Yum!

The brother and sister-in-law of a friend of mine, Andrew, had traveled to Vietnam and had an interesting post-culinary experience.

I asked Andrew to recount the story from his sister-in-law.

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A few years ago my sister-in-law was attending a professional conference where she was to give a speech. Just before giving her presentation, she felt a sudden urge to go to the ladies room. What came out was very unexpected, a foot long worm looking creature. Obviously she was completely freaked out, but also being a doctor, she knew she had to retrieve the worm from the toilet (it was dead) to get it analyzed. She wrapped the critter in a bunch of toilet paper and stored it in her purse. She then built up the strength to give her speech before heading home.

The person that analyzed the specimen asked whether she had done any traveling recently. Her response was that the last trip she took was to southeast Asia over a year ago. That is when she learned about common intestinal worms found in that part of the world. The larva are usually ingested orally on vegetables that were not washed thoroughly. They then attach themselves to the intestines where they live their life undetected. They are generally harmless and when their life is over, they pass with the rest of the stuff in your intestines. The good news was that this was easily treatable with pills that would kill any remaining worms and force them to pass. The bad news was that she was pregnant at the time and was advised not to take the pills until after delivery, so she had the joy of living with the thought of more worms through the rest of her pregnancy. After delivery she took the pills, but chose not to examine anything that came out. My brother also took the pills, as he was also likely infected after eating the same food. He also chose not to examine what came out. I supposed sometimes not knowing is better than knowing :)

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I am a regular listener to EconTalk. It is a production of the Stanford Library of Economics and Liberty. A few weeks ago they released a podcast on the below topic -

A discussion of why allergies and autoimmune diseases have been on the rise in the developed world for the last half-century. Velasquez-Manoff explores a recent hypothesis in the epidemiological literature theorizing the increase is a response to the overly hygienic environment in rich countries and the absence of various microbes and parasites. Velasquez-Manoff also considers whether reintroducing parasites into our bodies can have therapeutic effects, a possibility currently under examination through FDA trials. The conversation continues a theme of EconTalk--the challenge of understanding causation in a complex world.

Linked here if you want more - http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/03/velasquez-manof.html

This is a complete challenge to my OCD.

Some sicko made this collage.

Before doing an image search on intestinal worms this was all academic, now I am totally grossed out.

Let's Eat!