California's Unspoken Health Problem: Brain Parasites

An anonymous reader writes "Sunnyvale, California is a town 40 miles outside of San Francisco, in the Bay Area. As in most of California, the weather is mild, and the winters are short, even sometimes warm. On December 20, Sara Alvarez took her youngest child for a walk in the park in town. As daylight faded, Alvarez lost feeling in her right leg, then her left foot. Her body became numb, and she became weak. At 10:15 pm, her husband drove her to a hospital in Redwood City, about 20 minutes away from their town. There, over the course of Christmas, doctors batted around diagnoses: tumor, cancer. Finally, Alvarez received a brain scan that revealed the truth: neurocysticercosis, a calcified tapeworm in her brain (link contains images of brain surgery)."

Comments

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new brain parasite overlo...

Re:Obligatory

[gtcodave]

Finally the symbiotic friend I've always dreamed of.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

After RTFA I, for one, DO NOT welcome our new brain parasite overloards

...the trouble with tapeworms occurs when they reproduce. The host expels thousands of the tapeworms' larvae out of their anus, possibly infecting other people.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I ate some raw meat, and I don't feel a th,qzqppzbqpbqpzzzzzpzzzttt...ffft...I am Corg.. Take me to your leader.. I come in peace... to serve man

Re:Obligatory

[ackthpt]

After RTFA I, for one, DO NOT welcome our new brain parasite overloards

...the trouble with tapeworms occurs when they reproduce. The host expels thousands of the tapeworms' larvae out of their anus, possibly infecting other people.

Don't walk around bare foot.

Don't eat raw vegetables from fields people or dogs poop in

Don't eat raw meat.

Get regular checkups, you can always ask for blood tests to see if you have blood parasites.

Re:Obligatory

[lawnboy5-O]

This is not a political article?

Re:Obligatory

[DarwinSurvivor]

Finally the symbiotic friend I've always dreamed of.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re:Obligatory

[ourlovecanlastforeve]

I don't think that's obligatory and in fact it might be a little callous considering the context.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

i think that might be fine irony

Re:Obligatory

[mrmeval]

That's Goa'uld and their pretty nasty and it takes a lot to get cured of them.

For the children
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa'uld

Re:Obligatory

[Eponymous Hero]

if he's emotionally attached to the tapeworm because he needs a friend, then the parasite-parasite relationship might be considered symbiotic. me, i'm not one to judge ::coughlosercough::

(wikipedia gets him off the hook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiote)

The definition of symbiosis is controversial among scientists. Some believe symbiosis should only refer to persistent mutualisms, while others believe it should apply to any types of persistent biological interactions (i.e. mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic).

or vagina. symbiotic vagina? been there, done that...

Re:Obligatory

[0111 1110]

Don't walk around bare foot.

Aren't you thinking of hookworms?

Don't eat raw vegetables from fields people or dogs poop in

Dogs? Because only dogs can have tapeworm infections? If you want to be safe you should avoid eating any raw vegetables that weren't grown somewhere protected from wild animals. Like hydroponic or greenhouse vegetables.

Don't eat raw meat.

Or rare meat. The core of the meat has to reach a high enough temperature to reliably kill the parasites. 145F for pork and fish. 165 for everything else. Note that chefs routinely go lower than these temperatures in order to avoid tough, leathery meat. I would imagine that fish tapeworms are the most common in the US since cooking fish too long will ruin it. And then of course there is sushi.

Get regular checkups, you can always ask for blood tests to see if you have blood parasites.

Blood tests are not considered reliable

Eosinophil counts are not diagnostically reliable. Eosinophilia is sporadically present and does not correlate with the severity of the infection. Eosinophil counts also do not help in monitoring treatment modalities.

Re:Obligatory

[execthis]

A family member, friend or restaurant cook infected with an adult tapeworm can secrete tens of thousands of tapeworm eggs daily, which can be easily ingested by others.

The major don't seems to be:

Don't eat at a restaurant which has a cook who is an immigrant from one of the affected countries. Nowadays, that may be almost an impossibility.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Fish tapeworms won't be found in sushi -- fish sold for raw consumption has to be frozen to kill the parasites.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

In the United States, sushi fish must be deep-frozen before being served, at a low enough temperature and long enough duration to kill all parasites.

Re:Obligatory

[byornski]

Or rare meat. The core of the meat has to reach a high enough temperature to reliably kill the parasites. 145F for pork and fish. 165 for everything else. Note that chefs routinely go lower than these temperatures in order to avoid tough, leathery meat. I would imagine that fish tapeworms are the most common in the US since cooking fish too long will ruin it. And then of course there is sushi.

Fresh Beef, Veal, Lamb Steaks, roasts, chops 145 3 minutes

Re:Obligatory

[KDR_11k]

The cook can be infected the same way so you've gotta make sure none of the restaurants that the cook has ever eaten at has a cook who immigrated from an infected country or has eaten at a restaurant where the cook...

So what's your Bacon number then?

Re:Obligatory

[Jens Egon]

Or rare meat. The core of the meat has to reach a high enough temperature to reliably kill the parasites. 145F for pork and fish. 165 for everything else. Note that chefs routinely go lower than these temperatures in order to avoid tough, leathery meat. I would imagine that fish tapeworms are the most common in the US since cooking fish too long will ruin it. And then of course there is sushi.

Here (Denmark, Europe) the local health authorities think freezing hard enough for long enough will render raw fish safe for eating.

Fish may be sold as safe for raw eating iff they have been frozen to below -21C for at least 24 hours.

My freezer can do -18C or - 30C, so here it's -30C for 24 hours. And I mostly use other things in stead of (raw) fish.

Re:Obligatory

[hey!]

Don't walk around bare foot.

Don't eat raw vegetables from fields people or dogs poop in

Don't eat raw meat.

Get regular checkups, you can always ask for blood tests to see if you have blood parasites.

I once met a farm worker activist who always washed his vegetable thoroughly because supervisors don't let immigrant farm workers take bathroom breaks. That means they go in the fields, but that's not the supervisor's problem. They also make the workers use short handled-shovels, even though it makes the work back-breaking, because it made it easy to know who was working and who was taking an unauthorized rest.

In any case, there's a simple, inexpensive answer to the problems of parasites and other pathogens in food (besides thorough washing and cooking): irradiation. If the ignorant public didn't think food irradiation would turn them into zombie mutants, you could eat rare meat, raw fish, and less than fanatically washed vegetables without any danger at all.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, that's only an FDA recommendation, not a requirement. In Japan, a few restaurants cut up the living fish right before your eyes - it's literally not possible for it to be any more fresh.

- T

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I thought over half of the US population qualified as insects in Human form, but anyway, have you seen the last tse tse flies from Africa around? I am still waiting for the locust plague but all you get is a few cannibal crickets and perhaps African bees? Though of course NY should be called the lyce state (bedbugs), very convenient when you have so many people *speaking* around and you have to shut them up... what s a few insects growing in their brains, be tarantulas (sic) or lyme ticks if it makes for a *silent* place for Zongo to manifest itself in your day dreams to speak of the secrets of the Yun and Yon? But naw, must be nothing, there is NO OTC medicament for brain parasites, drug stores cannot be so irresponsible, can they?

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on what country you're in....

Re:Obligatory

[cerberusss]

The cook can be infected the same way so you've gotta make sure none of the restaurants that the cook has ever eaten at has a cook who immigrated from an infected country or has eaten at a restaurant where the cook...

Also, since cooks eat other cooks to level up, a high-level cook has a high chance to be infected.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Blood tests are extremely reliable when you select the correct one.

Getting an ELISA (Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test for T. solium IgG is very sensitive and specific for antibodies against T. solium.

It is an expensive test, though, and no doctor is going to order a panel of parasite antibody tests just because you'd like to know. They might order a stool exam, but that only helps if the parasites are actively shedding ova in your intestines, which is not the case in the article.

Also, when living in a country that commonly encounters parasites from undercooked food, such as Japan, doctors are familiar with the symptoms and will get to a diagnosis quickly. Since this is a rarity in the US, doctors have a much harder time coming to a diagnosis.

Re:Obligatory

[GargamelSpaceman]

Some years ago, I had three cats and a dog, and they all had tapeworms. You can tell because of the tapeworm segments in their turds. I didn't know what kind of worms they were at first, so I got 'dewormer' from the grocery store and gave them all doses. I tried this a couple of times with no effect.

Then I went on the internet, and found out they were tapeworms. The dewormer said not effective against tapeworms. Turns out none of the dewomers I could find were effective against tapeworms. I was looking at a vet bill for 4 animals to get tape worm medicine. I couldn't believe no place sold tapeworm medicine. ( Maybe somewhere like Tractor Supply would have it, but in those days there was no such thing around where I live. Tractor Supply seems to have the good drugs often, so I'd look there first now. )

Anyway I had to order tapeworm medicine from Austrailia, and it cured all four animals. Is Tapeworm Medicine illegal in the US without a prescription? Are people out there getting high sniffing dewormer?

Anyway, maybe having tapeworm medicine available would decrease the amount of them going around.

Just my 2 cents.

This is why we cook our meats

[the_humeister]

This comes from pork, so don't eat undercooked pork. Tapeworms, in general, come from raw/undercooked meat. Pigs just happen to harbor the ones that sometimes go to person's brain.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read TFA, you'd know that they are brought in by filthy immigrants from filthy countries. The note that the infestations are taking root in California is a big indicator of that, with California being a sanctuary state and all. Come on in, all you stinky unbathed barefoot burrito eaters! You get everything for free at the taxpayers' expense!

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[morcego]

There is a tapeworm that comes from cow meet also, although it is less aggressive and rarer than the pork one. So yeah, I agree the most likely cause if poorly cooked pork meat.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[geekoid]

hmm, that would be really odd from Pork grown in the US, these days. It's really clean compared to other countries. The exception being 'natural' or 'organic' small farms. Often the thing it's natural for a pig to eat trash and left overs.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[ackthpt]

There is a tapeworm that comes from cow meet also, although it is less aggressive and rarer than the pork one. So yeah, I agree the most likely cause if poorly cooked pork meat.

Cows?!? How dare you ... oh, wait you didn't mention mad cow disease in Texas. Nemmind.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I don't get it. The immigrants are transmitting tapeworms to Californian pigs? Or directly transmitting them to purebred but presumably cannibalistic Californians? Or people are eating immigrants' lunches?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says that the tapeworms can be spread by humans. A human host who ate tapeworm-infested pork can harbour an adult tapeworm. That adult tapeworm will produce eggs. Those eggs may be spread from the human host to other humans.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[oic0]

Yes, if you eat their feces

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in California. Here, there are so many immigrants that we just eat them.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[xmousex]

A family member, friend or restaurant cook infected with an adult tapeworm can secrete tens of thousands of tapeworm eggs daily, which can be easily ingested by others.

eating food prepared by an infected person. one infected person at a restaurant could infect a few hundred people in a day.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[ackthpt]

I don't get it. The immigrants are transmitting tapeworms to Californian pigs? Or directly transmitting them to purebred but presumably cannibalistic Californians? Or people are eating immigrants' lunches?

