Cafeteria crime

Fertilizer may be good for plants but bad for planters.

Two men from Rochester, New York were hospitalized after using bat feces or guano for their marijuana plants. Doctors initially suspected carcinoma for the 59-year-old patient as he was a heavy tobacco and marijuana user, but a biopsy found that he was positive for histoplasmosis, a rare type of pneumonia caused by breathing in spores of histoplasmosis capsulatum from guano, the Oxford Academic reports, citing the 12 December 2024 issue of the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

The severe weight loss of the other patient, 64, was initially blamed on hypo-osmolar hyponatremia or low sodium level in the blood. Further tests also found he was suffering from histoplasmosis infection.

The older of the two men told doctors his attic was infested by bats and he used their manure to fertilize his marijuana plants. He was discharged but was readmitted to the Strong Memorial Hospital a month later and he died there.

The 59-year-old patient, meanwhile, told doctors he bought guano online to fertilize his marijuana plants. His condition later deteriorated and he also died.

Meanwhile, a former custodian at the Elizabeth F. Moore School in Upper Deerfield, New Jersey pleaded guilty to second-degree official misconduct at a court hearing on 13 January, New York Daily News (NYDN) reports.

Giovanni A. Impellizzeri, 27, of Vineland was charged with several counts of aggravated assault, tampering with food products, attempted endangerment, and official misconduct.

A concerned citizen saw videos uploaded by Impellizzeri in an online chat group that showed him “urinating in mixing bowls, rubbing his genitals on bread, and putting bleach and feces on food” in the school cafeteria in 2023, according to NYDN. The whistleblower reported the videos to authorities that led to Impellizzeri’s arrest and prosecution.

He admitted to tainting the cafeteria food and utensils with urine, feces and bleach to make children sick, the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office said in a press release on Tuesday, NYDN says.

No schoolchildren fell sick from Impellizzeri’s crime though.