0:00

From Microbe TV,

0:02

this is TWIP,

0:04

this week in

0:07

Parasitism. Episode 246

0:10

recorded on the

0:12

18th of October, 2024.

0:15

I'm Vincent Rackenello and you're

0:17

listening to the podcast about

0:19

parasites. Joining me today from

0:22

New York, Daniel Griffin. Hello,

0:24

everyone. But you got it

0:26

on your tide, Daniel. So

0:29

it is, so you know

0:31

what it is, is it

0:33

is, it's a Friday, right?

0:35

I was feeling bad. You

0:38

know, we record on Friday,

0:40

we only get sexually transmitted

0:43

infections. So I've got

0:45

a purple spirokeit on there.

0:47

Oh, nice. Right. So syphilis. We've got

0:49

syphilis, which I want to point out.

0:51

We have more syphilis right now in

0:54

the United States than ever in history.

0:56

All right, I want to not pursue that.

0:58

But why don't you have tricanella

1:01

on your tie? You know, I wore

1:03

that yesterday. Was it yesterday? Yeah. One

1:05

day early. I had the nurse cell

1:07

and Nixon. who has not been introduced

1:09

yet so we can't talk apparently. But,

1:11

oh, maybe we should wait till he

1:14

gets joined and then I'm told that.

1:16

I tell you, yes. Also joining us

1:18

from Fort Lee, New Jersey, Dixon, De

1:20

Pomier. Hey, everybody. How you doing? It's

1:22

a great day out there, by the

1:24

way. It's really one of the wonderful

1:26

fall days of the year. And

1:29

temperature-wise humidity-wise. And I'm

1:31

all set to go trout fishing

1:33

tomorrow in the day after that. I picked

1:35

those days on purpose. because they

1:38

came into register with the weather

1:40

at any rate. I'm so excited

1:42

about today's program. Yes, before that

1:45

though, Daniel, you were going to

1:47

say something. Oh, I was going

1:49

to mention yesterday, Dixon, when I

1:51

was recording this week and vibrology

1:54

clinical update, I was wearing a

1:56

bow tie that had a nurse

1:58

cell on it. know, and

2:00

what it is, so it's the

2:03

nurse cell, I think that's on

2:05

our TWIP little logo thing, but

2:07

it's it's repetitive pattern, so it

2:09

covers the whole bow tie, and

2:12

there's like a nice white, you

2:14

know, cross in the center. But

2:16

this, I found very disturbing. So

2:18

I go into the ICU, right,

2:21

and I, you know, people, oh,

2:23

what is that on your bow

2:25

tie today? And I point out,

2:27

I say, it's not a doctor

2:30

cell, it's a nurse cell, it's

2:32

a nurse cell, just silence. And

2:34

everyone's like looking at me, I'm

2:37

like, you know, a nurse cell,

2:39

triconella. Still, silence. What has happened

2:41

to modern medical education? Well, it's

2:43

gone down the tubes as well,

2:46

you know. So, Dixon, Daniel and

2:48

I were reminiscing yesterday. Yes. There

2:50

used to be at least one

2:52

course for medical students at Colombian,

2:55

Parisitology, right? I think there still

2:57

is. Oh yeah. I think it's

2:59

a first-year course, however. It's sort

3:01

of a truncated little, you know.

3:04

It's a concession to the fact

3:06

that New York City is a

3:08

collection of tropical islands all brought

3:10

together by commerce and, you know,

3:13

family ties and things of that

3:15

sort. We see it all, don't

3:17

we? I mean, of course, yeah,

3:19

I say it's the center of

3:22

the developing world because people come,

3:24

they come from everywhere. I do

3:26

a lecture in Glasgow where it's

3:28

all about like this person came

3:31

from, you know, this area, came

3:33

from, you know, South-Saharan Africa, South-East

3:35

Asia. New York is the most

3:37

connected city in the world. I

3:40

think that's true. There's no other

3:42

city comes close. And restaurants. So

3:44

Daniel why is syphilis so high

3:46

right now? Yeah. You know, I

3:49

worry about several factors. One, you

3:51

know, it's always education and awareness.

3:53

Like people don't realize that it's

3:55

an issue. And part of the

3:58

tragedy there is the mother to

4:00

child congenital syphilis. There also is,

4:02

and our people are aware. you

4:04

know, if this is a family

4:07

show, but there's a lot less

4:09

barrier protection being used during physical

4:11

intimacy, you know, and that there's

4:13

several factors. I mean, some of

4:16

them are good. I mean, the

4:18

fact that we have pre-exposure prophylaxis

4:20

for HIV, the fact that there's

4:22

birth control, so there isn't. that,

4:25

which has been around for decades.

4:27

But yeah, I think a lot

4:29

of it is a lack of

4:31

awareness and a lack of barrier

4:34

contraception. And also, if you don't

4:36

make the diagnosis, you don't treat

4:38

people, then you have these sexual

4:40

chains of transmission, and that's a

4:43

huge problem. Is it treatable? Very

4:45

much, very much treatable. Actually, you

4:47

know, a lot of, you know,

4:49

depending on the stage, you might

4:52

use just an injectable penicillin, maybe

4:54

one shot, maybe three shots, you

4:56

know, a week's based apart, or

4:58

in some cases, you could even

5:01

use, you know, other regiments, except,

5:03

you know, pregnancy. Sometimes you actually

5:05

have to do a two-week course

5:07

of ibupeticillin for, you know, C&S

5:10

during pregnancy. I remember when I

5:12

was first starting out at Columbia

5:14

as a technician and sort of

5:16

eavesdropping in on the conversations of

5:19

the doctors as they were reminiscing

5:21

about their own past and the

5:23

future of where medicine is going

5:25

in New York and they lamented

5:28

the fact that it's all about

5:30

funding for surveillance. At least in

5:32

those days it was in the

5:34

early 60s. And they said that

5:37

if you surveyed for tuberculosis, for

5:39

instance, which is a totally different

5:41

way of surveilling than it is

5:43

for syphilis and contacts, then the

5:46

money that was shifted from syphilis

5:48

to tuberculosis, tuberculosis went down, but

5:50

syphilis went up. Then they would

5:53

shift the money back to syphilis,

5:55

and tuberculosis would go up and

5:57

syphilis. go down. So I don't

5:59

know if that's still the case

6:02

Daniel, but you know we sort

6:04

of put our money where other

6:06

people's mouths are and they keeps

6:08

yelling and screaming how can we

6:10

do that as we're boarding this

6:12

and the next thing you know

6:15

we're supporting it but you have

6:17

to drop something in order to

6:19

support something else. And I'm afraid

6:21

that's the way our economics has

6:23

gone. Is that still the case?

6:25

You know it's what's the quotation

6:27

violence is never the answer money

6:29

is. But no, even when we

6:31

had Ben Labrad of floating doctors,

6:33

we were talking about this massive

6:35

effort to control the screwworm and

6:37

just how expensive is to not do

6:40

it. But then when you stop doing

6:42

it, you don't keep doing it because,

6:44

oh, it's not a problem. Why are

6:46

we doing this? You stop doing it,

6:48

then it is a problem. It's hard

6:50

to have that momentum because a lot

6:52

of diseases in sub-Saharan Africa are a

6:55

victim of their own success. When the

6:57

incidence goes down people, people don't even

6:59

talk about it. You know what that

7:01

disease is. Why are we funding? Let's

7:03

wait till it's a problem. African sleeping

7:05

services is a good example of that,

7:07

by the way. That's it. Unfortunately. Yeah.

7:10

And who's going to be around

7:12

to even be expert? Right. How can

7:14

you have clinical expertise in a disease

7:16

if you don't see it? And so

7:19

we need mechanisms for maintaining. the

7:21

expertise in these areas. Otherwise, you

7:23

know, we have to we have

7:25

to let it become a problem

7:27

once a year. Well, you know,

7:29

you know that we have tried

7:31

in the past. We have a

7:33

series of lectures based on the

7:35

seventh edition of parasitic diseases. We have

7:37

a new edition coming out soon.

7:40

I presume within the next six

7:42

months. And It's updated, whether

7:44

people read it or not, that's

7:46

another thing, of course. Maybe Vincent

7:49

and I should revisit the lecture

7:51

series and do some concentrated

7:54

combination lectures on multiple

7:56

diseases that are either

7:58

vector-born or food. or

8:00

Airborne. Yeah, it might be worth

8:02

the, you know, circling back and

8:04

doing, because I know, you know,

8:06

we're sort of preaching here to

8:08

the choir because a lot of

8:11

our listeners are the people that

8:13

are interested, that are making sure

8:15

they keep themselves educated on this.

