Word: toxoplasma
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Common Cause. Toxoplasmosis is one of the most widespread and least understood diseases. Best estimates are that one person in three has or has had the infection, making a worldwide total of a round billion. The microbe responsible is a minute animal (protozoon) called Toxoplasma gondii. How it gets into the human body is, or was, unclear. Once there, it may cause no significant illness, so that countless people have antibody against Toxoplasma, although they have no recollection of having had a related illness...
Until now, the question whether Toxoplasma parasites could come from undercooked beef has been open, although transmission through pork and lamb has been established. Because the five students had not eaten the same food except on the night of the big lecture, Kean is confident that they picked up their parasites from the snack bar's hamburgers. For them, as for most victims, the illness was uncomfortable and not disabling. But Toxoplasma is like rubella in one respect: it wreaks its worst havoc on the unborn child, causing encephalitis, hydrocephalus, heart damage and hepatitis. Says Kean: "If this epidemic...