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NEWS > HEALTH > BRAZILIAN MODEL DEATH SPURS CALLS TO FIGHT DISEASE AND DEATH

BRAZILIAN MODEL DEATH SPURS CALLS TO FIGHT DISEASE AND DEATH

January 24 2009

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil – The tragic death of model Mariana Bridi da Costa has brought the nation of Brazil to a state of mourning. The 20-year-old former Miss World contestant succumbed to the illness that had already taken her hands and feet, an antibiotic resistant bacterium known as Pseudomonas Aeruginosa. The death of the Brazilian beauty has brought renewed calls to for doctors to find a cure for disease and infection in order to prevent death.

“The story of Mariana da Costa is unfortunately not an uncommon one. Sepsis is one of the most common causes of death the world over. In the United States alone it is the tenth leading cause of death and the rates are significantly higher in countries without the advanced medical facilities and treatment available in the US,” said Scrape TV Health analyst Rebecca Phelps. “The difference here is that the person who died was young and beautiful, and was a little famous. That goes a long way to bringing attention to a disease.”

While the specific bacterium that killed da Costa is relatively rare, death by infection of the blood has taken a great number of famous people in the past. Many of those were either ill, infirmed, or elderly and so little fuss was made of the nature of the death but the death of a young beautiful model brings the need to fight the illness to the forefront like never before.

“Pope John Paul the second, Christopher Reeve, and even last year Sandy Allen who was the tallest woman in the world all succumbed to sepsis in one form or another. Granted they all had significant health issues and so the actual manner of death was largely ignored. But that’s the inherent danger of disease, it hides in the shadows and then strikes,” continued Phelps. “It’s easy to ignore something that kills who you expect to die anyone, but the cost of that ignorance can sometimes be the death of someone beautiful. When someone old or sick dies no matter how beloved there’s a latent understanding that it was going to happen and so the level of grief and shock isn’t as great. But when someone with a future goes the world cries, at least when they are famous.”

Louis Pasteur first observed bacteria in 1676 and medicine has been looking for ways to fight the microscopic bugs ever since. Despite that long history thousands die every year from one bacterium or another and science is no closer to a permanent solution.

“Doctors and scientists do their best but unfortunately they haven’t come up with a cure-all that could prevent death entirely. We’ve extended life, allowed people to live much healthier lives, but we still do not have a cure for death,” continued Phelps. “That day may never come but cases like this bring the problem to the forefront and can spur development. All it takes is a handful of celebrities to die for attention to be focussed on the issue. Thousands of deaths around the world are irrelevant in the face of one pretty celebrity, and that will always be the way.”

Others of course aren’t taking the death as hard as others. Few in the fashion industry are crying over the loss of da Costa who was twice a runner up in the Brazilian stage of the Miss World pageant and few saw her joining the supermodel ranks like her fellow Brazilians such as Gisele Bündchen and Ana Beatriz Barros.

“She was a beautiful girl, but beautiful and model are two separate things. She had a little too much baby fat and her look was limited, very ethnic. She would have had limited opportunities,” said Scrape TV Modeling analyst Heather Walters. “I don’t want to point any fingers, but once she had her hands and feet amputated it those limited opportunities pretty much dried up as well. You don’t see many wheelchair accessible catwalks and there’s no way any designer would want to see a model rolling around on the floor in a fifty thousand dollar dress. Her career was as dead as she is now and while it’s tragic that such a young person died in such a way, it really doesn’t register in the fashion world.”

Approximately 150,000 other people died the same day as da Costa around the world. It’s not clear how many died of sepsis or how many were attractive.    

Lauren Hebert, Health Correspondent

NEWS > HEALTH > BRAZILIAN MODEL DEATH SPURS CALLS TO FIGHT DISEASE AND DEATH