8:17

I actually got an email just

8:19

yesterday from the Sudanese contact. Remember

8:21

we sent all those books to.

8:23

Oh, sure. Yeah, and then there

8:25

was the war and who knows

8:27

what exactly is going on. The

8:29

university is having trouble to the

8:32

point where he actually had to

8:34

use the student's email to reach

8:36

out to me. But no, I mean,

8:38

a lot of parts of the world,

8:40

you know, what we're talking about is

8:42

really critical. That's right. And these resources

8:45

that Dixon has mentioned

8:47

are free. Yeah. They are free. And they're

8:49

funded by our listeners, which, you know,

8:51

you know. You bet. Tremendous.

8:54

And the demand is there. I

8:56

mean every time we offer books

8:58

for a class or for a

9:01

school all the hands go

9:03

up. Yeah. So we know that the

9:05

need is still there. Yeah. And

9:07

again, we need your support. We

9:09

do, we do, we do. But we

9:12

have some pretty exciting stuff to talk

9:14

about today. You know, perhaps the

9:16

modern medical students are not up to

9:18

speed. But I was trying to remind

9:21

them to give them that personal

9:23

connection that some of the stuff we're

9:25

going to talk about here, there recently

9:27

was a case where it was actually

9:30

a friend of one of the

9:32

PAs in that ICU who got sick.

9:34

who was actually seen in our office

9:36

with this malady. So maybe

9:39

Dixon, what are we

9:41

talking about today? Well,

9:43

we're talking about my

9:46

favorite worm. Actually, we're

9:48

talking about something that

9:50

I devoted, let's see,

9:52

from 19, the first

9:54

time I encountered this

9:57

organism was in a class in

9:59

1962. At Columbia University as

10:01

I was going for my

10:04

master's degree in medical parasitology

10:06

and the class was called

10:08

parasite life cycles and there

10:10

were a number of parasites

10:12

that they had available in

10:15

the laboratory and they would

10:17

display them for us and

10:19

show us the pathological aspects

10:21

and how easy or not

10:24

so easy it is to

10:26

handle them. Of course we

10:28

didn't have malaria, although we

10:30

didn't have an insectory at

10:33

the time, we were not

10:35

raising the mosquito that transmits

10:37

it. We were raising the

10:39

ages of giptide instead because

10:42

it's much easier to raise

10:44

obviously and a lot of

10:46

diseases are transmitted by ages

10:48

of giptide as well. Everybody

10:51

knows that. It's also referred

10:53

to as yellow fever and

10:55

mosquito. But so when it

10:57

came to this organism which

11:00

immediately attracted my attention. The

11:02

guy who was running the

11:04

course, his name was Al

11:06

Urensky. He had just gotten

11:08

his degree from the University

11:11

of North Carolina from Dr.

11:13

John Larsh, who was at

11:15

that point a recognized expert

11:17

on this particular entity. And

11:20

so Al was very, very,

11:22

uh, savant in how to

11:24

handle it and how dangerous

11:26

or not it was and

11:29

how easy it was to

11:31

maintain. which is all true,

11:33

and how much we didn't

11:35

know about it. Even though

11:38

it was discovered in 1835,

11:40

in a remarkable series of

11:42

events which took place in

11:44

England, involving the head of

11:47

the British Museum of Natural

11:49

History, Richard Owen, who ended

11:51

up naming the organism, which

11:53

in this case was named

11:56

Trichaina, Spiralis, and they had

11:58

to change the name because...

12:00

a search of the literature,

12:02

which is pretty sparse in

12:04

those days, but nonetheless, there

12:07

was another organism called Tricana.

12:09

So they had to call

12:11

it Tricannella, Little Tricca. Oh,

12:13

wow. And so they ended

12:16

up with that name. And

12:18

for many, many, many, many

12:20

years afterwards, everyone thought that

12:22

there was only one species

12:25

of trichonella. And that was

12:27

trichonellis spirellis, the one that

12:29

affects both animals and humans.

12:31

In fact, it's almost as

12:34

versatile a parasite as toxicoplasma

12:36

gondi. And it's transmitted in

12:38

exactly the same way. raw

12:40

or undercooked meat. And so

12:43

any mammal throughout the world,

12:45

unless you consider the insectivora,

12:47

that's echidnas and platypus and

12:49

several other egg-laying mammals, those

12:52

are probably not susceptible to

12:54

this infection. but they would

12:56

be the only exceptions that

12:58

I can think of. And

13:00

I don't even know if

13:03

it was tried or not.

13:05

Could they get infected? How

13:07

could they get infected exactly?

13:09

Yeah. And a kidney eats

13:12

ants. It's essentially an ant

13:14

eater and a worm eater

13:16

and a platypus is a

13:18

aquatic insect eater. So none

13:21

of those two animals feeds

13:23

on carrion. which is an

13:25

essential ingredient and in fact

13:27

one of the paper civil

13:30

review today discusses the the

13:32

decline in the transmission cycles

13:34

of animals that die natural

13:36

or perhaps not a natural

13:39

death from a plague of

13:41

some sort and then the

13:43

bodies are consumed by other

13:45

animals which take advantage of

13:48

these events. But we'll get

13:50

to that. So the organism

13:52

that I studied since 1971

13:54

until 1997, when my grant

13:56

finally terminated, was called Tricanellus

13:59

Perales. That for me that

14:01

was I still think about

14:03

it every day. I

14:06

know the visit you're

14:08

totally committed to viruses

14:10

and everything viral and

14:12

I'm I'm committed to

14:15

everything spiral. Yeah perhaps

14:17

something in common and

14:19

in fact Tricanella has

14:21

been shown to be

14:24

a vector for a

14:26

virus infection. called LCM

14:28

virus. And they've given

14:30

it, you know, they've

14:32

actually shown that larvae

14:35

derived from an animal with

14:37

LCM can then transfer that

14:39

viral infection to another

14:42

animal through carnavism. Dixon.

14:45

Yes. Maybe you could give

14:47

us a brief overview of

14:49

the life cycle. I would

14:51

love to do that. I

14:53

mean, I just revel in

14:55

this because the more I

14:57

learned about this organism, the

14:59

more... I was attracted to

15:01

the fact that it was

15:03

a master of all trades

15:05

and it was really truly

15:07

a worm in a hurry. This

15:09

is called a worm in

15:11

a hurry. I'll give you the

15:14

thumbnail sketch first. There

15:16

are two phases to

15:18

this life cycle. The

15:20

first phase takes place

15:22

in the small intestine

15:25

of an animal that

15:27

eats. meat or muscle tissue,

15:29

muscle tissue, not brain,

15:31

not liver, not kidney, not

15:34

even heart muscle tissue.

15:36

They have to eat

15:38

strided skeletal muscle tissue,

15:41

which harbors the infectious

15:43

stage of the infection. And

15:45

we'll talk about that too,

15:48

because how can a dead animal

15:50

with a worm that's

15:52

dependent upon a living

15:54

animal for its life?

15:57

serve as a conduit

15:59

for the of an infection

16:01

which depends on scavenging. And

16:03

not scavenging among, let's say,

16:05

birds or worms or other

16:07

known entities that take care

16:10

of carrion, but other mammals

16:12

that actually take advantage of

16:14

that as well. And, you

16:16

know, meat is an incredibly

16:19

valuable resource in nature. Its

16:21

high caloric value is appreciated

16:23

by virtually every trophic level.

16:25

And meat, if one bite

16:27

of meat is equivalent to

16:30

10 bites of vegetable material.

16:32

So that's how much the

16:34

caloric value is. And you

16:36

don't have to sit around

16:38

and munch away all day

16:41

long like some grazers do

16:43

in order to obtain your

16:45

nutrition. Yeah, I have anything

16:47

else to do, Dixon. Well,

16:49

they have one other thing

16:52

to do, two other things.

16:54

They have to reproduce. And

16:56

they also have to make

16:58

sure that they're not eaten.

17:00

Yeah. And having taken several

17:03

trips now to Africa recently,

17:05

I have come to deeply

17:07

appreciate the fact that everything

17:09

gets eaten eventually. Everything. We

17:12

even witnessed the takedown of

17:14

a baby elephant trying to

17:16

cross the Zambezi River. And

17:18

the mother was ahead of

17:20

the baby. And when the

17:23

mother looked around, the baby

17:25

was gone. And the baby

17:27

was, we all saw it.

