{"id":851009,"date":"2026-09-17T13:56:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851009\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T13:56:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:56:25","slug":"a-mysterious-disease-is-striking-texas-farm-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851009\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mysterious Disease Is Striking Texas Farm Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n

Chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu) is linked to intense heat and affects agricultural workers in hot regions<\/p>\n

The disease disproportionately impacts undocumented workers, who avoid seeking medical care due to immigration status<\/p>\n

Experts warn CKDu and other heat-sensitive illnesses may worsen with climate change and limited access to healthcare<\/p>\n

A mysterious kidney disease<\/a> is striking farm workers in Texas.<\/p>\n

Texas hospitals are reporting a rise in cases of CKDu, or chronic kidney disease of unknown origin, per a review from Texas Monthly<\/a>, \u2014 and a substantial portion are occurring in undocumented workers. Out of 364 of emergency dialysis<\/a> cases in uninsured or undocumented patients between 2012 and 2015 at Harris Health (the public health system for Harris County), 17% didn\u2019t have an identifiable cause like diabetes or high blood pressure.<\/p>\n

While researchers may not know the exact cause of CKDu, they know it\u2019s related to intense heat, Dr. Richard J. Johnson, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and an expert on kidney disease, told Fox News Digital.<\/a>It can present as \u201ctypical signs of severe chronic kidney disease<\/a>, including fatigue, sleep disturbances, nausea, weakness [and] shortness of breath from anemia<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Farmland<\/a><\/p>\n

Farmland in TexasCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

The disease \u201ctypically strikes young to middle-aged adults, more often men, who work in agriculture and manual labor in hot, low-resource regions,\u201d Dr. Gokul Paidi, a family medicine physician at Community Healthcare Network in New York, told the outlet. They don\u2019t have any of the traditional risk factors for kidney disease, like diabetes or high blood pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It initially surfaced in El Salvador, New England Journal of Medicine<\/a>says, when\u201c unusually large numbers of agricultural workers began dying from irreversible renal failure\u201d in the 1990s. There, it\u2019s called Mesoamerican nephropathy.<\/p>\n

And CKDu is \u201clikely to be just one of many heat-sensitive illnesses that will be unmasked and accelerated by climate change, \u201c NEJM says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Texas, it\u2019s unknown how many people are impacted, with experts saying many won\u2019t seek medical help given their undocumented status amid the recent surge in ICE arrests<\/a>. And recently, Texas Governor Greg Abbott<\/a> signed HB 2127, which abolished mandated water breaks.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/a><\/p>\n

Aerial view of workers on a farmCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

Take PEOPLE with you! Subscribe to PEOPLE magazine<\/a> to get the latest details on celebrity news, exclusive royal updates, how-it-happened true crime stories and more \u2014 right to your mailbox.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe population is so vulnerable and has such limited access to health services at all that screening for kidney disease is not on the radar,\u201d Rebecca Fischer, associate professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health at Texas A&M told Texas Monthly.\u00a0\u201cThis is a disease of poverty. It\u2019s a neglected disease, in a neglected population, in a neglected part of the world, in impoverished communities that, frankly, many people are not paying attention to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu) is linked to intense heat and affects agricultural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-851009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}