Transmitting between people, not so hard if you live in undeveloped conditions. If your toilet is close to where you grow/raise your own food you're going to get something eventually. This is why proper disposal of human waste is important and using uncomposted manure for fertilizer is such a bad idea.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[jeffasselin]

By clean, you mean "stuffed full of antibiotics and raised in atrocious conditions"?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside of the feather Indians, aren't you all immigrants? You eat each other? Well, that explains Hollywood.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[hawguy]

If you read TFA, you'd know that they are brought in by filthy immigrants from filthy countries. The note that the infestations are taking root in California is a big indicator of that, with California being a sanctuary state and all. Come on in, all you stinky unbathed barefoot burrito eaters! You get everything for free at the taxpayers' expense!

While it's always heartening to see an ethnic rant, not all of California's disadvantaged immigrants come from the south, and not all of them get welfare assistance.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[morcego]

hmm, that would be really odd from Pork grown in the US, these days. It's really clean compared to other countries. The exception being 'natural' or 'organic' small farms. Often the thing it's natural for a pig to eat trash and left overs.

You make a very good point. The proliferation of "organic" production and "farmer markets" open a big door toward infection. The problem is not those, but that people got used to no worrying, since their food is already sterilized, pasteurized, irradiated and whatnot into oblivion. When you go organic/natural production, you have to take certain measure to assure food safety.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside of the feather Indians, aren't you all immigrants? You eat each other? Well, that explains Hollywood.

The Indians are immigrants too, idiot. Everyone come from Africa.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[geekoid]

why is the infected person bleeding and/or shitting all over the food?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they're lazy fucks who don't wash their hands properly, then prepare food for you. You can get it from a restaurant, you don't need to undercook pork.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously you have never heard of tape worms? I thought this was common knowledge. And as the sibling poster said, tape worms do not spread from human to human (atleast if you have proper waste disposal system)

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Libertarians insisted that the Health department be closed and replaced with private screening.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[geekoid]

By clean I mean healthy.

" "stuffed full of antibiotics and raised in atrocious conditions"?"
please show me scientific evidences that causes any harm in the person eating the pork.

I know your an ninny who takes what fits a preconcieved bias instead of actually looking at research and think. Unlike you, other people reading this are capable of thinking., so for their sake, some facts:

Antibiotics are given strategically, administered when pigs are sick, susceptible or exposed to illness. It's not just given to them willy-nilly.

Using antibiotics strategically has given us in the US the safest pork in the world.
Antibiotics are give under strict guidelines, and only antibiotics that the FDA approves for use in pigs.

Over 20 years pork has gotten safer and healthier.

decades of study and work has given us a time where you caqn actual get safe rare cooked park, and a bunch of scientific illiterate yahoos want to throw us back to the 50s.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Militant Vegan Alert!

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

The Africans are immigrants too, idiot. You all come from Alpha Centauri.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[mrmeval]

What about regions in the process of going back to third world status? You have Louisiana that can't process it's drinking water kill one type of brain parasite. Now you have Cali with an infestation? WHO IS NEXT?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidently you've never eaten mexican food before!

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

This comes from pork, so don't eat undercooked pork. Tapeworms, in general, come from raw/undercooked meat. Pigs just happen to harbor the ones that sometimes go to person's brain.

Yes op is very informative. It just has the wrong information. Intestinal tapeworms come from contaminated pork, but you get them in areas outside the intestines by ingesting contaminated fecal matter. Point being that even a vegan can suffer this condition if you prepare his food without the proper sanitation.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

why is the infected person bleeding and/or shitting all over the food?

Ever worked in a restaurant?

Scary.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[ppanon]

" "stuffed full of antibiotics and raised in atrocious conditions"?"
please show me scientific evidences that causes any harm in the person eating the pork.

The antibiotics are because the conditions are so cramped that bacterial disease transmission is extremely common. So the factory farms (chicken, pig, cow) are huge incubators for developing antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Many of the antibiotics also pass through to the stools, get diluted into the ground and groundwater, and result in an extended environment that allows for the evolution of antibiotic-resistant infections.

So does the person eating the pork get harmed directly due to ingestion? No. But when they or someone else later winds up catching an antibiotic-resistant bacterial strain that evolved thanks to the massive use of antibiotics in factory farming of meat animals? Yes.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Jeremy Erwin]

The Alpha Centaurans are immigrants too, idiot. They all came from Gliese 876.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think they *refry* those beans?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[whoever57]

Antibiotics are given strategically, administered when pigs are sick, susceptible or exposed to illness. It's not just given to them willy-nilly.

Wrong. In the US, farm animals are routinely given low doses of anti-biotics (in their food) just for the purpose of "growth promotion", despite the lack of any of the factors you list.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[krotkruton]

What is interesting to me is that vets base antibiotic doses on the animals weight. Ok, that's not so interesting. In fact, it's pretty obvious. The interesting part is that pharmacists generally don't. A 120 pound woman receives the same dose of antibiotics as a 250 pound man. That can lead to a variety of problems due to under- and over-dosing individuals, one of which is antibiotic resistant strains.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

This type of tapeworm is the type that is found in pork so that eliminates a certain type of immigrant if ya know what i mean wink wink nudge nudge.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[JoeMerchant]

Didn't anyone watch the last season finale of Battlestar Galactica?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked in a fast food restaurant. You're usually too busy to shit into people's food, but bleeding happens all the time. If you want to see a bloodbath, try furiously slicing 10lbs of onion rings on an industrial machine with zero safety features before your shift ends.

Actually, I never cut myself. People cut themselves when they get bored. I have an extremely risk averse personality, and there's nothing like huge cauldrons of boiling oil and spinning discs of death to keep my attention sharp.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[TubeSteak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jan/19/health.medicineandhealth3

Sanitation is the greatest medical milestone of the last century and a half, acccording to a poll carried out by the British Medical Journal.

Sanitation was the clear winner among 15 milestones shortlisted by readers of the journal, including the development of vaccines, which has safeguarded many children's lives, and the invention of the contraceptive pill, which was a contributory factor to significant social change.

Getting shit away from us has saved more lives than hand washing and antiobiotics.

It's hard for people in the developed world to understand the conditions that exist throughout Africa and Asia.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Galactica 80? No, I think that's the main reason it was cancelled...

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

ohh yeah, there are inspectors with gleaming badges pouring over every piece of meat that's labelled USDA. Approved by the FDA? f^*% the FDA! consciously poisoning people all over the country so they get their next job with the poison producers, compromising the whole world's ecosystem so they can buy another house! if pork is labeled and inspected like beef is then we don't know where it comes from or what's in it. ever heard of "equivelency"? that's where the FDA/USDA certifies foreign countries' standards of a food's production as "equivelent" and it is labeled USDA without an FDA/USDA inspector ever laying eyes on anything. What about BSE? when scientists discovered that BSE is caused from the industry practice of essentially feeding cow to cows the POS at the FDA or USDA announced that they would not outlaw this practice but instead had a new machine that would seperate the nervous tissue from the beef more accuratly! lymph nodes? i don't see any stinking lymph nodes! If you think your beloved government gives a shit about the healthiness of food in this country you're a f*&&#$ idiot!

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Antibiotics (to suppress e. Coli, etc., especially in piglets) in the feed are the
  problem, as well as "just because" prophylactic use. Yes, I raise sheep. Should be ano-brainer to use appropriate treatments on sick animals.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

and this ridiculous fear provides a convenient excuse for your pals at the gov who are raiding small whole milk producers, etc with guns drawn, destroying their inventory and crushing their small businesses and abhorant independence. it's monsanto or starvation! surf!

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this addiction to undercooked meat? If you must eat meat make sure it is cooked. Join the slow food movement.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

However, with the advent of multiculturalism, sanitation is frowned upon as a colonial imposition from a previous century and is inherently bigoted. Not shitting where one eats is so Rudyard Kipling, it's so chunk of beef in one hand, a mug of ale in the other and both heels on the necks of millions of swarthy-complexioned people.

--

Does that mean if I contract a third-world disease, I would be absolved of the sin strict of personal hygiene and household sanitation? Yes.

How do everyone know that I spoke the truth? You clicked that flag on the upper right, that's how.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, it is eating the poop from people who eat undercooked pork (or eating your own poop) that is the problem.

http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/images/ParasiteImages/A-F/Cysticercosis/Cysticercosis_LifeCycle.gif

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that this was about tapeworm, but... My grandfather had a story about this guy, maybe a salesman or someone who was trading with him. Sitting in grandfather's garage, talking. He started coughing, and seemed to be choking. Grandfather tried to help, and started the basics - heimlich style, and straight up opening the visitor's mouth to see what's wrong.

Out comes a thing, and that thing was grabbed and pulled out by Grandfather's bare hands. Tapeworm that apparently had gotten bored and thought it would go for a stroll.

I avoid pork religiously now, and not because I'm religious. Just thought I'd share, since knowing is half the battle.

Captcha: interest, as in this captcha is completely irrelevant to the story.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. Over 95% of all antibiotics, by volume, is given to farm animals.

And that is with already rampant over prescription in humans.

What is wrong is you say "US farm animals". This is done routinely throughout the world. Anywhere in the world where you have industrial scale farming, you have massive usage of antibiotics.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

the Dr should be the one doing the weight scaling. Yes it is done for many types of antibiotics given to humans.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[stephanruby]

This comes from pork, so don't eat undercooked pork. Tapeworms, in general, come from raw/undercooked meat.

...and fish.

Basically, also don't eat sushi/sashimi.

Salmon for instance has one type of tapeworm, although it goes elsewhere -- not the brain. :-)

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[slashmydots]

then when are people from California so unbelievably illogical compared to elsewhere? lol. I mean 8.75% sales tax, every handout program ever, and they're bankrupt? WTF? It must be an epidemic because nobody's brains are working!

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[jeffasselin]

You are lying, anyone taking 1 minute searching on Google can find articles like this one:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=our-big-pig-problem

That explains quite clearly how US producers use low dosage antibiotics to fatten animals. Some other countries may do the same, but many do not.

And the problem is not direct harm to the end consumer, but to the environment as well as creating a breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria that might then infect people - infections that cannot be treated using common antibiotics because they are resistant.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[ezakimak]

Farm-raised, grain-fed pork is by definition not healthy.
Grain-feeding pigs is nowhere close to their natural diet. They are omnivores--they naturally eat fruits, some veggies, and other *animals*, much like humans. *Grain* is neither fruit nor vegetable, and is nowhere in their natural diet. (It isn't in our natural diet either, but that's another topic.)
Interesting factoid #1: wild pork is *red* meat--not white.
Interesting factoid #2: wild boar and domestic pigs are the *same* species. When a pig escapes, it only takes about a year for it to grow its fur back and behave as if it had always been ferrel. (Which means that domesticated pigs are under distress--so much so that they shed their hair!)