17:29

And then we, our attention

17:31

was diverted by the herd

17:34

of elephants crossing the river.

17:36

When we turned around again,

17:38

the only elephant we saw

17:40

was the mother, not the

17:42

baby. Then there was this

17:45

enormous commotion behind the mother

17:47

of the baby struggling to

17:49

get away from the crocodile.

17:51

And of course, it was

17:54

in the jaws of the

17:56

crocodile. The mother went over

17:58

to try to help, to

18:00

no veil, and she eventually

18:02

gave up. And a little

18:05

baby elephant. was consumed by

18:07

not just one crocodile but

18:09

I'm sure many different crocodiles

18:11

which brings me to a

18:13

point we now have discovered

18:16

one of the species of

18:18

trichonella its name is trichonella

18:20

zimbobuensis and you'll never guess

18:22

what animal it infects it's

18:24

the crocodile because it's body

18:27

temperature is around 37 degrees

18:29

anyway because that's the outside

18:31

temperature okay so let's let's

18:33

see where was it? Oh

18:36

no, they do, they absolutely

18:38

do. That's the reason why

18:40

a mother crocodile, well we're

18:42

going to drift off into

18:44

various topics here, but I

18:47

think this is interesting with

18:49

trichonella because some of the

18:51

trichinella seem to be somewhat

18:53

species specific, right? There's a

18:55

certain amount, right? Yeah, you

18:58

could say that, but in

19:00

fact, I don't know of

19:02

any human case, we don't

19:04

know of any human case

19:06

of trichinellas and bobwansis, we

19:09

don't know of any. at

19:11

all, but Tricanella suta spuralis,

19:13

Tricanella Britova, Tricanella, Nelson I,

19:15

Tricanella, Sparales of course, Tricanella,

19:18

Nativa, which is one of

19:20

the ones we'll discuss today,

19:22

we can all become infected

19:24

by that. And in fact,

19:26

Nativa has been responsible for

19:29

exterminating entire villages of people.

19:31

living above the Arctic Circle,

19:33

whose only source of nutrition

19:35

is meat. There are no

19:37

gardens up there raising carrots

19:40

and other vegetables, so they

19:42

eat meat. And I was

19:44

told, I'm not sure if

19:46

this is true or not,

19:48

that the word Eskimo in

19:51

their own language means raw

19:53

meat eater. And so a

19:55

lot of Eastern Shore villages

19:57

in Canada. have been Essentially,

20:00

I was going to say

20:03

decimated, but that's only one

20:05

in 10. This is everybody

20:07

gets a little piece of

20:09

meat and nobody cooks it.

20:12

And as a result, because

20:14

there's nothing to cook with,

20:16

basically. And everybody gets sick

20:19

and everybody dies. It doesn't

20:21

happen recently because of modern

20:23

technologies. actually can sell refrigerators

20:26

to people living above the

20:28

Arctic Circle so that they

20:30

don't have to rely on

20:33

nature for their source of

20:35

nutrition directly from their hunting.

20:37

But whenever they do, they're

20:39

taking a chance. That includes

20:42

animals like walrus. Walrus has

20:44

actually been shown to be

20:46

one of the animals that

20:49

can transmit trichonella nativa from

20:51

person to person. And

20:53

in fact, a very famous

20:55

expedition back in the 19th

20:57

century, Andre, from, I'm gonna

20:59

say Sweden, but I think

21:01

it was actually from Norway,

21:04

and two other people in

21:06

a hot air, in a

21:08

hydrogen balloon, excuse hydrogen balloon,

21:10

attempted to cross over the

21:12

North Pole, to be the

21:14

first people to cross over

21:16

the North Pole. And they

21:18

found their bodies, something like

21:20

10 years later. And they

21:22

had cameras with them, so

21:24

they took pictures of everything

21:26

they ran across during that

21:28

time. They had enough supplies

21:30

to last a little while.

21:32

They had guns, so they

21:34

were able to hunt. And

21:36

so they hunted. And what

21:38

did they kill? Whatever was

21:40

threatening them, and in this

21:42

case, it was a polar

21:44

bear. And the polar bear

21:46

was consumed without cooking. And

21:49

all three men. ended up

21:51

dying from triconella and the

21:53

symptoms were meticulously recorded by

21:55

the person who died last

21:57

who was Andre because he

21:59

was of last person to

22:01

eat. The first two guys

22:03

would eat first. He was

22:05

the leader. He waited another

22:07

day and it delayed it

22:09

just enough time for him

22:11

to record the symptoms. And

22:13

unfortunately, all the bodies were

22:15

found, all the cameras, all

22:17

the guns, all the evidence.

22:19

Is it so lethal typically?

22:21

No, it is not so

22:23

typically, but if that's all

22:25

you've got to eat. The

22:27

answer is, yeah, it is.

22:29

The trachella doesn't want to

22:31

kill you. It just wants

22:34

to distribute itself throughout the

22:36

environment. And so that's why

22:38

scavenging is such an important

22:40

life cycle part. Let me

22:42

get back to the life

22:44

cycle. Oh, he has to

22:46

be about the life cycle.

22:48

Okay. So part of the

22:50

life cycle takes place in

22:52

the muscle tissue of the

22:54

same host. So the

22:56

parasite doesn't actually complete the

22:58

life cycle in the same

23:00

host. It begins by ingesting

23:03

larvae in the muscle tissue

23:05

of an already infected host.

23:07

The larvae are released from

23:09

their muscle tissue by enzymatic

23:11

digestion in the stomach and

23:13

small intestine. The larvae then,

23:15

immediately knowing where they are,

23:17

penetrated to a row of

23:19

columnar cells in the small

23:21

intestine. And there, over a

23:23

period of 30, 34 hours,

23:26

mold four times. That's what

23:28

I've said. This is a

23:30

worm in a hurry. We

23:32

don't know of any other

23:34

nematode that molds to an

23:36

adult within almost one day.

23:38

And not even seeing a

23:40

robust elegance, does it that

23:42

fast. Tricanella is definitely in

23:44

a hurry. And the reason

23:46

why it's in a hurry

23:49

is because the immune system.

23:51

is running neck and neck

23:53

right behind it, trying to

23:55

catch up to it. And

23:57

eventually... does, but

23:59

not before

24:01

Trichinola ends up

24:03

producing live larvae

24:06

as an adult worm

24:08

in the small intestine. The

24:10

larvae then penetrate

24:12

into the villus

24:14

from the clomorous cells,

24:16

and they either enter electial, which is

24:18

a lumaphtatic vessel. So there's actually a

24:20

sexual stage, right, at the small

24:22

intestine. But there is a sexual stage.

24:25

There are males and females. Mating

24:27

occurs. That's a little mysterious because we're

24:29

not sure where it occurs. Does

24:32

it occur in the lumen of the

24:34

small intestine? Does it occur within

24:36

the cells of the clomorous? It's hard

24:38

to imagine this, and we did

24:40

some experiments to try to find out,

24:42

but it was preliminary, and my

24:44

grant actually didn't cover that topic, so

24:47

I had to drop it in

24:49

order to get back on track. But

24:51

the point is that eventually, within

24:53

five days after mating, the

24:55

female worms

24:57

begin to shed

25:00

live larvae. Now,

25:02

these larvae are much smaller than the ones that

25:04

end up in the muscle tissue. They

25:06

are only about seven

25:09

microns in length and two

25:11

microns in width. They're

25:19

they have nervous

25:21

tissue. They have

25:23

muscle tissue. They

25:25

have stored proteins,

25:27

which they will

25:29

use immediately upon

25:31

entering a cell. And

25:34

when I say a cell because

25:37

they can enter any cell, they

25:39

once they're in the circulation, when

25:41

they reach a capillary and they

25:43

get stuck, they

25:45

then are that's called

25:47

a positive thing, no tactic

25:50

response. The pressure of

25:52

the vessel around the worm

25:54

triggers the worm to

25:56

actually exit from the vessel

25:59

and try to penetrate

26:01

whatever cell they're near. If

26:03

it's a muscle cell, of course,

26:06

a strided muscle cell, then

26:08

the parasite has found nirvana

26:10

and it begins its second

26:13

phase, which is called the

26:15

parentral phase. The first phase

26:17

is called the entral phase.

