Thanks for that - for some reason I always thought that the parasite resided in piles of dog .

Not that I plan on wading hip-deep in cat either of course, but it's good to know the true facts.

Why is this the first time I've ever heard of this? It sounds pretty messed up to me, it sounds like a serious threat to public health.

I had a mass removed from my next about 6 years ago. The Initial diagnosis was thyroglossal-duct cyst. However, after removal, the pathologist was unable to determine exaclty what it was. The diagnosis was changed to "Toxoplasmosis". I remember standing at the counter with the nurse and I asked to know what it was. She brought be a a medical dictionary and read the definition out loud in front of several other people. Things like death and kidney failure got my attention. I asked her how you got it and she read "from cat feces". I was more embarrased at that moment than anything else, since I felt like everyone was watching me. At that time we had 3 cats and we are meticulous with them. I don't know how I would have contracted this (potentially).

The doc wanted to draw some titers and I refused (I hate anything to do with blood or needles). So, to this day, I don't know what it was.

I don't know if what was written about reaction times are true or not. I do have extremely quick reflexes though.

Unfortunately cats lick their, you know what, and then lick your hand so it's pretty easy to get it. Damn cat ain't touching me again lol.

Toxoplasmosis is an opportunistic infection that afflicts people with immune deficiancies(AIDS mainly). HIV positive people with a CD4 count of less than 50 are the most susceptible.It can be easily cured with antibiotics, but if left untreated, can cause lesions in the brain and possibly death.
The toxoplasma parasite infection typically occurs when a person is exposed to infected cat feces or eating improperly cooked pork, lamb or venison. is contracted. If an immune deficient patient has a cat, they should not handle or change its litter without wearing latex gloves and should was their hands immediatly afterward.

[edit on 8-11-2004 by apw100]

Actually, all brands of cat litter have a warning on the container about taxoplasmosis.

I've known about this for years..Many years..
Maybe I should have told all of you? Sorry..

I remember, even when I was a kid..Pregnant friends of my parents, looking for
a new home for their kitty.

It's become a bit more well known, since the spread of HIV...
If you've ever seen the movie "Trainspotting" one of the Characters dies from this condition, after first contracting HIV..

I thought everyone is supsceptable to it, but after a reading a few of the posts here I've changed my mind about it a little. It still sounds a bit dangerous, though I'm sure anyone would agree...

This has been around for ages, and is taught in every microbiology and bio class at the college level. Vets will tell you about it, as does cat litter packaging. Pregnant women are often told by their doctors to ditch the cats, or insist someone else deal with the litter box at the very least. Kissing cats? Yuck!! You're better off eating your own poo parasite wise.

Cats also transmit Bartonella henselae -aka Cat Scratch Fever. Yes, Mr. Nugent, thats a real disease. 50% of domestic and feral cats carry this bacterium in their blood and can transmit it to humans.

To add more, cats also like to bite and play with mice and rats and other rodents that carry many diseases and parasites of their own. One nip, then a well placed lick on your cheek, and congrats! You just got another weird and uncomfortable disease

Surprise! This is one of many many parasites that the human body can harbor in the US and UK. Much more common is the flatworm or fluke (no going barefoot for the kiddies), roundworms, and the favorite of butt scratching 3 yr olds everywhere, the pinworm that crawls out of your anus at night to lay it's eggs. Tapeworms are less common, but that won't make you feel better with a 1 meter section of body breaks off and ends up in the bowl in your bathroom.

Go outside lately? Mites and ticks and mosquitos: Oh My!

Throw in some sex and you have a whole 2nd world of creepy crawlies that makes my skin itch just thinking about it. The human body is a parasites dream. Put two humans together, and they are in microbial heaven.

freenrgy2: go back and have that blood drawn!! could be much worse or a continuing infection, and a needle is much better than a parasite that lives off your guts. You can be clean with your cats and still touch them and get it. If you have indoor cats, you're less likely to get it than with outdoor cats.

As for a cat conspiracy, more like blind adoration of these walking disease vectors. Hey if its cute and fluffy it has to be safe, right?

Great,

Redballoon,

Thanks to that post, I am now humming TED's Variation number 2...
BUTT SCRATCH FEVER..LOL

BTW, excellent post..

