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MAN who ate garden slug eight years ago dies from rat lungworm
Newaweek ^ | 11/5/18 | Hannah Osborne

Posted on 11/05/2018 5:26:26 AM PST by Gamecock

A man in Australia has died from rat lungworm caused by a garden slug he ate for a dare eight years earlier.

Sam Ballard, who was a promising rugby player, died at the age of 27 after developing a series of complications from the disease.

Ballard was 19 in 2010 when he and some friends were drinking wine with his friends in a garden. “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown up and a slug came crawling across here,” his friend Jimmy Galvin told news.com.au.

“The conversation came up, you know. ‘Should I eat it?’ And off Sam went. Bang. That’s how it happened.”

Over the following days, Ballard’s legs began to hurt and he worried the slug could be the cause. After visiting the doctor, he was told he had rat lungworm, or Angiostrongyliasis. This is a disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. It is caused by a roundworm parasite that, in adult form, is normally only found in rodents. However, an infected rodent can pass on the larvae through their feces, with slugs and snails sometimes becoming infected if they eat the larvae.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...


TOPICS: Food; Health/Medicine; Local News
KEYWORDS: australia; health; healthcare; holdmewinemate; jimmygalvin; ratlungworm; rugby; samballard; sydney
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To: Lurkina.n.Learnin

Landloving clam?


41 posted on 11/05/2018 6:49:23 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Denounce DUAC - The Democrats Un-American Activists Committee)
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To: stanne
Why do these disgusting posts show up on this forum? It’s loath able

Why do people who are disgusted by posts they find disgusting click on the posts to enter the post complaining that it's a disgusting post? Sounds like bitchy behavior to me.

42 posted on 11/05/2018 6:51:34 AM PST by COBOL2Java (Marxism: Trendy theory, wrong species)
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To: Gamecock

50 bucks the Smails kid picks his nose and eats it.


43 posted on 11/05/2018 6:52:11 AM PST by lowbridge
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To: lowbridge

50 Bucks he eats it.


44 posted on 11/05/2018 6:57:38 AM PST by crusty old prospector
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To: Vaquero

In the 20’s????? How about the 60’s??????

On a dare from frat bros, I put a goldfish in my beer bottle and drank it down.........still here at 73 - by the grace of God.......


45 posted on 11/05/2018 6:59:34 AM PST by Arlis
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To: Gamecock

Lots of things we do not know. Maybe the current fad for televised outrageously dangerous acts will end...


46 posted on 11/05/2018 7:02:03 AM PST by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and diamonds, and harder to find.)
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To: Gamecock

Rat lungworm is in the Big Island of Hawaii. Many people have gotten ill from this. The slug crawls over lettuce, and people get this infection by eating contaminated lettuce. Be careful when you eat lettuce home grown in Hawaii.
I told my brother who lives in the Big Island to buy mainland grown lettuce, and do not walk barefoot in the backyard.


47 posted on 11/05/2018 7:13:37 AM PST by kaila
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To: Gamecock

48 posted on 11/05/2018 7:21:39 AM PST by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: Gamecock

Cook your slugs thoroughly to avoid infection.


49 posted on 11/05/2018 7:27:56 AM PST by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: Gamecock
Please see post #4 on competing thread.
50 posted on 11/05/2018 7:35:03 AM PST by Delta 21
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To: Gamecock

It’s in the headline.

Any one can see that the headline is vile. That the post is unnecessary, as anyone with half a brain knows to not eat a slug

I do expect to get flamed and character-assassinated by objecting

I do it anyway.

Vile headline


51 posted on 11/05/2018 7:36:21 AM PST by stanne
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To: prophetic

Amen.


52 posted on 11/05/2018 7:52:23 AM PST by nickedknack
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To: Gamecock

Years back in Ketchikan a young drunken fisherman swallowed a rough-skinned newt on a dare. The newt produces a neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin and he was dead in a few hours.


53 posted on 11/05/2018 9:18:37 AM PST by dainbramaged (If you want a friend, rescue a pit bull.)
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To: Arlis

So is That Goldfish !


54 posted on 11/05/2018 11:08:11 AM PST by Big Red Badger (Despised by the Despicable!)
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To: Gamecock

Yikes. RIP.


55 posted on 11/05/2018 12:21:57 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj ("It's Slappin' Time !")
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