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[CBravo]

When people from a pigfarm go to the hospital they are immediately quarantined in fear of resistant bacteria. That actually triggers farmers to start lowering the dosis for their pigs...

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[CBravo]

forgot to say where: Holland

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey idiot, -- on a line by itself means signature.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[whoever57]

What is interesting to me is that vets base antibiotic doses on the animals weight. Ok, that's not so interesting. In fact, it's pretty obvious. The interesting part is that pharmacists generally don't. A 120 pound woman receives the same dose of antibiotics as a 250 pound man.

Some (all?) drug doses are based on skin area, not total weight. The difference in skin area beteen a 120 pound woman and a 250 pound man isn't that great.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, don't eat ass

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[mirix]

Feral pigs get fur via interbreeding with wild boars, AFAIK.

That's akin to saying - domestic dogs have floppy ears because stress, if you let a chihuahua loose in the wild, it turns back into a wolf. The subspecies has permanent changes, not just environmental things.

But yeah, pigs weren't really designed to eat corn.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

One would presume from the article that immigrants are eatting eachother feces or are horrible at bathroom/hand sanitation. But reading between the lines, I assume that they are transmitted via osmossis or via telepathy. Perhapse it is a clever way for animals to kill all the humans and have the world for themselves again.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to popular thought, California isn't an underdeveloped country. First it is a state within a country, that country, while slipping in its status is no where near a underdeveloped country.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[myowntrueself]

What about regions in the process of going back to third world status? You have Louisiana that can't process it's drinking water kill one type of brain parasite. Now you have Cali with an infestation? WHO IS NEXT?

Lets hope its Washington DC. Where the politicians live.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[adolf]

What are you going on about?

We're talking about raw meat: Sliced animals, ready to prepare and consume.

AFAICT, the raw "non-organic" meat at Wal-Mart is not sterilized, pasteurized, irradiated, or "whatnot into oblivion".

In what meaningful way does does "organic" meat produced for "farmer markets" differ from these conditions?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Carewolf]

We're talking about raw meat: Sliced animals, ready to prepare and consume.

No, we are talking about sources of parasitic infections. Which are raw meat and organic vegetables.

The problem with organic foods is not the meat it is the vegetables, vegetables can have parasites if they haven't been sprayed against it, and especially if you use natural fertilizers and especially if you don't clean the vegetables because they look more authentic with a bit of dirt on them. In other words organic vegetables is a perfect storm for parasites.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

This story makes me so happy that I keep kosher.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[PCM2]

why is the infected person bleeding and/or shitting all over the food?

They don't have to shit in the food. Have you ever been to a restaurant restroom? You know that sign that says "employees must wash hands"? There's a reason for that sign.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I only saw the first season finale.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[CptNerd]

You're from Vega? What orbit?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, that would be really odd from Pork grown in the US, these days. It's really clean compared to other countries. The exception being 'natural' or 'organic' small farms. Often the thing it's natural for a pig to eat trash and left overs.

I used to help slaughter up to 400 swine a day few years ago in texas and every single pig had a softball sized cyst somewhere on its body and it was not uncommon to see 12" hookworms on the floor trying to grab onto the squeegee

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[budgenator]

My understanding was all pork in the US was hard frozen which kills the parasites, between that and not feeding hogs uncooked garbage the problem is extremely rare. Also Brining and or smoking wipes out the parasites, so real man-food like Bacon, Ham, and BBQ are all OK too.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Or saying if you let a negro loose around whites, he'll become civilized.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Galactica 80? No, I think that's the main reason it was cancelled...

Not sure if you are joking or not. I re-watched Galactica 80 in whole recently (saw it as a youngster on TV), and looking at it with 3 decades more of avid sci-fi reading and watching under my belt, I concluded that the final episode is the only one worth watching. The reason is quite simple: it is the only episode of the season that has a timeless sci-fi plot line. The whole rest of the season is late 70s alien-misunderstands-funny-earth-custom laugh-or-I-shoot sitcom drab.

I decided to re-watch the original 2 seasons before starting the recent remake - I tend to be diligent like that. I greatly enjoyed re-watching the 78 season, but overall 80 was a huge bore and a struggle to finish.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[rrohbeck]

Why is that infected dog shitting all over the beach?

Or rather, why do assholes bring their dogs to the beach after the lifeguards have gone?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[budgenator]

They may be the same species, but they are not the same geneticaly, the coat colors are different and charecteristic of domesticated animals. They've been selectively bred to produce meat and large litters of piglets. The meat of even ferral domestic pig has a different taste and texture than wild boars and sows do. In Michigan you can hunt ferral domesticated hogs with any hunting license and durring any hunting season, not so with wild boar.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[budgenator]

Which is why every restuarnt has a sign saying "Employees must wash their hands before returning to work" in the restrooms, and as long as every clown taking a dump while eating there did as well before opening the door, it works.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Alex Belits]

You think, tapeworms will make better decisions than those asshats?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

giving an organism antibiotics does not make for a "breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria" any more than burning the atmosphere from Mercury produced a breeding ground for "atmosphere-allergic waterbuffalo"

Very certain criteria must be met to breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are ignored when you stupidly imagine that every time a pig on a farm gets injected with a shot, it's brewing up the next staph. You seem to imagine some sort of Statue of Liberty for the little buggers being erected whenever someone smears betadyne on a wound.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[mrmeval]

Oh my don't get me started. It's not the polyticks who suffer but the people who live there. The polyticks all live in places like Woodbridge, VA or any yuppieville outside the beltway. There are a few gated communities in DC for the ultra wealthy and there's the Whitehouse but there were few really safe places there in the 80s and none of the nomenclatura sent their kids to the local schools system they'd spend the money for a private school outside DC and have the private transport to deliver and return them.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

Lowering the dose is the worst thing you could do. That will just increase the number of bacteria that survive and help them become resistant faster.

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[ppanon]

Yes and no. The problem is that they are fed so much antibiotics that most of it passes through the digestive system, into the stools. The pig manure then gets spread over fields, and the antibiotics get diluted into the groundwater. So now instead of a few pigs acting as incubators for anti-biotic resistant bacteria, you have hectares(!) of ground doing the same. That's why we now also get more and more antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that are less likely to be infecting pigs/cows/chickens.

You also might want to consider what the antibiotics in feed are doing to the animals' digestive systems. When we ingest antibiotics, it attacks our intestinal flora, reducing its effectiveness in helping digestion, and making us more prone to opportunistic infections from ingested bacteria. That's why it's generally recommended that you eat yogurt after a round of anti-biotics, to help replenish your git bacteria. It seems likely that healthy cows and pigs given antibiotcs could be similarly affected, don't you think?

Re:This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

please show me scientific evidences that causes any harm in the person eating the pork.

There have been dozens of studies showing that the routine use of antibiotics to increase growth rate are causing infections in people. One Google search showed a huge list. Here's an article about one study. I mean seriously. Who could think feeding antibiotics to food animals by default instead of to treat a disease would have good results for society.

That said, raw pork is quite safe and yummy.

Wasnt going to click until I saw...

[Anonymous Coward]

That the link included pics!!

Attacks mostly Hispanics

[Anonymous Coward]

Safe to ignore.. and another reason to scapegoat the undocumented... "They bring nothing but disease!"

"Nobody cares"!?!?

[interkin3tic]

Finally a CT scan revealed the malady. Alvarez had neurocysticercosis — a calcified tapeworm lodged in her brain...Nobody cares about this disease, and they should, if not from a humanitarian point of view than from a fiscal aspect, says Wilkins, a scientist with the CDC

JESUS H FUCKING CHRIST! I CARE! How can one NOT care about brainworms!

Forget al qaeda! America has a NEW ENEMY! And it is brain tape worms! Take all my taxes, draft people, use those milimeter wave scanners on every street corner, suspend the constitution, I don't care, just keep these terrifying slimy things out of my cerebral cortex!!!

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Thank you, citizen, for filling in our Room 101 Survey Form.

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, cursing and paranoid hyperbolic ramblings...you might already have brain worms.

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone cares and knows about neurocystercicosis. It isn't rare, just uncommon in the U.S. It's the cause for about 50% of the cases of epilepsy outside of the U.S. It's pretty treatable. It's often asymptomatic, and I run into it fairly routinely, though not as much as when I lived in Texas and California. One famous case was of a Hasidic Jewish family that got it. You see, you get the tapeworms from eating undercooked pork, but you get cistercicosis for
oral-fecal contamination from someone who has the worm in their gut. It turns out that this family had a Latino housekeeper who had the worm, and who apparently didn't quite wash her hands enough after using the bathroom

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, cursing and paranoid hyperbolic ramblings...you might already have brain worms.

Maybe he/she just watches Fox News? The symptoms are similar in both cases.

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[wonkey_monkey]

While you're there, could you make a note my crippling fear of sexy parties? Thanks.

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can one NOT care about brainworms!

There's no money in it for Big Pharma.

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[quax]

Indeed, if only a small percentage of the money that is spend on terrorism hysteria was going towards public health significantly more lives could be saved.

Thank you for making this point so succinctly.

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[Grayhand]

"Take all my taxes, draft people, use those milimeter wave scanners on every street corner, suspend the constitution, I don't care, just keep these terrifying slimy things out of my cerebral cortex!!!"

For a minute there I thought you were talking about Fox News.

Re:"Nobody cares"!?!?

[Alex Belits]

For a minute there I thought you were talking about Fox News.

That would be:
"Take all my taxes, draft people, raid Rupert Murdoch's home with a bunch of helicopters, and I don't mind if you kill him in the process!"

Rack City

[Anonymous Coward]

Rack city, bitch! Rack rack, city bitch!
Ten ten twenty on ya titties bitch!

Yeah, California has a problem.

Re:Rack City

[ThatsMyNick]

Rack City is Vegas (which is not in CA, in case you did not know)

Re:Rack City

[Anonymous Coward]

Birth name Michael Stevenson
Born Gardena, California, United States November 19, 1989 (age 22)

The half-nigger, half-gook, certainly not-at-all-human thing that created that "song" is from California. A lot of other trash comes out of that state as well.

This sucks

[fustakrakich]

Why can't we get parasites that make us super intelligent?

Re:This sucks

[geekoid]

You just don't eat enough old egg salad sandwiches in space gas stations.

Re:This sucks

[Forever Wondering]

Why can't we get parasites that make us super intelligent?

Just like "The Puppet Masters"?

Re:This sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I am looking forward to the brain parasites that make us both super intelligent and blood-thirsty.

You thought zombie apocalypse would be interesting?
Try super-zombies with FULL faculties!

