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To: zek157

"Pigs normally serve as the intermediate host for the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, and humans are infected with the adult stage of the tapeworm when they ingest an immature tapeworm (a cysticercus) in raw or undercooked pork. However, if humans ingest eggs of T. solium, they can be infected with cysticerci, resulting in a condition known as cysticercosis. What might be the source of these eggs? Humans harbor the adult stage of this tapeworm, and it is the adult stage that produces eggs. Thus, many cases of cysticercosis probably result from a person ingesting eggs that are produced by a tapeworm living in his or her own intestinal tract. Poor personal hygiene is one obvious way in which this could occur. It is also possible for the proglottids of T. solium to migrate anteriorly from the small intestine into the stomach and then back into the small intestine. Should this occur the eggs in the proglottids would hatch resulting in the potential for a massive infection of cysticerci. People can also be infected via food contaminated with eggs, or via eggs present in a household or work environment. Since the tapeworm's proglottids can crawl out of the anus and contaminate clothing, furniture, etc., or drop to the ground, such contamination could occur in the absence of any visible source of "fecal" contamination."
"For example, a cysticercus in the eye might lead to blindness, a cysticercus in the spinal cord could lead to paralysis, or a cysticercus in the brain (neurocysticercosis) could lead to traumatic neurological damage. Thus, even though infections with adult T. solium are rarely a problem, treatment of such infections is absolutely essential."
http://ryoko.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~parasite/cysticercosis.html


31 posted on 04/14/2006 9:40:04 AM PDT by ARealMothersSonForever (Political troglodyte with a partisan axe to grind)
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To: ARealMothersSonForever

38 posted on 04/14/2006 11:37:39 AM PDT by B4Ranch (Immigration Control and Border Security -The jobs George W. Bush doesn't want to do.)
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