In the never-ending campaign to scare the hell out of us, government-paid environmental zealots have come up with RWIs, or recreational water illness. I found this (scroll down) on The Herald-Sun‘s Web site:
The state divisions of Environmental Health and Public Health, as part of national Recreational Water Illness Prevention Week next week, remind swimmers to help prevent recreational water illness.
Although healthy swimmers can get sick from recreational water illness, or RWIs, young, elderly and immuno-suppressed persons as well as pregnant women and diabetics are especially at risk.
I spent my early years swimming in farm ponds, lakes, rivers, reservoirs and other assorted swimming holes in Georgia. Not once in all those years did my mom tell me to watch out for RWIs, yet I made it through without ever becoming ill, and that was before anyone cared what was in those waters. I would imagine the people who had similar experiences numbers in the millions.
One thing you have to admire about nanny state bureaucrats, though, is their marketing acumen. They understand that if you name a week after something and give it an acronym, the media will obligingly get the scary word out.
