracting Valley fever, which can be fatal without proper antifungal treatment.<\/p>\nThe infection, also called coccidioidomycosis, stems from two species of Coccidioides fungi found in soil. Fungal spores can disperse and be cast miles away by disruptions to soil, including wind, farming and construction, like those involved in oil drilling. Spores can grow in lungs after people inhale them, causing the infection to spread within the body.<\/p>\n
Scientists correlated the number of oil and gas wells constructed in California between 2007 and 2022 with data on Valley fever cases. They zoomed in on data for Kern County \u2014 the county with the highest incidence of Valley fever in the U.S. \u2014 which is also home to the most intensive oil and gas development in California, according to the paper. The researchers found 73% of the county\u2019s residents lived within about 3 miles of at least one well that was in preproduction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese findings are novel in that they identify a previously unknown adverse health outcome of oil and gas construction (risk of fungal infection), and a novel route of Valley fever exposure,\u201d said Lisa Couper, the paper\u2019s corresponding author and a UC Berkeley postdoc, in an email.<\/p>\n
David \u200bGonz\u00e1lez, an assistant professor of environmental sciences at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, studies the effects of oil drilling.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Valley fever, we\u2019re predominantly worried about sources of dust, and we know that oil and gas drilling produces dust,\u201d \u200bGonz\u00e1lez said. \u201cSo it naturally raised this question of, \u2018Could that be causing problems for people with respect to contracting Valley fever?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
John Taylor, a professor of plant and microbial biology, became interested in Coccidioides in the 1990s and has spent the past few years collecting soil samples in southern Central Valley.<\/p>\n
Taylor said it\u2019s hard to avoid breathing in spores in areas where Coccidiodes lives, but for workers in industries that demand soil excavation work \u2014 from construction to solar panel installation and movie set development in the Central Valley \u2014 masking could help their chances.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way to avoid being infected by this fungus would be to wear a HEPA-filtered, powered full-face mask all the time,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cSo nobody\u2019s going to do that. In fact, they don\u2019t even do it when they\u2019re excavating.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention receive reports of about 20,000 Valley fever cases per year, but according to a spokesperson, the real number of cases is much higher since many people either never get tested or are diagnosed with a different illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf 1,000 people have this fungus in their lungs, 600 won\u2019t know it.\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
The infection can cause flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough and shortness of breath, as well as chest pain, joint pain and rashes. There is currently no vaccine for Valley fever.<\/p>\n
From 2011 to 2014, a Valley fever outbreak occurred at two San Luis Obispo County solar farms. Then in 2024, public health officials linked a Valley fever outbreak that infected nearly 20 people to a music festival in Kern County.<\/p>\n
According to \u200bGonz\u00e1lez, worsening droughts and precipitation patterns that are drying out parts of southern Central Valley also make it more likely that people could contract Valley fever, since drier soil means more dusty conditions.<\/p>\n
\u200bOn the upside, oil and gas well production is generally going down in California, \u200baccording to Gonz\u00e1lez.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn previous studies, we\u2019ve been focused on the risks from air pollution when you\u2019re drilling a well or the potential for chemicals that are used in well drilling to contaminate water,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez said. \u201cNow we also know that there\u2019s another concern, which could be the potential for spreading this fungal disease in places where the disease is prevalent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley researchers just unearthed more of what causes Valley fever, a fungal lung infection, and the answer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[151,8291,512,188454,42878,188456,5951,188458,735,188455,143,145,144,188453,5912,6035,149,188457,42651],"class_list":["post-480476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bakersfield","tag-cdc","tag-central-valley","tag-coccidioides","tag-coccidioidomycosis","tag-david-gonzlez","tag-john-taylor","tag-justin-remais","tag-kern-county","tag-lisa-couper","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-remais-lab","tag-san-joaquin-valley","tag-san-luis-obispo-county","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-uc-berkeley-school-of-public-health","tag-valley-fever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}