26:19

So the parentral phase begins

26:22

when the larva succeeds in

26:24

finding a strata skeletal

26:26

muscle cell. It then secretes

26:28

stuff. into the milieu

26:31

of the muscle, and

26:33

eventually all those

26:35

secretions of this worm

26:38

end up reprogramming the cell.

26:40

I know that sounds

26:42

like a virus, and

26:45

indeed this, I wrote

26:48

an article once called

26:50

Tricodella, Spuralis, the worm

26:53

that would be virus.

26:55

And it's because it

26:58

uses metabolic. messages that

27:00

alter normal skeletal muscle

27:03

behavior. And it ends up with,

27:05

well, why don't I just show

27:07

you what it ends up as?

27:10

I happen to have... You have

27:12

it there in your mug. Right

27:14

next to me, it ends up

27:16

looking like that. Now, I don't

27:18

care who's watching this show.

27:21

Everyone knows that that is

27:23

not a strided skeletal muscle

27:25

cell, but at one point.

27:28

It was. And that's

27:30

what I spent 30 some

27:32

odd years pondering. How

27:34

does a strided cell

27:36

in a muscle

27:38

cell fully committed

27:40

to contracting and

27:43

making work possible

27:45

get altered by

27:47

an organism who has

27:49

absolutely no use whatsoever

27:52

for that cell but

27:54

has use for the

27:56

tools. which allows it

27:59

to reprogram this cell and

28:01

if I could in some

28:03

way put my hands around

28:06

this nurse cell here, let's

28:08

let's pretend this is the

28:10

nurse cell, then this is

28:12

the host circulation which is

28:15

elicited by the parasite through

28:17

an alteration in the human

28:19

genome to produce vegaf and

28:22

vegaf is a angiogenic factor.

28:24

which then allows the vessel

28:26

to seek out and surround

28:29

this damaged portion of muscle.

28:31

And the worm in 20

28:33

days achieves maximum size. If

28:36

it's ingested before 14 days,

28:38

it's not infectious. If it's,

28:40

if it's ingested 15 days,

28:43

after infection in the muscle

28:45

tissue. It's infectious. But in

28:47

people, it's a dead end

28:49

because we don't eat people,

28:52

right? Well, most of us

28:54

don't. I was thinking about

28:56

those three hot air ballooners

28:59

up there in the Arctic.

29:01

They have been consumed by

29:03

something, you know, and then,

29:06

you know, not a dead

29:08

end host at that point.

29:10

Listen, soccer teams that got

29:13

stranded, the Donner past people.

29:15

There's a lot of people

29:17

who... like people so much

29:20

that they eat them. So

29:22

the, okay, so. I think

29:24

Alfred Packer was acquitted by

29:26

the way, just talking about

29:29

the Donner Pass store. All

29:31

right, all right. Spreading bad

29:33

rumors, I don't want to

29:36

do that. What I want

29:38

to say though is that

29:40

for however long the host

29:43

lives, that's how long some

29:45

of the larvae from that

29:47

infection can stay alive. I

29:50

mean historically even beings were

29:52

consumed unfortunately by you know

29:54

carnivores, lions, lions. It's still

29:57

being done by the way.

29:59

Shouldn't it to bet when

30:01

somebody dies in one of

30:04

the religious groups there, they

30:06

chop the body up. Yeah,

30:08

they put it on a

30:10

platform and the conders come

30:13

down and eat. But this,

30:15

the birds will not get

30:17

infected. Their body temperature is

30:20

too high. So do the

30:22

nurse cells last the lifetime

30:24

of the host? I was

30:27

going to say. Some do. Not all.

30:29

Some almost immediately

30:31

become calcified. And

30:34

then some will go on to live

30:36

a year, two years, 20 years,

30:38

50 years. And they know

30:40

this because you can mark

30:42

an outbreak and then those

30:44

people swore off meat after

30:46

that. Once they survived this

30:49

infection, they said, I'm not

30:51

going to eat any more

30:53

meat. By the way, when you die, do

30:55

you mind if I take a piece

30:57

of your muscle tissue to see if

30:59

you've got any larvae? I'm sure it

31:01

wasn't said like that, but that's, they

31:03

had a lot of follow-up,

31:06

which has accumulated this data that

31:08

suggests that some of those nerve

31:10

cells will stay alive. Now, what

31:12

are the factors determining that? So

31:14

I did some, I thought... cutting-edge

31:16

research, it involved a microphone

31:19

by the way, which is...

31:21

That was the... cutting a

31:23

microphone edge. It was right,

31:26

that's right. And what I

31:28

was trying to do was,

31:30

what happens inside of this

31:32

altered portion of strata muscle

31:35

is that any nuclei from

31:37

the host that gets trapped

31:39

within this system, they

31:41

divide. So you get a

31:43

doubling of host genome. within

31:46

the affected area

31:48

of the muscle cell. And

31:50

sometimes it's like 10

31:52

nuclei. Sometimes it's 20

31:55

nuclei. I've had nerve

31:57

cells as high as

31:59

it. 40 nuclei from

32:01

the host that are all

32:03

doing the same thing for

32:06

this parasite. And I speculated,

32:08

although without any proof whatsoever,

32:11

that the nurse cells that

32:13

live the longest are the

32:16

ones with the most nuclei.

32:18

It makes sense at least

32:21

to know that the nurse

32:23

cell is churning out message,

32:26

which is telling the host

32:28

what to do in order

32:31

to keep this parasite from

32:33

dying. And part of that,

32:36

of course, is this circulation

32:38

that is elicited. It's not

32:41

an ordinary circulation. These are

32:43

not capillaries, all right? These

32:45

are vessels which are found

32:48

in exocrine glands. Sinusoids, they're

32:50

called sinusoids. The liver is...

32:53

famous for its sinusoids. The

32:55

adrenal glands are famous for

32:58

their sinusoids. Well Tricanella is

33:00

also famous for its sinusoids.

33:03

They're leaky vessels. They don't

33:05

carry oxygenated blood, which is

33:08

very important for this parasite,

33:10

because it's an obligate anaerob.

33:13

From the start. So I

33:15

know that one of the

33:18

papers we're going to review

33:20

suggests that it's an anaerob

33:23

because it can survive in

33:25

a carcass after those. animal

33:27

dies, but in fact, it's

33:30

always been an anaerob. It

33:32

starts out as an anaerob.

33:35

Remarkably, its mother was an

33:37

arrob. So Mama has good

33:40

Christie in her myneochondria. She

33:42

has no, no stored glycogen

33:45

whatsoever. She's totally dependent on

33:47

the host for the energy

33:50

sources that she utilizes to

33:52

make the newborns to make

33:55

the newborns. But once the

33:57

larva is inside the muscle

34:00

cell, it shuts down all

34:02

of that aerobic metabolism of

34:05

a skeletal muscle cell. and

34:07

it decouples the mitochondrial activity

34:10

that produces ATP. And you

34:12

can see this on an

34:14

electromagnetic graph. It's quite easy

34:17

to see the inner matrix

34:19

of the mitochondrial is totally

34:22

missing. If you go just

34:24

outside the nerve cell into

34:27

normal tissue, an altered tissue,

34:29

the mitochondrial to make sure

34:32

that this unit remains anaerobic

34:34

at all times. And its

34:37

metabolism bears this out. I

34:39

did some studies as a

34:42

graduate student. Our department obtained

34:44

a brand new respirometer. And

34:47

of course I wanted to

34:49

use and I wanted to

34:52

just learn how to use

34:54

one. And it's a machine

34:56

with lots of little knobs

34:59

that you keep turning to

35:01

a quillibrate when the... living

35:04

material inside the chamber either

35:06

produces CO2 or does not

35:09

produce CO2. And you end

35:11

up with something called the

35:14

respiratory quotient. And the respiratory

35:16

quotient, if it's one or

35:19

more, usually one, is a

35:21

good number. It consumes glucose

35:24

and secretes CO2. So you're

35:26

constantly adjusting to keep up

35:29

with the metabolism of an

35:31

aerobic cell. With trichidella, they

35:34

don't secrete CO2. They secrete

35:36

acids of various kinds as

35:38

a result of lipid breakdown.

35:41

And they also secrete pyruvate.

35:43

But they do not secrete

35:46

CO2. And they are 20%

35:48

glycogen. So if

35:50

you mashed a bunch of

35:53

larvae up and separated out

35:55

all the components, 20% of

35:57

the dry weight of that

36:00

word is glycogen and that's

36:02

it. reserve energy source. If

36:04

you do the same thing

36:06

to an adult female, no

36:09

glycogen, none, she's a strict

36:11

Arab, a micro-aerophilic Arab, whereas

36:13

the larvae is an anaerob.

