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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren focal Bomb here with a classic

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Speaker 1: episode from our erstwhile host, Christian Sager. Folk wisdom can

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Speaker 1: give us some pretty strange advice on everything from healing

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Speaker 1: wounds to predicting the weather or the sex of a baby,

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Speaker 1: but some of it may be wiser than we think.

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Speaker 1: Today's question is should you really avoid raw oysters during

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Speaker 1: months whose names don't contain the letter R? Hey, brain stuff,

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Speaker 1: it's Christian Sager here. Did you know that every month sands, May, June, July,

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Speaker 1: and August has the letter R in its name. Don't

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Speaker 1: look it up, take my word for it. Did you

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Speaker 1: also know there's an old wives tale that you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: eat raw oysters in months without the letter R in it.

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Speaker 1: Once again, you don't need to look it up. I'm

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Speaker 1: not gonna lie to you. The logic behind this is

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Speaker 1: that if you eat oysters during these months, you could

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Speaker 1: get sick. Sounds like crazy talk, right, and perhaps so,

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Speaker 1: perhaps not. But if you think about it, the months

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Speaker 1: without an are fall during the summer in the Northern Hemisphere,

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Speaker 1: and the truth is that if you eat raw oysters

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Speaker 1: in the summer you do run the risk of getting

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Speaker 1: violently sick. That's because, and let me tell you this

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Speaker 1: does not come from an old wife. When the weather

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Speaker 1: is warm, bacteria known as Vibrio vulnificious and Vibrio parahemoliticus thrive,

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Speaker 1: and these pathogens multiply like nobody's business in warm water,

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Speaker 1: especially in the Gulf of Mexico, where there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of oysters harvested. So eating raw oysters during summer

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Speaker 1: theoretically could increase your chances of becoming sick. Unlike chicken, pork,

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Speaker 1: or hamburger, all of which stink to high heaven when

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Speaker 1: they go bad, oysters do not, so you can't tell

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Speaker 1: when an oyster has turned the corner. They're also usually

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Speaker 1: not rancid to the taste. However, you'll feel the effects

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Speaker 1: about twenty four to forty eight hours after eating an

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Speaker 1: oyster that's gone bad with vibrio chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea,

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Speaker 1: you know the drill. In some people, high doses of

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Speaker 1: vibrio can actually be life threatening, especially the elderly, those

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Speaker 1: with compromised immune systems, and people who drink too much alcohol.

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Speaker 1: But let's be clear, infections caused by all Vibrio species

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Speaker 1: are rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates

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Speaker 1: they're about eighty thousand Vibrio illnesses of all types each

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Speaker 1: year in the United States. More than half are related

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Speaker 1: to eating contaminated food. The most common strain, Vibrio parahemolyticus,

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Speaker 1: is responsible for forty thod illnesses annually. Those numbers are

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Speaker 1: a drop in the bucket compared to salmonila, which the

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Speaker 1: c d C says is responsible for more than one

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Speaker 1: million illnesses each year. Those eating oysters harvested from the

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Speaker 1: Gulf Coast, where the water typically is warmer than along

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Speaker 1: the East and West coasts, should be on guard. That's

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Speaker 1: because Vibrio thrives when the water temperature near sixty eight

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Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit or twenty degrees celsius. So if you're going

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Speaker 1: to saddle up to an oyster bar during the summer

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Speaker 1: months and are concerned whether these slimy suckers are contamidated,

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Speaker 1: well asked the chef where they're harvested from. Most chefs

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Speaker 1: are reliable and only by from reputable fisheries and purveyors

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Speaker 1: they trust. Or you can just stick to the cold

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Speaker 1: water East or West Coast oysters until the chillier months

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Speaker 1: return in the Gulf. Today's episode was written by John Paritano,

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Speaker 1: produced by Dylan Fagan, Lord Berlante, and Tyler Clang. For

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Speaker 1: more on this and lots of other topics, visit how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of

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