Valley Fever

Back in the late 90s I was travelling to Bakersfield , CA on a regular basis. The hands there told me about a disease that was caused by the spores of a prehistoric fungus. If you breathed them in, they could cause a severe respiratory disease that was sometimes fatal. This sounded like science fiction to me and I thought they were pulling my leg until I did a little research and found that there was indeed a real disease called Coccidioidomycosis. While it was endemic in areas of the west, it was not very common. Now the CDC tells us that cases are on the rise.