36:16

And I'm making that distinction

36:18

between the two because one

36:20

is very short-lived. The Arab

36:22

burns its candle at both

36:25

ends, produces larvae. from day

36:27

five until, say, day 10.

36:29

At that point, the immune

36:32

system kicks in and starts

36:34

to inhibit her ability to

36:36

produce larvae. Doesn't kick her

36:38

out. Just absolutely stuns her

36:41

in terms of her nutrition.

36:43

And that's the basis for

36:45

immunity. Eventually, they are kicked

36:47

out. in the early stages

36:50

of this infection. The the

36:52

enter stage lasts for about

36:54

two weeks, maybe three, and

36:57

then it's gone. The enter

36:59

the parental stage can last

37:01

50 years if it's in

37:03

a long-lived animal. So that's

37:06

that's the story. And then

37:08

Vincent, you're absolutely around the

37:10

money saying that the host

37:13

that harbors the larvae in

37:15

the larvae in the muscle

37:17

tissue. is not the final

37:19

stage of this life cycle.

37:22

So it's an incomplete life

37:24

cycle. It requires two mammals

37:26

in order to complete it.

37:29

But any mammal, that's the

37:31

point. It's a generalist in

37:33

that sense. It can in

37:35

fact, virtually any carnivore, everywhere.

37:38

So there's a parasite named

37:40

Tricken Ellen Elson. I knew

37:42

Nelson. He was a wonderful

37:45

parasitologist. I worked at Liverpool.

37:47

and I had some remarkable

37:49

stories which most of which

37:51

I cannot tell on the

37:54

air but I'd be happy

37:56

to sit with it. glass

37:58

of scotch with you and

38:00

tell you all about how.

38:03

Yeah, please ask me something.

38:05

So we're gonna we're gonna

38:07

learn about the problems with

38:10

Nativa for instance. Now, Triccanel

38:12

Spiralis versus Nativa, I would

38:14

be more worried if Nativa

38:16

got into our pig population.

38:18

Do you think it's just

38:20

happens that it has not

38:22

gotten into there or is

38:24

there some sort of a

38:26

preferred tropism? you know, do

38:29

certain subspecies do better in

38:31

certain animals? Do we know?

38:33

Sure, let's talk about that.

38:35

If you're interested in the

38:38

epidemiology of how triconella gets

38:40

to humans, in the old

38:42

days, let's say before 1950, an

38:45

autopsy in the United States

38:47

when we used to do

38:49

them, the rate of tricone

38:51

infection in some places was

38:53

over 40 percent. They could

38:55

find larvae in the

38:57

diaphragm tissue of 40%

38:59

of the cadavers that came

39:01

to autopsy. And all of

39:04

that started to change around

39:06

the early 1950s through the

39:08

1950s, the 1960s, the 1960s,

39:11

sort of an awareness of

39:13

public health and meat safety

39:16

and animal husbandry. And

39:18

it's very, it's an

39:21

extremely easy infection. to

39:23

control. All you have to do

39:25

is prevent rats from taking

39:27

up residence on a pig

39:30

farm, because the pigs will instantly

39:32

eat those rats. They like

39:34

a moving target. They kind

39:36

of have fun chasing them down

39:38

and consuming them. And the pig

39:40

farmers in the old days, not

39:43

wanting to waste anything when they

39:45

had their pig slaughtered, they saved

39:47

all the organs that were not

39:50

sellable. and they brought them

39:52

back to the farm and

39:54

fed them to the pigs.

39:56

And now you know how

39:59

that happened. I'm blocking on

40:01

the name of this publication,

40:03

but it was famous back

40:05

in the 50s. A series

40:07

of articles were written for

40:09

the New Yorker magazine. And

40:11

Daniel Prampture remember the name

40:13

of the author, who became

40:15

famous for writing these medical

40:17

mysteries. And one of them

40:19

was called a pig from

40:21

WeHalkin. And WeHalkin is in

40:23

New Jersey. I'm trying to

40:25

think if it was Lewis,

40:27

is that correct? No, no,

40:29

no, no, no, he's, no,

40:31

he was too high up

40:33

on the food chain of

40:35

authors. This guy was, he

40:37

had a French name, as

40:39

I recall. Oh, they'll get

40:41

it for us. He wrote

40:43

the story about how Trickenella

40:45

figured in the New York

40:47

restaurant industry. The pigs from

40:49

Wehauken were butchered and shipped

40:51

to New York, which was

40:53

a very, just across the

40:55

other river. The scraps. from

40:57

all of the restaurants were

40:59

shipped back to Wihalken. So

41:01

if the pig happened to

41:03

have Tricadella and no one

41:05

inspected for this, of course,

41:07

that's not true in Europe,

41:09

but it was true here.

41:11

Nobody inspected for this because

41:13

the USDA and all of

41:15

his wisdom once said, well,

41:17

if we inspected for it,

41:19

then... What do you expect

41:21

us to do? You would

41:23

find it, and then what

41:25

would we then have to

41:27

do? That's right. I can

41:29

think of so many pairs.

41:31

Well, it's not unheard of

41:33

for any infectious agent that

41:35

you can inspect for. So

41:38

then he and then they would

41:40

say well sure if we worked

41:42

it out for Tricanella and we

41:45

can inspect for it You know

41:47

how many other infections there are

41:49

other we could inspect inspect for

41:51

also? Toxoplasma neurocysticosis They do inspect

41:54

for cysticosis but they make a

41:56

cut down the side cheek of

41:58

an animal and spread it over

42:00

and if they don't see it

42:03

they declare it negative which is

42:05

ridiculous it could be anywhere so

42:07

the point is that it costs

42:09

money to somebody once you find

42:12

a positive animal and they were

42:14

unwilling to subject the pig farmers

42:16

to an added expense So I

42:18

remember growing up and I don't

42:21

know if this is common today,

42:23

but you know, the one thing

42:25

that was drilled into me as

42:27

a child and maybe there was

42:30

only one thing. Which is that

42:32

you do not eat undercooked pork.

42:34

That's right. That's exactly right. Medium

42:37

rare pork does not exist. It

42:39

does now. And it does for

42:41

a very good reason and that

42:43

is that we haven't had a

42:46

major outbreak of tricanella due to.

42:48

an infected commercially raised pig in

42:50

20 years. So we've done a

42:52

good job of epidemiologically controlling this

42:55

infection. In Europe they still inspect.

42:57

They and there has been remarkable

42:59

case histories of an inspector who

43:01

either fell asleep and missed the

43:04

positive that came up on the

43:06

screen because they had this device

43:08

called a trichonelloscope. They would take

43:10

an enormous circle of diaphragm tissue

43:13

from a pig and put it

43:15

between two plexiglass plates and then

43:17

apply pressure and it would spread

43:19

out and then they would shine

43:22

a very strong light through it

43:24

onto a screen and you can

43:26

see every larva at that point.

43:28

How could a person fall asleep

43:31

when their job was that interesting?

43:33

Yeah, well when you've got 300

43:35

pigs to go through a day

43:37

and you get to day number

43:40

12 and and One of them

43:42

was discovered because he saved all

43:44

the diaphragm tissues and brought them

43:46

home and fed them to his

43:49

dogs. And his dogs died. Oh

43:51

my God. And he died from

43:53

a piece of meat that was

43:55

infected that he didn't see. And

43:58

that epidemic was, he was fired

44:00

of course. Anyway, there's a lot

44:02

of rich history to this. So

44:04

I love, I love the, you

44:07

know, and I think here there

44:09

really is this great connection of

44:11

understanding the life cycle and understanding.

44:13

how one presents clinically with this

44:16

disease. Oh, that's right. Okay. So,

44:18

yeah. So we had a very

44:20

nice graph. I was, I'm wondering,

44:22

Vincent. Figure 21.10 for those of

44:25

us with photographic memories. If we

44:27

had a textbook handy, we could

44:29

turn to it because it's in

44:31

our textbook. On page 247, but

44:34

I could walk you through that.

44:36

Well, said you're the clinician in

44:38

residence. Take it. Daniel will be

44:40

good because then you're going to

44:43

walk us through an outbreak and

44:45

we'll see like where we write.

