Thank you for pointing that out. The fact is that authorities closed this area until very recently this tells me that the river water had a higher content of the toxin than what was in the location you are speaking of in your area. That is why the authorities in your area didn't close it otherwise they would have.
By the way this post stems from #644 in thread 6 if anyone may be interested in the actual discussion.
I tried looking for the exact date of when the area was reopened. At the time when the closure started it was to remain closed until September 17, 2021. I thought it was extended, my apologies if it was not. I wish I could find what the amount in the Merced river was and if the algae mats were a high amount or not. Maybe someone who is has more knowledge about this could post. Regardless finding the correct composition or not Dose is important. I was reading a SFGATE article that was talking about this family's hike and I found a part of the article interesting where it mentions the following:
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
“Even if you had extreme confidence that they had been poisoned, finding evidence of that poisoning will be very challenging,” he says. “But it still boils down to: What was the dose they received? If it was a really high dose, there might still be enough left to confidently identify it.”
"Late in the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency was using anatoxin in suicide pills for agents who fell into enemy hands. The compound is also referred to as Very Fast Death Factor.
And yet, there are no reported human deaths from toxic algae. This is largely due to the fact that adults do not often swallow large amounts of polluted water. Anatoxin also breaks down fairly quickly and easily; it doesn’t stay in tissues very long, according to Weiss. For that reason, he says, he’ll be surprised if anatoxins show up in the toxicology reports for Gerrish and Chung."
I guess if it acted so fast then obviously its the dose, which in the article it discusses a little about the amount.
And yes at the time it was a crime scene so LE had to close the area to investigate. I also wonder if on hotter days such as the day this family was there I wonder if the toxin's were higher then when LE began their investigation. IMO the answer to this would probably be yes because for this toxin the higher the temperature the more it thrives. So my response to your post remains the same as the day you and your dog were out in that body of water with others including children and dogs it could be the level of the Anatoxin A was lower than what would have made dogs seriously ill. I take back my saying Oski would have died drinking the water although it is possible depending on the amount the poor dog may have ingested and the level of the toxin that day. So the two scenes yours on a pleasant day compared to this nightmare are completely different. (I hope I have posted correctly if not sorry I may try again.)
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