Re:This sucks

[SomeJoel]

You just don't eat enough old egg salad sandwiches in space gas stations.

In the end, no matter how well you play the holophonor, it's just not worth it.

Re:This sucks

[geekoid]

Just make a metaphorical deal with the devil. .. and by Devil I mean robot devil, and my metaphorical I mean get you coat.

Re:This sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I am looking forward to the brain parasites that make us both super intelligent and blood-thirsty.

You thought zombie apocalypse would be interesting?
Try super-zombies with FULL faculties!

I think they call those vampires.

Re:This sucks

[Type44Q]

You just don't eat enough old egg salad sandwiches in space gas stations.

...in space gas station restrooms!

Re:This sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Favorite episode. Thanks

Re:This sucks

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You just don't eat enough old egg salad sandwiches in space gas stations.

In the end, no matter how well you play the holophonor, it's just not worth it.

You mean, once the worms start playing Worms inside your brain?

Re:This sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Zoidberg: Oh, the hypochondriac's back! So what is it this time?
Fry: Well, my lead pipe hurts a little.
Zoidberg: That's normal. Next patient!

Re:This sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

No, vampires are not real.

Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[ackthpt]

As California is a gateway, thanks to its border with Latin America and many international airports (plus a few containers brought to shore filled with asian imigrants, one was found abandoned at sea a few years ago) we gots lots of happy little bugs.

It's not difficult in some corners of the world to buy a false health certification, which allows someone with rampant Tuberculosis to come on in and cough among us. (thanks to this I went on a 9 month course of Isoniazid as a preventative meausre, 9 months of total suck) Further there are people coming from rural backgrounds in SE Asia who have various gut and blood parasites, they move to the big city, get a leg up and move to the US. There's some pretty graphic examples of what peasants could have in their guts in the way of big worms thanks to eating food grown in fields fertilized by raw manure from infected oxen, goats, etc., and walking around in same fields bare footed. A mobile population in the world means this is going to happen more often, everywhere.

Don't like it? Maybe mandatory health screenings for visitors to the US, but if you even start talking about it you'll be called all sorts of names by various groups and who is going to pay for it?

Not just West Nile that's getting around.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't like it? Maybe mandatory health screenings for visitors to the US, but if you even start talking about it you'll be called all sorts of names by various groups and who is going to pay for it?

You are also assuming that screening is going to be effective enough to prevent this. Even invasive health screening may not catch problems, especially in the early stages.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[leehwtsohg]

Not to mention all those nasty deseases the european immigrants brought with them to america.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Have you got any evidence for this, in terms of research done providing statistics on the percentage of parasites traceable to immigrants, or are you just pointing the finger at these people when you should be looking at shoddy health inspection practices?

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the European diseases killed off about 90% of the inhabitants, I think the OP might actually have a useful point.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[iluvcapra]

Dey took ur JERBS! And gave us WERMS!

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

hey those TSA scanners could have a use after all BRAINS arrrgggg oh sorry just got carried away

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to Obama & Jerry Brown, immigrants don't need to bother with health screenings or any minor problems like legal immigration - just walk across the border & you're in!

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[robot5x]

A mobile population in the world means this is going to happen more often, everywhere.

ah - so the TSA really is protecting us all!. Tapeworms - who knew!!

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[stephanruby]

Don't like it? Maybe mandatory health screenings for visitors to the US, but if you even start talking about it you'll be called all sorts of names by various groups and who is going to pay for it?

The US is not the only developed country with visitors/immigrants coming from 3rd World countries, and yet it's the only developed country in the world with recurrent outbreaks of tuberculosis among its own homeless population in places like Berkeley or San Francisco.

Provide a minimum of healthcare to illegal immigrants and to the homeless population. Do not rely on Emergency Rooms for that purpose. That's the only thing we need to do. You and I both know that mandatory health screenings will only work for the people that are coming over legally and are already in the system. And it will only drive the people who are sick even more underground.

Unfortunately, the problem of paying for that kind of solution still remains. To that, I don't have an answer.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[eugene ts wong]

I took it as him looking out for his own interests. He probably meant it to be applied to other countries. He would have to get a health check, when visiting them.

That's a good idea, because it helps to prevent spreading of diseases.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever wonder why European diseases killed the native Americans, but the native American diseases DIDN'T kill the Europeans? Don't say that diseases didn't exist in the New World because they most certainly did. Maybe the Europeans' immune system was stronger, maybe the native Americans' was weaker.

Or maybe the number of natives killed by disease is greatly exaggerated. Nah, that would be politically incorrect.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Mass immigration from the third world doesn't just mean there's more people competing for the jobs that should go to the weakest Americans. It also means third world diseases coming with the immigrants.

Japan doesn't put up with this shit. China doesn't put up with illegal aliens ignoring deportation orders and driving drunk (Obama's Uncle Omar). Israel doesn't put up with illegal aliens holding demonstrations demanding more handouts. Only Europe, the US and Canada, and Australia have to put up with undocumented workers becoming 'undocumented boyfriends' or whatnot.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

London is the tuberculosis capital of Europe. Why? Mass third world immigration.

Oops, did I just do a racist?

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[deimtee]

Definitely the europeans' immune systems were stronger. It was mainly down to the europeans going through their own winnowing a few centuries earlier, combined with living in cities exposing them to more diseases. Throw in a bit of "only the reasonably healthy could make the trip", and the combo explains the disproportionate death rates.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[KDR_11k]

Like you had no illegal immigrants before. Anybody can carry a disease. At least if they're legal you know they exist and they won't hide from inspections in fear of being sent home. Illegal immigrants will make sure to hide and thus can breed infections much more effectively.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you got any evidence for this, in terms of research done providing statistics on the percentage of parasites traceable to immigrants, or are you just pointing the finger at these people when you should be looking at shoddy health inspection practices?

I don't know if anyone's done direct research on your question (not entirely Politically Correct, might be a little hard to get funding), but clinically, if you don't start being suspicious about the immigrant connection, you end up treating NCC patients with Tylenol like what happened to the lady in the article -- so you're not doing them any favors. Also the Scientific American link right in the Slashdot summary points right to PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases:

Cases hospitalized for NCC were primarily Latino (84.9%) and those who primarily speak Spanish (56.9%)

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Celarent Darii]

Well the Europeans at least had elementary sanitation and in general knew about city life. The native Americans hadn't yet invented the wheel. That might have some bearing on the infection rates.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[1u3hr]

Except for syphilis (from South America) that had a big impact on Europeans.

Re:Not just Bbbbrrrraaaiiinnnssss!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that the chinese just need to ship a bunch of sick immigrants to the US, get a bunch of us sick and dying, then come in and 'colonize' the land from the stupid whitefolk who are indebted to them thanks to all of their marvelous wonderful technology and imports... (Say, kinda sounds like how the colonists took over America the first time, eh?)

Finaly

[Bodhammer]

An explanation for the behavior of the California State Legislature. I though they were just insane, who would have thought they have parasites eating their brains?

Re:Finaly

[mark_reh]

The legislature isn't the problem. The ballot propositions are the problem. California has mob rule, and the mob isn't very bright. 85% of California's budget is determined by ballot measures. The legislature only controls 15% of the budget.

How much could you accomplish if your 5 year old kid controlled 85% of your budget and you only controlled 15%?

Re:Finaly

[enjerth]

How much could you accomplish if your 5 year old kid controlled 85% of your budget and you only controlled 15%?

You forgot that the 5-year-olds elect 6-year-olds to control that last 15%, leaving adults with no control.

Re:Finaly

[steelfood]

Fine. That explains California. Now what about the rest of the country?

Re:Finaly

[Alex Belits]

Fine. That explains California. Now what about the rest of the country?

Military-industrial complex and financial companies, the greatest parasites ever.

Patient information discloser much...?

[NtroP]

I find it interesting how much private information is exposed in that screenshot of the lab report. I would probably have cropped it differently or blurred it out before plastering it all over the interwebs...

Re:Patient information discloser much...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, you're right. The medical record number (MRN) shown in that image is protected health information. "Published in Scientific American" is one hell of a disclosure, voluntary or not.

Captcha: retain (a lawyer)

Not Sunnydale? Thank goodness.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was worried that it was in top of the Hell mouth, and that would be really bad.

Regular brain parasites are one thing, demonic worms would probably give us uber-Zombies.

The Bigger Story

[JustOK]

The worm had a person wrapped around it.

Re:The Bigger Story

[SixAndFiftyThree]

Naw, it was just one of Jerry Brown's campaign speeches from the 1970s that Ms. Alvarez had somehow never forgotten. Let this be a warning to everyone who pays too much attention to politicians.

Fortunately for her, Jerry Brown's speeches rarely lodge in the heart or liver.

Re:The Bigger Story

[TheGratefulNet]

also could have been the salmon moose (sic[k])

Re:The Bigger Story

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

That's one brain infiltration. Now what about the rampant memes reproducing and spreading through the California population?

Sunnyvale...

[Ubeor]

Am I the only one who initially thought this was from Sunnydale, not Sunnyvale? That would make it a completely different story!

This could explain a lot of things

[mark_reh]

about California if it turns out the problem is much more common than currently understood.

Re:This could explain a lot of things

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Now we know why they vote Democrat all these years. I knew Californians were fucked in the head, but this may actually be a legit excuse!

Re:This could explain a lot of things

[interval1066]

Seems odd to me that no one who has read the story itself (no one?) is mentioning the fact that this woman got the parasite years ago in her home country, making the headline comepletly false. California doesn't have a parasite infestation any more than any ther state.

Re:This could explain a lot of things

[mark_reh]

Actually, if you read the story, it is not known where she acquired the parasite, and California, by virtue of its large immigrant population, has a bigger share of the problem (at least as it is known right now) than other states.

My comment had nothing to do with where the woman acquired the parasite or what her ethnic heritage is, and was more of a comment on the poor state of everything in California. I was suggesting that the reason almost everything is so screwed up in California is that maybe there's a much larger prevalence of these brain parasites (causing people to do dumb things) than authorities know about.

Jokes and sarcastic comments are never as funny when you have to explain them.

Are you in California?

Plagiarized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like one link is a "reworded" version of the other. There are different authors listed for each piece.

Hmmm.

Good call, except for timing

[SuperKendall]

I though they were just insane, who would have thought they have parasites eating their brains?

The brains were gone long ago.

It's been all parasite for about a decade now.

Re:Good call, except for timing

[Grayhand]

Wow, so the California State Legislature really is a bunch of parasites.

Re:Good call, except for timing

[chthon]

umedvirk in addition!

It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[YesIAmAScript]

This story makes it sound like you're in the burbs. Sunnyvale is a city in the heart of Silicon Valley. It borders both Cupertino (home of Apple) and Mountain View (home of Google) and has more residents than both of those put together. Would you read a story on slashdot relating how Cupertino is a town 45 miles from San Francisco?