44:47

That's right. Here is wrong. Yeah,

44:49

go ahead. So really, it's a

44:52

great figure. It's going to be

44:54

in our. edition 8 which is

44:56

coming out I hope before Christmas

44:58

sticks and it's going to be

45:01

on you and me because Chuck

45:03

Canersh and I are almost at

45:05

the point where a PDF will

45:07

be presented for the two of

45:10

us to read to one another

45:12

before the final printing but if

45:14

you talk about going to sleep

45:16

that's the time to do it.

45:19

Maybe we'll make an audio book

45:21

but so you can you can

45:23

almost think about what the manifestations

45:25

should be based upon this wonderful

45:28

life cycle that Dixon that you

45:30

just shared with us. So initially,

45:32

where do you think the symptoms

45:34

are going to be? Are they

45:37

going to be muscle pain or

45:39

are they going to be GI?

45:41

No, no, I think, well I

45:43

already know the answers. It's always

45:46

the last answer, I'd make it

45:48

easier. You know, because the first

45:50

stage is going to start in

45:52

the gut, right? So there's a

45:55

short incubation period and it ranges

45:57

a little, but it's usually less

45:59

than a week. the time the

46:01

food is ingested. Some people may

46:04

start having symptoms within a day

46:06

or two. That's right. And the

46:08

first manifestation is going to be

46:10

GI. So there'll be some GI

46:13

upsets, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. Stop right

46:15

there, stop right there. I want

46:17

to add a note here. Yes.

46:20

Because what you get in the

46:22

gut tract during the early phase

46:24

of the infection is hypersecretion of

46:26

the gut. and fluid fills the

46:29

gut, and in mice this is

46:31

quite evident, and then you get

46:33

a weight loss as a result

46:35

of that. But, so what's the

46:38

purpose of that, do you think?

46:40

What purpose does that serve? The

46:42

parasite. To flush out the parasite?

46:45

No, no, no. The gut track

46:47

stops moving. It becomes

46:49

hyper secretive. I knew someone

46:52

who worked on that aspect

46:54

for 20 years. all of

46:57

the mechanisms involved. We even

46:59

lose our wheat germic, gluten,

47:02

and receptors for all of

47:04

the corona cells as a

47:06

result of that infection.

47:09

But there's a purpose which

47:11

allows the parasite the

47:13

luxury of actually after

47:16

having developed to an

47:18

adult, which is only 36

47:20

hours, into the infection, of

47:23

coming out into the

47:25

milieu. of this fluid and

47:27

finding a mate. Now,

47:29

one of the most

47:32

fascinating aspects

47:34

to this is the

47:36

ratio between males and

47:39

females at 36 hours.

47:41

You give a hundred

47:44

larvae orally to a

47:46

mouse. Assume their own

47:48

infectious. Which you did.

47:50

Which I did. Many,

47:52

many times. And if

47:54

you take the worms

47:56

out at 36 hours

47:58

and seven... them by

48:00

sex, how many worms do

48:03

you think will be female?

48:05

And how many worms do

48:07

you think will be male?

48:10

Ordinarily you'd say 50-50, right?

48:12

I'm thinking that women are

48:14

more important just as a

48:16

general rule in life. You're

48:19

not wrong. You would get

48:21

between 60 and 70 females

48:23

and only 20 males. Now,

48:26

here's the mystery. If you

48:28

go to... I did the

48:30

math on that ten or

48:32

non, you know, it's ten

48:35

or modern. They're non-binary. Here's

48:37

where we started our research

48:39

on where does mating occur

48:42

and how does it occur?

48:44

Because at 48 hours, which

48:46

is only two days late,

48:48

two days after infection. You

48:51

can take all of the

48:53

females and put them under

48:55

the microscope and you can

48:57

see that every single female

49:00

is in seven and every

49:02

single female. So within a

49:04

very short period of time

49:07

between 36 and 48 hours,

49:09

the males and females get

49:11

together and it is like

49:13

a Hugh Hefner orgy. And

49:16

Vincent thus, why we have

49:18

such high rates of syphilis.

49:20

The triccadella doesn't use any

49:23

protection whatsoever. So what we

49:25

ended up doing was looking

49:27

the fluid for the worms

49:29

and we found some, but

49:32

we didn't find all. And

49:34

it was disappointing because the

49:36

fluid was there, it was

49:39

clear to collect, easy to

49:41

get. We looked at two

49:43

hour intervals from 30 hours

49:45

out to 40 hours. And

49:48

we still didn't find the

49:50

moment. when raises another question,

49:52

of course. If it happens

49:55

that quickly, how does a

49:57

male worm know not to

49:59

mate with a female worm

50:01

that's already made it? Did

50:04

she just ask her? They're

50:06

very polite worms. And there's

50:08

this, excuse me, is this

50:11

dance taken? Well, that's another

50:13

question we wanted to know

50:15

about because this happens incredibly

50:17

fast. This is a worm

50:20

not just in a hurry.

50:22

This is a worm that's

50:24

really in a hurry. So

50:27

its life cycle is truncated

50:29

in the gut and it's

50:31

expanded in the muscle. But

50:33

you're back to the clinical

50:36

symptoms. So let's keep marching

50:38

through our life cycle. So,

50:40

okay, so now we've got

50:43

this gut phase, right? It

50:45

has yet to become invasive,

50:47

and as such, secretory diarrhea,

50:49

nausea, vomiting, but no fever

50:52

yet. No eosin affiliate yet.

50:54

So what's your diagnosis doctor

50:56

at this point? What are

50:59

you thinking? Think about it.

51:01

Someone shows up, they come

51:03

into an ER, they say,

51:05

uh, doesn't feel right, I

51:08

don't know, maybe I ate

51:10

something, a nausea. We would

51:12

just say, yeah, you got,

51:14

got a case of gastrod,

51:17

rightish, not right. Correct. Food

51:19

poisoning. Food poisoning. Yes. And

51:21

we would send them away

51:24

unless there was an ID

51:26

doc who maybe was an

51:28

ID doc who maybe seen

51:30

several people. And so, did

51:33

you also go to that

51:35

event? That barbecue in the

51:37

outdoors, that's right. More history.

51:40

But, but so then, after

51:42

the first phase, then you

51:44

start to get the penetration,

51:46

you start to get the

51:49

fever, you start to get

51:51

the eosinophilia, you start to

51:53

get the whole inflammatory migratory

51:56

process, that's when the CP.

51:58

K goes up, that's actually

52:00

the stage when we start

52:02

to see people succumb to

52:05

this infection. And as mentioned,

52:07

most people do not succumb,

52:09

as we'll see. But maybe

52:11

that's enough for us then

52:13

to get into some of

52:15

these papers. I have one

52:18

more question. One of the

52:20

symptoms is this ocular swelling,

52:22

right? Period orbital edema, that's

52:24

right. What is that from?

52:26

Bilateral periooidal edema. Yeah, it's

52:28

actually, so it's, it's per.

52:30

orbital edema. So it's really,

52:32

the whole person becomes swollen,

52:34

including swelling around the eyes,

52:37

swelling in areas that

52:39

are not gravity dependent.

52:41

And so they'll actually

52:43

even get this

52:45

conjunctivitis and subtybal

52:48

effusion and swelling where

52:50

chemosis. And so what you're getting

52:52

here is all of this leakiness

52:55

of the vessel. So let's say

52:57

you had heart failure, right? Your

52:59

swelling will often be dependent, swelling

53:02

in the legs, but when you

53:04

have either a lack of protein

53:06

or an increased permeability to your

53:09

vessels, you end up with gravity-independent

53:11

swelling. And that's what we're seeing.

53:14

And that's caused by the larvae

53:16

penetrating out of the vessels into

53:18

the muscle. Yeah. And this

53:20

is probably something that benefits

53:22

the tricanoa. Well,

53:24

I think it's something that they

53:26

can't help. In order to get

53:29

out of this circulation and into

53:31

a cell, you've got to break

53:33

the circulation. And when that

53:35

happens, you get this little

53:38

particular. You can actually see

53:40

them under the fingernails

53:42

much better. Yeah. So, wait, I

53:44

want to, I want to

53:46

pause here. Right, Dixon, an

53:48

outbreak of human trichinolosis. Yeah. I

53:51

wanted to pause for a moment

53:53

though and ask. Dr. Griffin, whether

53:55

or not he can surmise based

53:58

on what he just said. which

54:00

stage of the ineffection causes

54:03

the eosinophilia? So I think,

54:05

you know, I think that,

54:07

you know, it's not going

54:09

to be while it's still

54:12

in the gut. It's not,

54:14

you're not going to see

54:16

any eosinophilia until the larvae

54:19

are penetrating and moving through

54:21

tissue. I think that's a

54:23

great answer. I love that

54:25

answer because that's what I

54:28

thought too. explore that experimentally

54:30

and I did. We can

54:32

collect adult females at day

54:34

eight or nine when they're

54:37

busy shedding larvae. And we

54:39

can collect them in vitro.

