Parasitic infections and other diseases more familiar to the developing world are increasingly afflicting poor and minority populations in the U.S., the WSJ reports this morning. Public-health experts say they still don’t have a handle on how best to respond. But the United States has a track record of successfully facing down public-health threats linked to poverty. In the early 20th century, when rural residents tended to use bushes as privies, hookworm infestations bedeviled many communities, especially in the South, where some counties reported infection rates of 75%. The larvae are shed in feces, thrive in moist soil and burrow into passing hosts through their bare feet. The parasites were known as “the germ of laziness” because they caused anemia and a profound lack of energy. In 1910, John D. Rockefeller launched a campaign against hookworm. Workers built outhouses at schools, encouraged

children to wear shoes, went door-to-door discussing hygiene and hosted picnics to talk about testing and treatment. Within five years, hookworm was nearly eradicated. Public health experts say the first step in fighting modern-day infections of poverty is to learn more about them. There is no national surveillance for these diseases, so researchers can only estimate their prevalence, severity and spread. Basic research on transmission is also lacking. “We have a serious challenge in terms of figuring out our public-health priorities,” Marian McDonald, an associate director for minority and women’s health at the CDC, told the Health Blog. “We need to find out what we know, what we do not know… and what we need to do.” Hookworm as seen through a microscope, via CDC

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How John D. Rockefeller Defeated an Intestinal Parasite