Weird.

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Atari was Sunnyvale's claim to fame in the tech world, probably.

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[ackthpt]

This story makes it sound like you're in the burbs. Sunnyvale is a city in the heart of Silicon Valley. It borders both Cupertino (home of Apple) and Mountain View (home of Google) and has more residents than both of those put together. Would you read a story on slashdot relating how Cupertino is a town 45 miles from San Francisco?

Weird.

They didn't likely bring it, if your read through TFA, she complained of suffering pain back in the 1980's when she imigrated. Patient worm. The probably was when her immune system tried to work out what to do with the dead worm.

Sunnyvale is about as squeaky clean as you're going to find anywhere in the USA. You might find some suspect vegetables in a supermarket (anywhere in the USA) which is why you should cook pretty much everything.

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[Compaqt]

>You might find some suspect vegetables in a supermarket (anywhere in the USA) which is why you should cook pretty much everything.

Does that mean no salad?

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[Anonymous Coward]

There are dozens of tech companies in Sunnyvale, from AMD to Yahoo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Companies_based_in_Sunnyvale,_California

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[gander666]

That, plus some small defense companies. Westingouse made Nuclear sub components there, and Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) is there. My dad worked at Lockheed Missiles and Space for a long time. It has also won many awards for the best run small city (population was always about 100K). Lived there off and on for 38 years.

Would love to go back, but damn, 50's vintage tract homes that are teardowns still sell for $700K+

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[TapeCutter]

"Cupertino is a town 45 miles from San Francisco" - thanks, as an Aussie I had no idea where it was. ;)

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[ColdWetDog]

Why do you think that statement was directed at foreigners? It's the average American who needs help with geography.

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[tftp]

Does that mean no salad?

Eat salad at your own risk. The risk is very small, though. Probably comparable to the death in an airplane crash.

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[outsider007]

Whatever you do, don't eat salad on an airplane. It's just too risky.

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[sincewhen]

Clearly it was for Americans - thus the use of miles.

Re:It's not a town, it's not outside anything

[Alex Belits]

When I lived in Russia two decades ago, I knew that Apple HQ is somewhere between San Francisco and San Jose, but didn't know in what city.
I didn't know where Sunnyvale is until I have moved to San Mateo, and Sunnyvale had the best computer/electronics store in the area (Fry's on Lawrence Expressway).

contribute to WorldCommunityGrid

[zugedneb]

They have a few projects targeting parasites (not this one). U might not trust that donated money actually ends up where it was intended, then donate to this. Science from universities will at least get published.

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

FINALLY?!?

[ColaMan]

There, over the course of Christmas, doctors batted around diagnoses: tumor, cancer. Finally, Alvarez received a brain scan

My dad had symptoms of a stroke - which are similar. First thing he got? A dose of blood thinners and a brain scan at a local hospital.

I can understand a little bit of incompetence, or delays due to Christmas but please don't tell me that it was cost that prevented this simple scan from happening immediately, or I will once again shake my head at the appalling state of affairs of the US health system.

Re:FINALLY?!?

[Carnildo]

My dad had symptoms of a stroke - which are similar. First thing he got? A dose of blood thinners and a brain scan at a local hospital.

In that order? Sounds like a malpractice suit waiting to happen. Give blood thinners to someone with an ischemic stroke, you get a miracle cure. Give blood thinners to someone with a hemorrhagic stroke, you kill them. That's why you try to figure out what's going on before you start treatment.

Re:FINALLY?!?

[Richy_T]

They have to go back and forth on the diagnosis to give House's romantic back-story time to run its course. So blame the English

Re:FINALLY?!?

[ColaMan]

Pretty sure they were thinners.... it was some time ago. Maybe they were clotters :-P

Brain parasites in California?

[Chris Mattern]

This explains SO much...

The antibody lab result was negative

[Anonymous Coward]

Her result showed a level of .90 for the antibody, which is a negative result. Sure it says the name of the organism, but what's the point of showing a negative test result for it? If people with the calcified parasite eventually test negative for the antibody, that would be a diagnostic concern, but they don't address that in the article.

So that's what they call them now

[Anonymous Coward]

California's Unspoken Health Problem: Brain Parasites

- so that's what they call liberals, progressives and Democrats, I see.

But seriously... weed?

Tough Day In Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

I kinda have a headache and my leg is sorta numb. Think I'll go home early today.

Bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

In the United States, everyone -- insured or not -- is one major hospitalization away from total life-ruining bankruptcy. It's the health care system here that needs help. Brain parasites would be eradicated as a pleasant secondary effect.

Re:Bankrupt

[randyleepublic]

Everyone except health and pharma company CEOs. Oh yeah, and politicians. Hmmm.

I am 100% certain.

[kiriath]

This is where zombies will originate.

Re:I am 100% certain.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, as soon as the worm takes mind control of the host, makes him walk funny and exlaim braiiiinnnnssss!!

Re:I am 100% certain.

[KDR_11k]

That wouldn't be much of a zombie apocalypse. Living zombies may be freaky but dangerous? How dangerous are humans when their whole evolutionary advantage, the big brain, is practically disabled? At least undead zombies don't have vital organs and are thus not easy to stop with a single bullet. Hell, tapeworms aren't even that contagious so that would be a single crazy person trying to flail their arms at someone until subdued and treated.

Given the number of guns available in the US I don't think zombies would actually pose a problem, they'd get gunned down faster than they can spread unless the infection doesn't require the actual zombies for spreading and then you might just as well be dealing with ebola.

California girls

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new brain parasite overlo...

The worm was quoted as saying: "I wish they all could be California girls (brains)"

Re:California girls

[Anonymous Coward]

Those're the marshmallow fluff of brains.

This is NOT a brain parasite

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a parasite that sometime, through no choice of it own, ends up in the brain and dies. That is about as far from a "Brain Parasite" you can get while still being a parasite. "The man fell on a twig, it entered his brain through his eye socket; A NEW TYPE OF SPRUCE THAT GROWN IN YOUR BRAIN!!!!!!!!!" (Am I the only person left in the world who went to school?)

Sunnyvale?

[Anonymous Coward]

insert obvious silicon valley patent troll joke here

wetback brainfyuck

[noshellswill]

Illegal brain surgery on **my** nickle? Fyuck no! Spend it on sick American citizens. Better to drive the border-jumping. thieving illegals and their drooling lib.com pander-pals into the sea. I'll push the first one off-the-boat.

At Some Point...

[sycodon]

Some idiot "researcher" will put out a study that condemns CA and/or the U.S. for not having adequate systems/procedures/etc. in place to detect and treat this even though it is not native to the U.S. and is largely brought in by immigrants.

It's the same things a Texas being condemned for a low graduation rate without recognizing the huge number of illegals that can't speak English and don't stick around long enough to graduate.

Re:At Some Point...

[cffrost]

Some idiot "researcher" will put out a study that condemns CA and/or the U.S. for not having adequate systems/procedures/etc. in place to detect and treat this even though it is not native to the U.S. and is largely brought in by immigrants.

Therefore, this condition cannot occur in the US, so detection and treatment are of no use.

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same things a Texas being condemned for a low graduation rate without recognizing the huge number of illegals that can't speak English and don't stick around long enough to graduate.

On the other hand, people from Texas do tend to be morons...

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh My Fucking God. Take off your dumbshit hat.

That's not at all what he said.

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

You will have to excuse him, he has been hanging around Republicans lately, and some of their ignorance has apparently worn off.

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who think "immigrants" are the problem are idiots, because it doesn't take "immigrants" to introduce such problems. Merely travellers and/or imported pigs or pork, followed by people improperly cooking it and/or unsanitary conditions when preparing food. This can happen anywhere and to anyone. You can travel to another country and bring it home with you to spread around the community. Unless you're going to ban international travel and trade, you have to have a healthcare system prepared to deal with unusual imported diseases like this.

And if you think it's "not native", neither was West Nile Virus, until it became established and now is found across most of the US. Diseases do change their distribution.

Re:At Some Point...

[Abstergo]

Darn immigrants, bringing in their tapeworms and stealing our jobs! Why, it's so bad now that they'll wait for you outside of where you work, beat you up, and STEAL your job! (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=walmart).

We, as a collective America (the country, not the continent), need to put our foot down and tell them to Get Off Our Lawn (the grassy parts of America, which probably excludes Texas).

[/sarcasm]

Re:At Some Point...

[anomaly256]

Pretty sure that was an intentional, somewhat jestful dig at bologne research and the public reaction to it. But wtf? someone modded that insightful? That's the person you should really be worried about

Re:At Some Point...

[nedlohs]

No, it's just less likely than other options and hence further down the list of things to check for that if it was common. And of course less chance of the lucky "I've seen this before" light bulb from a doctor.

Re:At Some Point...

[0111 1110]

even though it is not native to the U.S. and is largely brought in by immigrants.

The article, which was mostly fluff, does not state that. Tapeworms most definitely exist in the US as well. In fact they are very common. Perhaps you can cite your source.

Re:At Some Point...

[realityimpaired]

I know this is Slashdot, and reading the article is blasphemy, but if you'd read the article in its entirety, you'd know that the symptoms of this particular kind of infection can go on for decades before it reaches the point where surgery is necessary, and that the woman in question went to a doctor with these symptoms 25 years ago and was given tylenol. The article goes on to say that if it's caught early, it can be treated effectively and cheaply with steroid drugs.

The problem isn't having inadequate systems in place, it's not having proper education about this kind of thing. When the cost rises so dramatically if it's left to stew for so long, it becomes cost effective to educate people and doctors about the risks and symptoms, especially when the majority of those affected will be on medicaid, and the US taxpayer will have to foot the bill for brain surgery in the most inefficient and expensive health care system in the world (medicaid itself spends about twice per patient what gets spent in countries like Canada or the UK). Given all the other drug ads you see on US television, you'd think the steroid manufacturers would be doing the education for the health authorities.....

Re:At Some Point...

[tragedy]

Some idiot "researcher" will put out a study that condemns CA and/or the U.S. for not having adequate systems/procedures/etc. in place to detect and treat this even though it is not native to the U.S. and is largely brought in by immigrants.

Yes, it must be brought into places like Texas from places like Mexico which are so geographically distant that Texas was never even part of Mexico or anything. Clearly tapeworms couldn't be native to the US. It's impossible that you just made that up. Also clearly they must travel in those filthy, infected, unclean, foul immigrants and could never travel in, say, non-humans.

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Blaming society's ills on immigrants and a sig that jokes about something that was never said. And then you have a low uid. Shining example of Poe's Law.

Re:At Some Point...

[mbone]

I am from Georgia, and had a tapeworm when I was about 7 or so. And, yes, I was going barefoot a lot that summer.

Re:At Some Point...

[ArhcAngel]

Try to keep up

Re:At Some Point...