54:41

Then we can screen out

54:44

the adult worms. So now

54:46

we've got just newborn larvae.

54:48

And then we can concentrate

54:50

them. And then we can

54:53

with a 26 gauge needle,

54:55

we can actually inject them

54:57

intravenously. And we did that

55:00

in mice. Interesting. And so

55:02

your prediction was that that's

55:04

the stage that induces the

55:06

ESenophilia. Well, I will. No,

55:09

no, no, no, no, no,

55:11

no, no, no, no, no,

55:13

no, no, no, no, no,

55:15

no, but I'm sorry, you

55:18

already put the X down

55:20

in the box. That is

55:22

when the ESen affiliate does

55:25

start, but it is, it

55:27

is, it is, so let's

55:29

fast forward now to the

55:31

end of that experiment, which

55:34

is 30 days. We leave

55:36

30 days for the nerve

55:38

cells to fully develop. Okay,

55:41

so now they're all fully

55:43

developed. We've taken blood every

55:45

single day. We didn't find

55:47

a single leucinophyll. Not one.

55:50

Not so good, right? Okay,

55:52

so let's, hmm, what else

55:54

can we control to see

55:56

if it's that stage or

55:59

not? So there's a drug

56:01

called matrichenate. and matrifenate actually

56:03

cures the infection. the gut.

56:06

Whatever time you want to

56:08

give the drug, the parasites

56:10

are kicked out at that

56:12

point. So let's do the

56:15

same experiment. In fact, orally

56:17

this time with larvae and

56:19

within one day they will

56:21

transform into adults and we'll

56:24

use matrifonate at day one.

56:26

and get rid of the

56:28

infection altogether. They've been exposed

56:31

to the gut, but they

56:33

haven't developed to adults that

56:35

are reproductive yet. Yes, so

56:37

now I'm gonna eat. We

56:40

got none. Yep. Okay, then

56:42

we went to two days.

56:44

We got none. We went

56:47

to three days and we

56:49

got a blip. Still they're

56:51

not producing newborns. We went

56:53

to four days. We got

56:56

a larger blip of Eosinophilia.

56:58

They're not producing larvae. They've

57:00

been adults now for four

57:02

days in the gut tract.

57:05

And it turns out that

57:07

the enteral stage of the

57:09

infection is the inducer of

57:12

Eosinophilia. And that was a

57:14

complete surprise to us because

57:16

we thought of course it

57:18

was going to be a

57:21

systemic. infection that induced this

57:23

generalized malays, which resulted in

57:25

the pathology that we see

57:28

in the infection, but in

57:30

fact, the adult worm induces

57:32

eosinophilia. And what's even more

57:34

surprising is that it's an

57:37

essential component in nurse cell

57:39

formation. Without eosinophilia, well, no,

57:41

I will back off that.

57:43

that remark because I didn't

57:46

discover that somebody else did.

57:48

But that is an issue.

57:50

If you can somehow decrease

57:53

the esinophiles, you can decrease

57:55

the nurse cell formation. Well,

57:57

you'd think... So wouldn't you,

57:59

but that experiment that I

58:02

told you about where we

58:04

injected newborn larvae and got their

58:06

cells without the endral phase? No,

58:08

yes, cenophils there, that's a little.

58:11

None. And we still got perfectly

58:13

looking, yes, perfectly looking at our

58:15

cells. So I disagree with that

58:17

finding. And I had a raging

58:19

argument. with a very good friend

58:21

of mine who worked at Cornell

58:23

University. This is what parasitologists fight

58:25

about Vincent. Well, yeah, no overallists

58:27

do too. Come on, you're gonna

58:29

find about anything. But this is

58:31

what I think, because clinically we

58:33

have this idea that if we

58:35

can somehow blunt the yes and

58:37

affiliate, and maybe we'll even use

58:39

steroids, that we can somehow prevent.

58:41

You do use steroids. But you

58:43

do use steroids. And in fact,

58:46

that is one of the treatments

58:48

for acute triconella. is to use

58:50

steroids to try to prevent innocent

58:53

bystander effects and it works, but

58:55

it prolongs the life of the

58:57

gut tract infection and they produce

58:59

more newborns as a result. So

59:02

the woman who discovered or

59:04

at least published the paper

59:06

that said Eosinnafils are absolutely

59:08

required for nurse development. Her

59:11

name was Judy Appleton. DePamier means

59:13

apple trees. So there was an

59:15

apple tree fighting one of the

59:18

products from the growth of the

59:20

tree itself. We never did resolve

59:23

it. And it might be a

59:25

strain difference of animals. It might,

59:27

there's a lot of reasons why

59:30

we got differences in our results,

59:32

but newborn larvae that resulted in

59:34

neurocells never induced a circulating. Yes,

59:37

and a film. Interesting.

59:39

Tell us about this

59:41

outbreak of trichinalosis. Well,

59:43

I think Daniel should start

59:45

and then I'll pick it

59:47

up. Okay. Sure. The cases were

59:50

first. Yeah, so yeah, because we're

59:52

also going to talk about, what

59:54

is that, climate change is impacting.

59:56

Well, yes. But let's let's talk

59:59

about this. You know, this

1:00:01

is very appropriate. We

1:00:03

had a recent outbreak

1:00:05

here, which we were

1:00:07

actually intimately involved in,

1:00:09

but there's this outbreak

1:00:11

report of human trichinolosis,

1:00:13

Arizona, Minnesota, South Dakota,

1:00:15

2022. And this is

1:00:17

an outbreak report published

1:00:19

in the CCDR, May,

1:00:21

2024. And we have

1:00:23

a list of authors,

1:00:25

Shama Cash Goldwasser, Dustin

1:00:27

Ortban. Muthu Narayan, Connor

1:00:30

Fitzgerald, Kila Maldonado,

1:00:32

James Curie, and

1:00:35

Streli, Sarah Sap,

1:00:37

her Henry Bishop,

1:00:39

Billy Watson, Margaret

1:00:42

Negia, Yvonne Cavostrum,

1:00:44

David Berman, Sarah Park,

1:00:47

Kirk Smith, and last

1:00:49

author Stacey Holz Bauer.

1:00:51

Sounds like a physics

1:00:53

paper. Well, it's, they've

1:00:55

got 10, so 10

1:00:57

different affiliations, right? So

1:00:59

we've got the CDC,

1:01:01

EIS, the CDC, epidemic

1:01:03

intelligence service, and that's

1:01:05

actually Shama. Cash Goldwasser,

1:01:07

South Dakota Department of

1:01:09

Health, University of Minnesota,

1:01:12

Arizona Department of Health

1:01:14

Services, Maricopa County Department of

1:01:16

Public Health, the Lakeview Clinic,

1:01:18

Division of Parasitic Disease and

1:01:21

Malaria, Global Health Center, CDC,

1:01:23

Medical Affairs, Carius Incorporated, Minnesota

1:01:25

Department of Health, and the

1:01:27

Division of State and Local

1:01:30

Readiness Center for Preparedness and

1:01:32

Response and Response and Response

1:01:34

and So we've got a

1:01:36

number of folks here involved,

1:01:38

and it starts off in

1:01:40

July of 2022, when the

1:01:43

Minnesota Department of Health is

1:01:45

notified of a 29-year-old man,

1:01:47

you're going to have to

1:01:49

start thinking about what

1:01:51

stage of disease, 29-year-old

1:01:53

man hospitalized with fever,

1:01:56

severe myalges, periorbital

1:01:58

edema, eosinophilia. and

1:02:00

some other laboratory abnormally. So

1:02:02

what are we thinking? So

1:02:04

we're thinking, so we're thinking,

1:02:06

not the first week, we're

1:02:08

gonna have to ask him

1:02:10

about that. We're thinking this

1:02:12

is sort of probably about

1:02:14

third week or so. Yeah,

1:02:16

it's got the eisinnophilia, he's

1:02:18

got that non-gravity edema, the

1:02:20

pariorbital edema, he's got all

1:02:22

the muscle aches. And then.

