Health Law

Food Poisoning On The Brain...Literally

By Marler Clark

It turns out that feces contaminated food can lead not only to the usual array of foodborne illnesses, like E. coli or salmonella, but also to something much more unexpected.  Rosemary Alvarez found that out first hand when a surgeon operating on her brain for what was initially believed to be a tumor instead found...drum roll please...a worm!  Actually, it was a tapeworm called Taenia solium to be exact.

Lauren Cox from ABC news reports that, according to Rosemary's doctor, someone, somewhere, had served her food that was tainted with the feces of a person infected with the pork tapeworm parasite.

"We've got a lot more of cases of this in the United States now," said Raymond Kuhn, professor of biology and an expert on parasites at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Upwards of 20 percent of neurology offices in California have seen it."

So will a marked increase in similar parasitic infections finally be the trigger to motivate the US government into taking food safety seriously?

Check out the full article, including video footage and details of Rosemary's predicament, here.

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on November 27, 2008 (boomark / email).