[redneckmother]

It's the same things a Texas being condemned for a low graduation rate without recognizing the huge number of illegals that can't speak English and don't stick around long enough to graduate.

On the other hand, people from Texas do tend to be morons...

Hey! I resemble that remark, you insensitive clod!

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the cost rises so dramatically if it's left to stew for so long, it becomes cost effective to educate people and doctors about the risks and symptoms

Doing MRIs on every person with a headache will cost a lot more money than brain surgery for the handful of people who actually get neurocysticercosis.

Re:At Some Point...

[quixada]

Where's the meta-modders when you need them? :-P

Re:At Some Point...

[LSDelirious]

But if we run the immigrants off our lawns, how will they mow them?

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not about doing MRIs on everyone that reports to a doctor with a headache, you stupid moron.

Its about the doctor realising that the person who came to them multiple times with "Debilitating headaches" might actually have this condition, and treating them with a short course of steroids might solve the problem, and with no other ill effects, the steroids are "a cheap alternative to brain surgery in 10 years time".

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

One who says "a short course of steroids might solve the problem, and with no other ill effects" should not be calling anyone else on the internet "a stupid moron".

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its about the doctor realising that the person who came to them multiple times with "Debilitating headaches" might actually have this condition

Lots of people have debilitating headaches. To a reasonable approximation, no one gets neurocysticercosis. There are at least three orders of magnitude between "debilitating headaches" (lowballing at 1% per year, 1:100) and neurocysticercosis (overgenerously, 1:100,000 per year). That means at least 1000 MRIs on people with "debilitating headaches" to find one case of neurocysticercosis. At $2000 per MRI, that works out to $2,000,000 just for the MRIs. Or you could give all 1000 people steroids and antiparasitics and get X number of bone fractures, Y number of hyperglycemic episodes, Z number of psychotic episodes, AA number of opportunistic infections, BB cases of severe diarrhea, etc. etc., all on people who don't have neurocysticercosis. Neurocysticercosis doesn't get diagnosed until there are focal neurological signs, or other red flags, that lead down the "brain mass" diagnostic route.

This is why extremely rare disease with extremely common symptoms don't get diagnosed early. It would be malpractice, immensely wasteful and harmful, to test and treat someone for every 1:100,000 disease for their headache before working through all of the more common ailments, because 99.999% of the time they don't have the 1:100,000 disease.

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

At $2000 per MRI

Really? I had no idea. I just had a brain MRI and a full spine MRI for ~US$130 and US$495. Then surgery on my back to insert titanium in four places. Four nights in the hospital. Total bill: US$13,130 + the MRIs. I knew it was a lot less than the US, but I didn't realize just how much. (high quality care as well.)

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Give them the tools first, then chase them around in a regular pattern that starts from your door, covers the whole lawn and ends at the gate.

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Neurocysticercosis “primarily exists in marginalized populations, Hispanic immigrants,” Wilkins adds.

Re:At Some Point...

[Jawnn]

The people who think "immigrants" are the problem are idiots, because it doesn't take "immigrants" to introduce such problems.

People who ignore the plain fact that immigrants are the most significant vector are bigger idiots. It's got nothing to do with the color of their skin or the language they speak. It has everything to do with the fact that they have access to little or no health care and live in conditions conducive to the transmission of the disease. If you or I travel to Mexico, we are far less likely to contract (and return with) such a disease, because we will not be spending our time in those locations. Is it possible? Sure, but to suggest that it's "just the same" as the risk suffered by the typical immigrant from there is just plain stupid. Look, I'm just about as liberal as they come, but please, let's keep the politics out of a discussion about transmission vectors of communicable diseases. M'kay?

Re:At Some Point...

[IAN]

Replying to undo accidental "Redundant" moderation. Argh.

Re:At Some Point...

[budgenator]

Sure it can, they had a tapeworm in an episode of "House" so that proves it. It was in a girls's abdomin, she couldn't feel pain so House operateded on her in front of the OR staff without anaesthesia and pulled out a 20 footer.

Re:At Some Point...

[budgenator]

Neurocysticercosis “primarily exists in marginalized populations, Hispanic immigrants,” Wilkins adds.

Neurocysticercosis is caused by a dead calcified tapeworm in the brain, but most tapeworms aren't dead or in the brain; tapeworm infections in the US are uncommon, neurocysticercosis is quite rare.

Re:At Some Point...

[luis_a_espinal]

Some idiot "researcher" will put out a study that condemns CA and/or the U.S. for not having adequate systems/procedures/etc. in place to detect and treat this even though it is not native to the U.S. and is largely brought in by immigrants.

Yes, it must be brought into places like Texas from places like Mexico which are so geographically distant that Texas was never even part of Mexico or anything. Clearly tapeworms couldn't be native to the US. It's impossible that you just made that up. Also clearly they must travel in those filthy, infected, unclean, foul immigrants and could never travel in, say, non-humans.

The thing we forget is that tapeworms are a recent species in the biological record. They recently appeared among brown-looking immigrants living exclusively south of the border just a few decades ago. Before that, tapeworms never existed at all, in any animal species anywhere in the world. Which proves that evolution is evil, and that tapeworms are aliens controlling brown looking people with the aims of conquering the northern hemispheres.

Take that James Cameron. I just have a premise for a successful sci-fi movie!!!

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. We needed an opinion from an affirmative action hire.

Re:At Some Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to actually eat something with the tapeworm eggs. Walking around barefoot will not cause the infection (however lookout for hookworms).

Re:At Some Point...

[luis_a_espinal]

Thanks. We needed an opinion from an affirmative action hire.

Keep telling that to yourself buddy if gives you comfort. Now go flip some burgers.

Re:At Some Point...

[isorox]

At $2000 per MRI

Really? I had no idea. I just had a brain MRI and a full spine MRI for ~US$130 and US$495. Then surgery on my back to insert titanium in four places. Four nights in the hospital. Total bill: US$13,130 + the MRIs. I knew it was a lot less than the US, but I didn't realize just how much. (high quality care as well.)

In the UK we complain that you'd have to pay $20 for car parking for the 5 days.

Re:At Some Point...

[GameboyRMH]

Der brungn der wurms!

Re:At Some Point...

[trevc]

You don't know much about the world outside of your little community, do you? There are other countries that have health care you know and in many cases far superior to the USA.

Oh come on!

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Slow news day? 386 cases out of 38,000,000 people? Clearly a serious problem. I'd have to do the math, but I think you're more likely to be hit by a space rock or eaten by a shark.

Re:Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

But more likely than being hit by a falling space shark. Clearly a serious problem.

Re:Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did the math. If it really is 386 our of 38,000,000 then it's 0.00101578947368421057713405719624688572366721928119659423828125 percent or barely more then 1 out of every 100,000 people. You have a point! Slow day in the news.

Re:Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what you'd think, unless you have a tapeworm in your brain or something.

Re:Oh come on!

[oic0]

Clearly a pandemic

Re:Oh come on!

[In hydraulis]

Being hit by a meteor is just shit luck, and there are no realistic preventative measures.

Abandon practices of good hygiene and food preparation and you'll think twice before scoffing at your chances of parasitic infection. Or indeed any infection.

Smallpox anyone?

Re:Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did the math. If it really is 386 our of 38,000,000 then it's 0.00101578947368421057713405719624688572366721928119659423828125 percent or barely more then 1 out of every 100,000 people. You have a point! Slow day in the news.

That's pretty much the same percent of the US Population who died in the 9/11 attacks, and over a decade later that's still considered a pretty big deal...

Re:Oh come on!

[Dahamma]

Not only that, but TFA basically says the woman has had the parasite since before she ever moved to CA...

Re:Oh come on!

[Dahamma]

Neither Smallpox transmission nor eradication had nothing to do with hygiene. It was highly contagious through airborne transmission, and was eradicated through vaccination.

And most of the problem with parasites is due the hygiene of the carrier, not the victim. Touching one doorknob or ATM keypad that happened to be used by someone who didn't wash their hands and getting infected sounds like shit luck to me...

Re:Oh come on!

[tirerim]

Literally no one in recorded history has ever been killed by a meteorite. California has had a grand total of nine fatal shark attacks since 1926, so you're pretty safe on that count, too. You might still be right that tapeworms aren't that serious a problem, but you're way off base in your comparisons.

Re:Oh come on!

[In hydraulis]

I was drawing a comparison between becoming careless with one's food preparation practices and becoming similarly careless with one's vaccination regiment. In fact, I'm not sure that vaccination doesn't fall under the broader umbrella of hygiene. In any case, my point is that people can actually take an active role in minimising the risk of contracting these nasties. For example, actively seeking to avoid hookworm infestation by not walking barefoot through a stream that people shit in. This particular example fits under neither category of food preparation nor vaccination, but it still illustrates a precaution one might take to preserve their health. It's still about hygiene.

Now look away from the individual and toward society taken as a whole. As long as we maintain healthy living standards, certain afflictions can't take serious root. When the odd case does occur, it is presented in the news as a curiosity. Like this present tapeworm-in-the-brain case here.

The danger is that we then become complacent, and even start to mock the situation:

Slow news day? 386 cases out of 38,000,000 people? Clearly a serious problem.

Soon enough, this mindset evolves into contempt, and begins to undermine our general health. People begin to neglect to get their kids immunised. They convince themselves to be suspicious of vaccinations, telling themselves it's the secret cause of autism and crap like that. They begin to dismiss Western medicine and science in general, leaving themselves open to an otherwise-preventable death via pancreatic cancer. (Yeah, I'm talking about Jobs.)

We find more cost-effective ways to pack more chickens into each square metre of shed floor than we have before, where they spend their entire lives squatting in their own excrement. (They can't stand — their legs have never had the exercise.) We feed the dead ones to the live ones.

Perhaps smallpox wasn't the most clear of examples, by virtue of the fact that it has been eradicated in the wild, as far as we know anyway. Humanity +1. Go us. On the other hand, if I recall correctly, even in the developed world tuberculosis is already on the rise again. Because we're getting careless.

Eternal vigilance. I know that expression is usually served up with respect to Freedom, and preserving Freedom, but it seems appropriate here.

Re:Oh come on!

[khallow]

It was highly contagious through airborne transmission,

Actually, smallpox requires contact with infectious skin flakes or direct skin to skin contact. So technically, it can be transmitted by skin flakes in air, but I wouldn't consider it highly contagious via that route.

Re:Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wanted to mention that there are some nasty people out there. Probably nasty or crazy enough to cultivate these things to infect other people with. Remember, there are apparently numerous people who go OUT OF THEIR WAY to infect THEMSELVES with HIV. It's far from inconceivable that there are folks who get their jollies infecting other people with parasites.

That's part of the lore regarding a particularly large LSD production operation in CA this last decade - that one of the individuals involved infected others with unknown parasites. Now I'm not bashing psychedelics as a class - but I'm pretty sure if you mix that with a lot of stimulants, barbituates, and the social paranoid schizophrenia endemic of an underground black market, you can end up with some weird motherfuckers.

