Avoiding drinking dirty stream water but drinking from elephant dung instead

From BearWiki

Claim: Refusing to drink water because it is "contaminated", but drinking from feces instead, is counterproductive.

Most waterborne diseases are spread through the fecal-oral route (giardiasis, hepatitis A, hepatitis E, bacterial dysentery, typhoid fever, vibrio parahaemolyticus infections, and polio to name a few). Drinking water from dung is effectively drinking a concentrate of waterborne contaminants. Bear chose to do this rather than drink from a stream because there was dead turtle in it -- so long dead that it was beginning to bleach and its shell had fallen apart.

A decomposing animal in the water can contaminate it with E. coli, but dung is positively loaded with E. coli. It was E. coli from cattle manure that recently contaminated US spinach.[1] Elephant dung can be infested with several kinds of germs, such as E. coli, salmonella, clostridium, psudomonas, pastuerella (haemorrhagic septicaemia), mycobacterium (tuberculosis), foot-and-mouth, and anthrax, as well as liver fluke eggs, cestode worm (tapeworm) eggs, and copious roundworms and eggs (which they instinctively annually eat vermifuges to purge). It can also attract biting flies that spread diseases like trypanosomiasis [2]

If you are going to die of dehydration soon anyways, there's an argument that could be made for drinking any non-saline, non-poisonous water available. Naturally, this must be a last resort, as vomitting and diahhrea will deprive your body of water greatly.

On Conan O'Brien, Bear goes so far as to claim that dung is "sterile".[3]

[edit] Analysis

Support: I had giardia once. The first few days after it took effect I was afraid I was going to die. After a week I was afraid I wasn't going to die.

Oppose: Any experienced guide in the the Savannah will tell you that elephant dung IS in fact sterile, making it literally impossible for it to carry any kind of dangerous bacteria. This has been common knowledge to African natives for ages.^{(citation needed)}

Support: The article already references a scientific paper not only talking that there are bacteria in elephant dung, but what kinds. The concept that any dung would be sterile is laughable; dung is a treasure trove of nutrients for microbes. Just because Bear makes a patently ridiculous claim doesn't make it true.

"Support:" "Water that has been lying in a pool or rock could be stagnant and stagnant water is a breeding ground for bacteria or may be contaminated by animal waste." From Bear Grylls just before reaching the lava tube about 18 minutes into the Kilauea episode.

Oppose: Please take the time to actually look at the sources given. In the instance of the bacteria in elephant dung, the source is a manual for mahouts and camp managers on caring for sick elephants. That would be like equating all sexual organs to the ones we were shown in health class. Bear specifically states that it is "fresh" dung. Just as fresh urine is sterile initially, if you leave it to sit for a while, bacteria will form

Support: Right -- because, as we know, wild animals are usually in immaculate health, right?  ;) In no animal is dung sterile, or even close to it. Bacteria live inside the intestines of all animals and contribute to (and/or steal from) the digestive process. Urine is sterile because the fluid is excreted by the cells in the kidneys; they're a barrier to the flow of unwanted things (including pathogens), excepting the case of infection. The only way to have sterile dung is to be on antibiotics.

I would also add: read the link you're complaining about. I'll quote: "Fourth, much of the digestion of nutrients is done not by the elephant's own digestive juices but by tiny germs [bacteria] and animals [protozoa]." Sound sterile to you? "With elephants you have huge amounts of poor quality food passing through a tube 40 to 70 metres long and very wide, with much of the digestion being done by guest creatures - the whole process taking 24-50 hours before the dung emerges. Given these strange facts, it should not be surprising that the elephant's guts are perhaps its weakest point." -- sound sterile to you? "There are two important types of worms in the alimentary tract, flatworms and roundworms. They are often found in elephants that are raised in natural conditions." -- sound sterile to you? Are you going to make me repeat the entire article?

Support: "The amount of animal dung here means you can get any number of parasitic or bacterial diseases" From Bear Grylls as he drinks dirty water from the ground on the Patagonia episode.

Neutral: "It was my first time drinking from elephant dung. We were down in Africa one time and an old ranger told me 'if you’re ever really thirsty you can drink the juice from the dung of the elephant because of how fast the digestion works.' And I always remembered it and when we were following these elephants in that Kenya episode I just thought, 'Hey, this would be cool, let’s see if this works.' " Bear Grylls, from an interview (http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1744471) with Amir Blumenfeld of CollegeHumor. Here Bear implies he did not know whether this stunt was safe with "let's see if this works." He also quotes the ranger as telling him that elephant digestion is fast, but someone above says that elephant digestion is slow.

Support: He also says it's "sterile." I'll say it again: It's FEAR FACTOR with one contestant.