CDC: Amoeba didn’t die in whitewater center’s murky churn

By EMERY P. DALESIO and TOM FOREMAN Jr.
Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pointing to a problem with murky waters in the North Carolina water rapids course where an Ohio teen is believed to have been exposed to a brain-attacking amoeba.

The CDC’s associate director for healthy water said Friday the rushing water channels at the U.S. National Whitewater Center were carrying enough debris that the chlorine and ultraviolet light that might have killed the organism didn’t work.

Dr. Michael Beach called the flowing channel murky. Beach wouldn’t comment on whether a more effective system could have saved the life of 18-year-old Lauren Seitz of Westerville, Ohio, who died June 19.

The illness is very rare. The CDC says there have been only about 140 cases nationwide since 1962. The most recent was in Texas last August.

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