Re:Oh come on!

[hey!]

386 *reported cases*. According to TFA physicians are unaware of this disease and don't diagnose it, so we can assume that the number of actual infections is somewhat higher.

Take Lyme disease; it's not the common cold, but there have been something like thirty thousand cases in the US over the last decade, enough or a concern that "tick check" has entered our vocabulary. The infectious agent is not new; it has probably been infecting people worldwide for centuries. Even Ötzi the Iceman, the natural mummy found in the Alps in '91, had Lyme disease, and he died five thousand years ago. But until the infectious agent was identified in 1982 and the disease was given a name, and doctors began diagnosing it in the 90s, nobody knew how common and widespread it was.

Re:Oh come on!

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

I did the math. If it really is 386 our of 38,000,000 then it's 0.00101578947368421057713405719624688572366721928119659423828125 percent or barely more then 1 out of every 100,000 people. You have a point! Slow day in the news.

That's pretty much the same percent of the US Population who died in the 9/11 attacks, and over a decade later that's still considered a pretty big deal...

If tapeworms ever take over a group of airliners and crash into some buildings, then I'd see your point. We'd then have to spend ten years bombing Wormistan.

However, what we actually have here is something you're entirely unlikely to ever contract, should you avoid eating things from dumpsters and small holes in the ground. What went unsaid in the article (probably because its unknown) is whether those 386 people contracted the worm in california, or in another 5th world country and then came here. We sort of have a lot of immigrants.

Re:Oh come on!

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Literally no one in recorded history has ever been killed by a meteorite.

Now how in the hell would you know? For all we know, everyone who has ever gone missing, including Amelia Earhart, was killed by a meteorite. All the people who show up with bullet wounds? Bullets...or small meterorites.

I'm pretty sure we also fake the shark statistics, since who the hell would want to vacation in california if they knew we had 50 foot great white sharks with legs, who often creep ashore and wipe out entire phalanxes of beachgoers, with the city of San Francisco then assuring citizens that it was just a chilly day, and therefore nobody at the beach, while they kick some fresh sand over the pools of blood?

Re:Oh come on!

[hey!]

That's 386 *reported* cases. Since doctors have never heard of this disease, they don't diagnose it. We can assume the number of actual cases is somewhat higher, possibly much higher.

Think of Lyme disease. It was characterized in the late 70s and the infectious agent (a spirochete) was identified around '82 IIRC, and in the late 80s and early 90s doctors were on the lookout for it. There was a rapid rise in reported cases of Lyme throughout the 1990s; that rise had nothing to do with an increase in incidence and everything to do with awareness. Lyme disease has been infecting people globally for thousands of years. That iceman mummy they found in the Alps back in the 90s had Lyme disease, and he died 5000 years ago.

For all we know neurocysticercosis is quite common. We won't know until we look for it.

Re:Oh come on!

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

That's 386 *reported* cases.

And we don't know how many of those are accurate reports/diagnoses, or if the infection even occurred on this continent, let alone california. I guess I'd be a little happier if we had some idea as to a plausible scope of the issue before it becomes an "unspoken health problem for california". Its unspoken because as of this time there is virtually zero incidence of it, and we aren't even sure it happened here, and because we have no information to think otherwise.

For all we know neurocysticercosis is quite common. We won't know until we look for it.

I think its probably quite likely that most people have a head full of calcified worms.

Re:Oh come on!

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

That's 386 *reported* cases.

Oh, and I wanted to jump in and say that I suspect the next revised estimate of the number of cases will be "486", followed by the inexplicable "Pentium".

Re:Oh come on!

[Aerik]

I'm pretty sure my aluminum hat protects my thoughts from meteors....

Re:Oh come on!

[Dahamma]

Not that I disagree with your point in general, but I don't think TB is a great example, either ;)

Something like 10% of the US population tests TB+ (and what, like 30% of the world overall?) - and without a doubt it is HIGHLY contagious via airborne transmission, so general hygiene isn't much help, and since it's bacterial the vaccine isn't nearly as effective as for something like smallpox. Luckily only a small fraction of those ever develop an actual infection.

If you look it up, those numbers haven't changed much, or have been slowly decreasing. What has increased, though, is antibiotic-resistant TB, which ironically means that it wasn't carelessness, but treatment that has caused the recent increase in serious TB cases...

Cost/Benefit Analysis

[Bob9113]

Budgeting for health care means focusing the available resources on the most cost effective problems first -- the things that affect the most people.

The CDC estimates that there are 1,900 diagnosed cases every year, 386 annual cases in California alone which can cost upwards of $66,000. Often it is paid through Medicare - costing taxpayers thousands.

California Population: 37m

The phrase "upwards of" jumps out at me. Let's be generous and assume the number they quoted is only twice the average.

386 cases at $33,000 = $13m per year

The cost per Californian is under $0.50 per year. Given the weasel phrase, "upwards of", it is probably a lot less than $0.50 per year. You have a one in 100,000 chance of getting it each year in California. If you are a California resident, you are less likely to get hit by lightning, but not by a whole lot.

Health care resources are limited. If we waste them on 1:100,000 shots, people with more common ailments will suffer. That is a bad economics and socially heartless.

Re:Cost/Benefit Analysis

[tirerim]

You're not thinking about this the right way. Currently $13m is being spent annually on very expensive treatments for a very small number of people. Imagine if some of that money were instead spent on prevention, which according to TFA only costs a few hundred dollars per case if it's caught before it becomes severe. That means more money for treating more common ailments, not less.

Re:Cost/Benefit Analysis

[Bob9113]

only costs a few hundred dollars per case if it's caught before it becomes severe.

What will it cost to catch the cases before they become severe? Consider the prostate exam -- we started doing them at age 40 because it is better to catch prostate cancer early. Turns out, though, that prostate cancer is so rare at 40 that misdiagnoses were causing more harm than good -- and that didn't even address the cost of the screenings themselves.

The more rare an illness is, the less likely it will be cost effective to screen for it. At 1 in 100,000, this malady is so rare that screening for it probably doesn't make sense -- but let's ask the experts:

Unfortunately, though neurocysticercosis is horrible, doctors and governments need to prioritize health concerns - and neurocysticercosis just isn't one of them.

It explains it right in the article, but our natural, human, irrational reaction is only to see the poor woman with brain worms in the hospital on Christmas day -- and we get a new round of required tests and the cost of a trip to the ER goes up another $1500.

Re:Cost/Benefit Analysis

[robot5x]

Budgeting for health care means focusing the available resources on the most cost effective problems first -- the things that affect the most people.

Wrong
"Budgeting for health care" means finding ways to actually fund essential services for needy vulnerable people, AFTER the govt (of whatever level/variety) has instructed you to please make sure your priority is getting as many elective hip replacements as possible are performed on retirees. Votes count, you know.
Maybe if we ever separate health from politics we can actually build a sane health system.
Disclaimer: Health economist, non-US, ymmv.

Re:Cost/Benefit Analysis

[wild_berry]

How extensive is the undiagnosed population, and how fast is that population growing, and how much will they cost to treat?

You have a 1 in 100,000 of a 20+year ailment giving you symptoms which cause its diagnosis and treatment. Most carriers are asymptomatic, and the article states that no-one knows how many people are carriers or how many more infections they cause.

I'll suggest that the undiagnosed population is a few million, but it's not growing fast because most people wash their hands after pooping and before preparing food. Your fiscal choice is to wait until it becomes a problem (cost:billions, using your number above) or to pay for preventative work which studies the problem and works to diagnose and lower the asymptomatic-yet-parasitised population (cost:millions). Your call.

Re:Cost/Benefit Analysis

[Bob9113]

How extensive is the undiagnosed population, and how fast is that population growing, and how much will they cost to treat?

Yes, exactly. That is exactly what I meant with my post. Health care allocation decisions should be based on rational analysis, not whether some individual had worms in her brain on Christmas day. You are adding data points to the analysis, and that is good. I'm not saying my cursory glance is sufficient to find the right answer, just that the decision should be rational, and that even a cursory glance at the numbers is better than ignoring them.

Re:Cost/Benefit Analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't "upwards of" mean the same as "over"? Are you sure the problem is in the article and not just you being pedantic?

zerg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Kerrigan mind control Californians? They can build nukes, but they can't build silos to store them. They can't build Medivacs. They can't build thors. They can't build seige tanks. It doesn't make sense.

House Called It

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly these doctors need to watch more television. This was exactly the premise for the pilot episode of House.

Latte sucking sushi snarfing

[bdwoolman]

IT millionaires beware! Your sushi is eating you This explains a lot.

Re:Latte sucking sushi snarfing

[Kotoku]

Almost every parasite listed on that page had essentially no reported North American cases.

Even the few that did were mostly supplemented by a note of recent immigrants being the only ones impacted.

Sushi is a risk...but a very minor one, especially considering the fact that I can often trust my sushi chef more than the minimum wage person cooking other quick eats to prepare my food under sanitary conditions (I've received under cooked meat many times at fast food establishments).

Re:Latte sucking sushi snarfing

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, there is no true raw sushi in the US. Its all been flash frozen and then kept very cold, which is harder on the parasites than the texture of the fish.

Re:Latte sucking sushi snarfing

[outsider007]

According to you it's been flash frozen. You and... The Japanese!

California, it figures

[PPH]

All the way across the country from Dr House.

This was the series pilot subject disease.

Summary troll

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

Alvarez says she experienced debilitating headaches for 20 years before her diagnosis, but she probably consumed tapeworm eggs much earlier than that. When Alvarez immigrated to the United States in the late 1980s she complained to American doctors of a pain so absolute it blinded her and made her vomit.

The parasites apparently were contracted outside of the United States according to the article contrary to all of the other comments and contrary to what the Slashdot summary seems to imply.

Re:Summary troll

[Anonymous Coward]

The parasites apparently were contracted outside of the United States

I guess the FBI can tape them without warrant then?

Re:Summary troll

[jameshofo]

but...but!...

Ok I do enjoy the first "I welcome our new parasite brain overlo....

Also if you do a little bit more reading, it also says that there was a staggering (lee low) 1,900 cases last year! well Ok so that's not a lot, and 85% of the cases were latino, 75% in the southern half of the state. Maybe the country to our south has this problem too! (sigh) what a completely fabricated Slashdot headline.

Re:Summary troll

[Anonymous Coward]

... and as such, they were alien parasites.

Re:Summary troll

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't imply jack shit, my dear.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

California has much bigger problems than nearly 400 cases of this disease each year. Try starting with massive budget deficits and a state government unwilling to deal with it. Cali is about to implode from debt.

A well-known problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Medical acquaintances of mine in Orange County have to deal with that stuff at least once a year. Basically, the eating/cooking habits south of the border suck big time. Would be nice to have government of Mexico deal with this threat by hygiene education and early testing of the pigs and local populace.

