Posted on 04/03/2014 4:37:56 PM PDT by Nachum
No one would accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 53-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair that encircles his head like a ring of fire.
Certainly Flegr’s thinking is jarringly unconventional. Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others.
The parasite, which is excreted by cats in their feces, is called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short) and is the microbe that causes toxoplasmosis—the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I worried about toxoplasmosis until I read the article. The symptoms are described so well that I realized I don’t have any.
Thanks very much for the ping.
Da nada.
And here I thought my cats were only making me crazy by clawing the furniture and demanding near-constant attention...
A friend of mine took two kittens from the last litter my tortie had. He’s an orange tabby with some white markings, and my friend swears he’s a conservative because he hisses at Rachel Maddow when she appears on TV.
I meant “one of the kittens is an orange tabby.” The other is a silver tabby-point, and I warned my friend before he took her that she’s a radical anarchist.
Change your cat’s focus. Next time your cat jumps on the kitchen table, throw a toy mouse on the floor. Pretty soon, you’ll be left alone.
Whew!
Had me worried there for a moment.
I am happy to report no symptoms!
He also made no effort to hide his scorn for the Communists who ruled Czechoslovakia for most of his early adulthood. “It was very risky to openly speak your mind at that time,”
A proposed symptom, maybe Freepers can be cured?
Reading the comments, few have read the article. This is the best reporting I have seen in a long time. The contrast between this and the swill we get from the media is huge.
Heh, we know who has whom trained here!
LOL! I would record that and put it on Youtube!
(they would probably demand I pull it!)
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