I agree,Freenrgy2,you should probably get a blood test done. I dont want to alarm you needlessly, but you might be dealing with more than just toxoplasmosis. Since symtomatic toxoplasmosis is very rare in healthy individuals, there is a very good chance that you may have a depressed immune system, possibly as a result of advanced HIV disease(AIDS).

Gee,

aren't you just all chipper today, Redballoon...

Extreme weight-loss strategy #44: Swallow a tape-worm.

Hey, it worked for Maria Callas.

You should see the things lurking in the dust of SE Asia, make euro-worms look kind of anaemic...Give me some of them boots Julia Roberts had in Pretty Woman! lol

Originally posted by Freenrgy2
I had a mass removed from my next about 6 years ago. The Initial diagnosis was thyroglossal-duct cyst.

I had one of those damn things removed from my neck 22 years ago. People ask me if I have ever had a tracheometry because of the scar on my throat. Funny thing is, the doctor said that as I get older the scar would move down towards my chest. My scar did not migrate like the good doctor suggested it would.

Anyway regarding this parasite, no wonder there are so many horrible drivers out there. I'm going to start yelling at people that drive crappy to go get their grapes checked for brain bugs.

The Cherokee Indians of North America had an old medicine man in the 19th Century named Tsali, or Charlie. He ordered us all to get rid of our iron beds and cats from the White Man. Everybody laughed at him, but you know he was right. Its better to give birth sitting up, a futon prevents backaches, and you guys know about Toxo and Scratch Fever. One of our modern Medicine Men had house cats; one scratched his wife's leg, and she died in a couple of weeks. Broke his heart. I won't let cats in the house, I won't let the kids pet them, but if they're out in the bushes I leave 'em be. Worms and such. And its too bad, because they are lovable and loving animals to humans. With all the cat people money out there, you'd think cleaning up the little buggers would be a medical and veterinary priority.

By the way, this is kind of a Brit board, no? The British Crown had seven of our Chiefs exported over to England way long ago, 18th or 19th Century, and they subdued the Earth and multiplied and so on. There is an annual Pow-Wow in England (you can find info published in Whispering Winds) and several thousand British American Indians show up. The Spanish Queen to this day is 'part Cherokee', wonderful woman.

[edit on 9-11-2004 by Chakotay]

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FYI -

"The major protozoan species that affect humans are Entamoeba histolytica, Acanthamoeba sp., Neagleria sp. Giardia intestinalis, Cryptosporidium parvum, Cyclospora cayetanensis, ***Toxoplasma gondii,*** Isospora/Sarcocystis sp. Encephalitozoom intestinals and Enterocytozoon bieneuisi. These parasites exist in the environment as oocyst, cysts or spores, which are the transmissive stages in many environmental conditions, e.g. water, soil, food as well as being infective stages to subsequent generation of hosts. Global concern with parasitic contamination of our environment must influence development of better detection methods and of evaluation and risk assessment of these infections."
Acta Microbiol Pol. 2003;52 Suppl:97-107. Environmental contamination with protozoan parasite infective stages: biology and risk assessment. Sinski E. Department of Parasitology, Institute of Zoology, Miecznikowa 1 str., 02-096 Warsaw, Poland. PMID: 15058818




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Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
Gee,

aren't you just all chipper today, Redballoon...

Extreme weight-loss strategy #44: Swallow a tape-worm.

Hey, it worked for Maria Callas.

You should see the things lurking in the dust of SE Asia, make euro-worms look kind of anaemic...Give me some of them boots Julia Roberts had in Pretty Woman! lol

LOL Yeah I am chipper actually. Just amused at how people are continually shocked by such things that have been around so long as if they were suddenly dropped out of a spaceship and were eating brains by the gallon. Just pointing out that there are lots of these goodies out there.

A friend of mine had a tapeworm after some international travel - we all thought she was anorexic or had cancer and wasn't telling us. Took a while for her doctor to figure that one out... I'd take a tapeworm anyday over something like a hookworm that moves around under your skin or Filariasis caused by worms blocking your lymph system.

SE Asia is bad, Africa and South America are pretty hairy too when it comes to parasites from stuff in your blood to stuff in your gut. I could read about this stuff all day Love it!