Get'm B4 they enter the brain WITH PAPAYA SEEDS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Effectiveness of dried Carica papaya seeds against human intestinal parasitosis: a pilot study.: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17472487

Republicans call them liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

hahgay.com?

Botfly too

[Anonymous Coward]

These parasites, such as Botfly, are more common in Central and South America, and are probably brought to California with all of the Hispanic immigrants. This is one reason to ban immigration of people from those countries, so they don't bring parasite larvae/invasive species with them.

Can we give them to our politicians?

[Linsaran]

It can't hurt right?

Serious medical crisis aside, all I can picture in my head right now is Paul Ryan wearing a brain slug from Futurama, "Poor little guy starved to death"

On the other hand, parasites can be good for you

[LastDawnOfMan]

Frustratingly, it seems there've been a lot of reports that point to lack of parasites (and exposure to other things as well) as being behind a lot of Americans' immunological deficiencies. But then of course as this article points out, having big cysts in your brain isn't all parades and root beer floats, either. We really need more research on how to trigger our immune systems properly without being endangered by actual meat-eating, egg-laying worms in our systems. Here's a link to one bit of research that mentions this. Apologies that I don't have the patience to learn how Slashdot wants me to alias it: http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseaction/show/pageid/2474

well... that explains the freakshow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we finally have an explanation for Gov Jerry "moonbeam" Brown and the idiots who dominate the legislature.... even helps explain the vacant look an Nancy Pelosi's face....

It could be worse: ALIEN BRAIN PARAISTES!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh4.ggpht.com/_Fxpg6ouBCmQ/S1C2ERlWklI/AAAAAAAAFwI/oiPuceiHYhM/image29%255B1%255D.png&imgrefurl=http://tardis-base-torchwood.blogspot.com/2008/10/character-guides.html&usg=__gBgIspG-0QodUcFaCwolqSLkc4Q=&tbnid=U09nfx2C6-nDWM:

great doctors...

[nazsco]

In the late 1980s she complained to American doctors of a pain so absolute it blinded her and made her vomit.

They gave her Tylenol.

And that's why i avoid all facets of the USA medical system like the plague.

Re:great doctors...I

[nazsco]

Also, today they would have prescribed antidepressants, for headaches. And a couple antibiotics, just for good measure.

How hard to avoid taking a dump in a pig pen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how hard is it to avoid taking a dump in a pig pen? I don't even know where the nearest one is. If I were to visit somebody's pig farm, and I really had to go badly I'd... ask where the bathroom is? Let's be really generous and say it's a porta-potty. How often does it get tipped over into the pig pen? I mean, you'd have to try to do that.

That's America of course. Not to be racist, put on an air of cultural superiority, or anything but... they must have pigs running around and people taking dumps all over in other parts of the world. No, I don't have to guess that. I've seen pictures of open sewers and livestock running around. Put two and two together, and you've got pigs rooting in human feces. That's enough to complete the cycle.

Now, the next time you have to pay the water and sewer bill, don't complain so much.

Get the sewage off the streets of 3rd world countries and the problem starts fixing itself. According to Wikipedia this is a really hard problem though. OK... it's simple and it's hard at the same time. It's simple because we know how to fix it. It's hard because you have to change whole cultures. When we're done with that, maybe we can convince these other cultures not to spit so much. Once again, not trying to be racist or culturally superior and all... but it's true. Recent immigrants spit. Swallow that, OK? It's nasty, and if it doesn't give us a brain parasite it'll probably give us something else.

Re:On the other hand, parasites can be good for yo

[kumanopuusan]

If you think the benefits outweigh the costs, you're welcome to eat raw Mexican pork. Good luck to you, sir!

Re:inadequate systems

[AssholeMcGee]

Inadequate doctors, parasites should be something else they automatically test for, with all the blood tests they run you would figure that parasites would be one of the things to look for, just to rule out that possibility, parasites are more common then people want to admit too or know about. This parasite just one of several, that have no symptoms or minor symptoms that get blown off as nothing more then some aches or pains by Doctors. Doctors, I believe are trained either by schools, or other veteran/experienced Doctors on parasites. And you are probably aware that hospitals in the US charge out the azz for simple drugs that cost very little at a drug store. Not is not just Medicaid it is the whole system that is out of control, and no one seems to want to fix the behind the scene problems and work there way up. Using school system should be a way of making parents and students aware of parasite, even sending a student home with informative documentation and then having a test, more or less for fun or maybe even grade them, of course the students should believe it is a graded test, not something to goof off on. The CDC could send out Emails, or standard mail documents to households, not the CDC but anyone within government.

Rebuttle:

[jerzee]

1) The article mentions several times othe states and that this is a problem in third world countries, the only real problem in California as far as this article is concerned is that this woman was found with it there.

2) Several people in the commens state the this is less of a problem in the U.S. EXCEPT for organic/natural animal farming. My wife and I are amongst thousands world wide that are living proof that antibiotics gone wild are a problem, we both contrated MRSA, MRSA is directly caused by over use of antibiotics in the wild. Also thousands of people are diagnosed as lactose intollerant, except the real problem is not that that they are lactose intollerant, they are intollerant to the antibiotics and sterroids being passed through the milk. If my wife consimes U.S. conventionally grown beef or dairy products she has a harsh reaction, if she consumes beef or dairy products that are organic or does not contain large doses of antibiotics and rBst, she has not problems.

3) Read the frackin' articles, they tend to tell you a little more that what the miniturized, shrunk down snippet on the RSS feed.

Re:Re: Ra: This is why we cook our meats

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the Soylent Green isn't being process correctly and the tapeworm are being passed to others through that.

Immigrants! I knew it was them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them!

Eating sushi

[Taco Cowboy]

I am no medical doctor, but I did saw a photo online of a person's brain crawling with worms, resulted from eating sushi

Since then I never ever touch sushi no more

Re:Eating sushi

[cellocgw]

I did saw a photo online of a person's brain crawling with worms, resulted from eating sushi

Since then I never ever touch sushi no more
By that metric, you'll shortly run out of foods you are willing to eat. Maybe ya better take Khan Academy's Statistics courses, like right now.

Re:Eating sushi

[Dunbal]

The parasite found in raw fish attacks the human bladder, not the brain. So those worms were in the wrong place.

Re:Eating sushi

[pugugly]

You would think Brain Worms could find their way around. Of course Bladder Worms might not be that smart.

Pug

Re:great doctors...I

[Anonymous Coward]

But not sterroids.

This explains why..

[Anonymous Coward]

California is a blue state.

I had tapeworms once ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I had tapeworms once, it was not that big a deal.

I'm half Turkish, spent my childhood in Turkey and the Middle East ... which is where I picked them up.

I can't really determine for sure how long I had them. Apparently as an infant a relative changed my diaper and claimed to have seen one crawling out of my butt ... but my mother ignored it because he always made jokes about weird shit like that.

Then, in my early teens, I had my first contact. I passed what appeared to be elastic bands. I ignored them because I was too busy trying to get wasted or whatever.

Then, in my early twenties I had my second contact. This time, they were bigger than elastic bands. They, or it was so large ... I rushed out of the toilet and told my dad that my intestines where coming out of my ass. He laughed and told me that he had a similar conversation with my mother twenty years earlier ... and she laughed ... and then told him he had a tape worm.

Of coarse, I'm living in Australia and doctors here don't know what a fucking tapeworm is. The drugs in the chemist don't do shit.

Thankfully, my wife is Thai ... so, when I'm over there a few weeks later, I tells the chemist that I have a worm the size of a garden hose living in my ass and the hand me some niclosamide which put an end to it.

Whenever I'm in BKK, I always pick up some niclosamide. It costs pennies and really works.

PS: I was once skinny and now I'm not.

PS: Ironically, the niclosamide I bought in Thailand was made in Turkey.

Are you sure?

[fnj]

Literally no one in recorded history has ever been killed by a meteorite.

I think you might want to check your facts. Here is a partial list of human deaths due to meteorite impact:
1929, Zvezvan, Yugoslavia, 1 killed
1907, Weng-li, China, entire family killed
1879, Dun-Lepoelier, France, 1 killed
1879, Newtown, Indiana, USA, 1 killed
1874, Ming Tung li, China, 1 killed
1825, Oriang, India, 1 killed
1790, France, 1 killed
1511 Cremona, Italy, 1 killed

Yeah, it's pretty rare.

Well, Yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even EXTREMELY clean food contains 3% fecal matter (that is very good for food); the simple fact is that food is NOT clean, never was clean, and NEVER will be.

Soap (even with 99.9% killing power - cough cough BS), leaves 0.1% behind, think about each time you (or anyone who handles your food) use the washroom you/they are leaving behind 0.1%, and the funny part is how many people think gloves help! Watch your favourite fast food place, they pull new gloves on all the time, but do they wash first? [And we'll ignore the obvious like money, door handles, pop cans (do you clean the top before sticking your lips on it?)] The truth is that ALL MATERIALS (even condoms) have pores that smaller molecules or materials can get through or stick to (simplified greatly but just making the point).

Watch a good surgeon or doctor movie/show, why do the surgeons scrub the hell out of their hands and arms before putting on those thick-ass heavy gloves before doing a surgery? And that's a scrubbing that will get 99.9% off, think a persons typical 5 seconds under water (assuming they wash at all) with some soap does that good a job? Sorry, to say, no, it doesn't :(

Now, multiply this risk by every time you go to a restaurant, eat out, buy processed food, or even prepare your own food... the simple fact that the chances of getting one of these parasites is so low is what is amazing; but, truthfully, I think getting a parasite is like the lottery, you get the parasites all the time (buy lottery tickets all the time) but the winner (or unlucky one) gets one that is lucky enough is survive in a Human (and then be the type that would cause serious harm) :(
 

Much is explained

[slk]

An outbreak of brain parasites would explain just about everything that happens in Sacramento

Whoever designed that webpage..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. deserves a tapeworm.

Seriously, ads with sound enabled?

raccoon roundworms

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylisascaris

Sanitation

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why border control is necessary. However, the federal government has too much debt to control its borders like nations that have no debt or even a surplus.

--

Ask not toward whom the terrorist nuke is headed, it's headed for you.

Re:Get'm B4 they enter the brain WITH PAPAYA SEEDS

[Saija]

That's right, it's known in my country for years

parasites

[PPNSteve]

Everyone of us here in Cali knows about these parasites.. most other people just call them politicians.

Obligatory Pink Floyd Reference

[Timtimes]

And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do, I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it – you've got to go sometime Enjoy.

House?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like an episode of House. Presumably she was nearly killed before the correct diagnosis was arrived at.

Limonene

[Anonymous Coward]

Earth Mother tells me you can cure this with Limonene preserved with C60 fullerenes.