Originally posted by soficrow
Hey RedBalloon - I think you might need to do some catching up. ...There's been some serious -and unprecedented- microbial mutation activity in the past 30-odd years - and it blew up out of control

Also FYI, microbes are not just crossing species barriers now, they cross kingdome barriers. Unheard of. Here's another interesting tidbit -

"Scientists have evidence that bacteria dangerous to humans have begun evolving in insects, for reasons that are not clear.

....da world has changed. Science, biology, chemistry... it's all a whole new ballgame. The new diseases didn't drop out of any spaceships but they break so many 'rules' they might well have.

Toxoplasma gondii is hardly new and has been around longer than the past 30 years. Things are always evolving, and I didn't say anything about microbes crossing barriers - just my amusement at people being surprised by these things and the fact their cats can give them something other than companionship.

Is this microbial mutation so new, though, or is it just that we are now able to actually see, observe, and understand it with the advances in the past 30 years?

The "ballgame" is new, and the whole world of "sports" changes often, but parasites and bacteria have always been around and always will. Nothing new about that. I'm still not going to kiss a cat

Originally posted by RedBalloon

Is this microbial mutation so new, though, or is it just that we are now able to actually see, observe, and understand it with the advances in the past 30 years?

I'm still not going to kiss a cat

LOL. Aww. It's just a kitty cat.

...What's happening is very new. Not sure if current toxoplasmis gondii is a new strain or not but much of what's out there now is new, and about to remake the world.

Seems that many of our "interventions and activities" don't just trigger new mutations - they kill natural microbial predators at the same time. So the predators don't evolve along with the diseases. Which means the new infectious mutations have no natural predators, and also are resistant to antiobiotics, anti-virals and whatever we throw at them.

Ie. see:
"As the epidemiology of waterborne diseases is changing, there is a growing global public health concern about new and reemerging infectious diseases that are occurring through a complex interaction of social, economic, evolutionary, and ecological factors."
Crit Rev Microbiol. 2002;28(1):1-26. Emerging waterborne infections: contributing factors, agents, and detection tools. Theron J, Cloete TE. Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, University of Pretoria, South Africa. PMID: 12003038

Re: Vectors, hitchhikers and mutation processes...

“Animal prion infections, such as scrapie (sheep) and "mad cow disease" (cattle), have shown a pattern of horizontal transmission in farm conditions and several ectoparasites have been shown to harbor prion rods in laboratory experiments. Fly larvae and mites were exposed to brain-infected material and were readily able to transmit scrapie to hamsters. New lines of evidence have confirmed that adult flies are also able to express prion proteins. … Several cell types found on the human skin, including keratinocytes, fibroblasts and lymphocytes, are susceptible to the abnormal infective isoform of the prion protein, which transforms the skin to produce a potential target for prion infection.”
Int J Dermatol. 2003 Jun;42(6):425-9. Could ectoparasites act as vectors for prion diseases? Lupi O. Center for Vaccine Development, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, TX, USA. PMID: 12786866

..So prion-related diseases can hitchhike on flies, yeast, plants, meat, bacteria, you name it. ...Looks like the "actin" protein is the key ...Actin is everywhere - virtually every living cell on earth has actin in the cytoskeleton or membrane, which is how all these new little suckers cross species and kingdom barriers (from mammals to fungi to plants and protozoa - not supposed to happen, but it is).

"The most biologically significant property of actin is its ability to self-associate and form two-stranded polymeric microfilaments. In living cells, these micro filaments form the actin cytoskeleton, essential for maintenance of the shape, passive mechanical properties and active motility of eukaryotic cells. Recently discovered actin-related proteins (ARPs) appear to share a common ancestor with conventional actin. At present, six classes of ARPs have been discovered, three of which have representatives in diverse species across eukaryotic phyla and may share functional characteristics with conventional actin. The three most ubiquitous ARPs are predicted to share a common core structure with actin and contain all the residues required for ATP binding. Surface residues involved in protein protein interactions, however, have diverged. Models of these proteins based on the atomic structure of actin provide some clues about how ARPs interact with each other, with conventional actin and with conventional actin-binding proteins."
Trends Cell Biol. 1996 Jun;6(6):208-12. Actin' like actin? Mullins RD, Kelleher JF, Pollard TD. The authors are at the Dept of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 725 N. Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. PMID: 15157457

BTW and LOL - I love this stuff too. ...Are you up on RNA interference?



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