1:02:24

They tell us. So he's

1:02:26

been hospitalized like several times,

1:02:28

right? So. He initially, he

1:02:30

seeks care in July, four

1:02:32

times, ends up hospitalized twice

1:02:34

over a 17-day period. During

1:02:36

his second hospitalization, they must

1:02:38

call the ID doc, who

1:02:40

asks him, tell me a

1:02:42

little bit more. You know,

1:02:44

I gotta say, like a

1:02:46

step of my soapbox. It

1:02:48

is amazing how much money

1:02:50

gets spent in medicine before

1:02:52

someone just says, hey, let's

1:02:54

send in someone to get

1:02:56

a good history. Right. Exactly

1:02:58

right. So tell me a

1:03:00

little bit. You know, you

1:03:02

sit down, I love to

1:03:04

do. You sit in the

1:03:06

chair, you start chatting. Next

1:03:08

thing you know, you hear

1:03:11

about this history of bare

1:03:13

meat consumption. And this leads

1:03:15

them to to ultimately get

1:03:17

the diagnosis. But then we

1:03:19

go back in history. Now

1:03:21

we really get the history.

1:03:23

And this this should have

1:03:25

happened, you know, six days

1:03:27

before the symptom onset. So

1:03:29

less than a week, six

1:03:31

days, he and eight other

1:03:33

family members from three states,

1:03:35

right? And they gather in

1:03:37

South Dakota and they share

1:03:39

a meal that included bear

1:03:41

kebabs, right? So this is

1:03:43

chunks of bear meat on

1:03:45

a stick. And this had

1:03:47

been harvested by one of

1:03:49

the family members who had

1:03:51

been hunting up in Canada.

1:03:53

Now they take the meat

1:03:55

and they do... Wait, wait,

1:03:57

how old was the meat?

1:03:59

Well, so they they gather

1:04:01

the meat and they have

1:04:03

been in a freezer? Are

1:04:05

you ready for... 35 days.

1:04:07

It's been frozen. It should

1:04:09

be fine. You betcha! You

1:04:11

should kill this, don't you

1:04:13

think. They thought, and they

1:04:15

grill it with the vegetables.

1:04:17

But did they cook it

1:04:19

enough? No. It was inadvertently

1:04:21

served rare. How do we

1:04:23

know that? Well, we don't

1:04:25

really know this because I

1:04:27

don't know how many of

1:04:29

our listeners have eaten bare

1:04:31

meat, but bare meat tends

1:04:33

to be dark in color.

1:04:35

So the only way you're

1:04:37

going to know if your

1:04:39

bare meat is cooked enough

1:04:41

is to actually stick a

1:04:43

thermometer in it because you're

1:04:45

normally thinking, you know, venousin,

1:04:47

maybe elk, maybe beef, you

1:04:49

can look at the collar

1:04:51

and that's going to tell

1:04:53

you how well it's good.

1:04:55

But bare, you really can't

1:04:57

just look at the collar

1:04:59

and know how well it's

1:05:01

done. So they end up

1:05:03

serving it rare and end

1:05:05

up with a number of

1:05:08

folks getting sick. What do

1:05:10

bears do? Not in the

1:05:12

woods, which is a typical

1:05:14

question. What do bears do

1:05:16

in the winter? They hibernate.

1:05:18

Yes, they do. They also

1:05:20

shit in the woods. They

1:05:22

do, they do, they do.

1:05:24

Not in the winter. It's

1:05:26

kind of amazing, right? Six

1:05:28

months of just, you know.

1:05:30

of nothing. And if you're

1:05:32

a mother bear, you give

1:05:34

birth and the babies are

1:05:36

born and they nurse and

1:05:38

the mother is still asleep.

1:05:40

Totally asleep throughout the whole

1:05:42

event, right? So the point

1:05:44

is that hibernating animals have

1:05:46

special proteins in their blood

1:05:48

to prevent their muscle tissue

1:05:50

from freezing. It's an antifreeze

1:05:52

molecule which is common throughout

1:05:54

nature and fish. have a

1:05:56

similar molecule. In fact, there

1:05:58

are numbers of wonderful studies

1:06:00

of fish that have been

1:06:02

harvested from the Antarctic Ocean,

1:06:04

the Southern Ocean, and they

1:06:06

live. essentially in a minus

1:06:08

three degree water temperature, but

1:06:10

it's hyper saline, so it

1:06:12

doesn't freeze. But nonetheless, if

1:06:14

you've got just water in

1:06:16

your cells, you're going to

1:06:18

freeze, but these fish are

1:06:20

happiest. Dare I say happiest

1:06:22

clams? Because of the molecule

1:06:24

that they've got circulating in

1:06:26

their blood, which prevents them

1:06:28

from freezing. And by the

1:06:30

way, those fish. Don't have

1:06:32

any red cells. Dixon, if

1:06:34

you get Tricanella once, can

1:06:36

you get it again? Great

1:06:38

question. Tricanolosis is a disease.

1:06:40

The answer is no. You

1:06:42

can get an infection with

1:06:44

Tricanella, but you will not

1:06:46

become sick from the infection.

1:06:48

Because I noticed one of

1:06:50

these people didn't get sick

1:06:52

even though he ate. So

1:06:54

I wonder if he already

1:06:56

had it. Yeah, maybe that

1:06:58

was the hunter. Right? So

1:07:00

when you hunt a bear,

1:07:02

I mean, I don't care

1:07:05

how small they are, they're

1:07:07

still well over two or

1:07:09

three hundred pounds of meat.

1:07:11

They're big. And they're enormous

1:07:13

and they're scavengers. All right,

1:07:15

they they'd carry on. They

1:07:17

eat whatever's there. In fact,

1:07:19

they will eat vegetables if

1:07:21

that's all that's available. So

1:07:23

bears are basically omnivores. Has

1:07:25

anyone done a survey of

1:07:27

bears and see what fraction

1:07:29

or... Yes, yes, they have.

1:07:31

And it's quite easy to

1:07:33

do the survey. You can

1:07:35

either look in the stool

1:07:37

for the DNA of the

1:07:39

organism, which is the easy

1:07:41

way of doing it, because

1:07:43

bears do shit in the

1:07:45

woods. and the DNA of

1:07:47

their inhabitants and their muscle

1:07:49

tissue comes out as well.

1:07:51

Or you could do a

1:07:53

hunter survey because every bear

1:07:55

that shot has to be

1:07:57

registered with the fishing game

1:07:59

department. Is the bear get

1:08:01

the trachella? How did it get

1:08:03

it? Yeah, from other animals? Or

1:08:05

from rummaging around in the garbage,

1:08:08

or you know, that sort of

1:08:10

thing. So bears are omnivorous, right?

1:08:12

They are true omnivorous, that's right.

1:08:15

Remember, Kathy Spindler on our show

1:08:17

this week of rheology took a

1:08:19

trip to Glacier National Park and

1:08:21

she was at the 8,000 foot

1:08:24

mark camping out. And she said,

1:08:26

she looked out of her tent

1:08:28

and she saw a mother grizzly

1:08:31

bear and babies turning over rocks.

1:08:33

And she said, what were they

1:08:35

doing? And I said, they were

1:08:38

eating wuffs. She said, how did

1:08:40

you know that? I said, well,

1:08:42

I saw a special on television.

1:08:44

But the point is, that's

1:08:47

how far into the

1:08:49

wilderness ecological setting bears

1:08:52

will go in order to

1:08:54

get the... enough protein. They

1:08:56

have to eat like 20,000

1:08:58

moths a day. And the mother bear

1:09:00

teaches the babies. Was it Allen's

1:09:02

pick or Rich's pick? The fat

1:09:05

bears of cat mai? Yeah. Oh.

1:09:07

Yeah, you can go. You can

1:09:09

watch the bear. Catmai. So you

1:09:11

go to Homer, Alaska, you continue

1:09:14

west across the water. And Catmai,

1:09:16

where some of the fattest grizzlies

1:09:18

on the planet. And they're fattening

1:09:21

up for winter, and they are

1:09:23

just harvesting salmon over there. You

1:09:25

bet. And in fact, when they do,

1:09:27

they don't eat the meat of the

1:09:29

salmon. They just strip off the skin

1:09:31

and eat it, because all the

1:09:33

fats just underneath the skin

1:09:35

underneath the skin. And so

1:09:37

those carcasses that they create

1:09:39

form the basis for a

1:09:42

fertilizer for the plant life

1:09:44

that grows along the banks of

1:09:46

the river. Without that, there would

1:09:48

not be the ecology that you

1:09:51

have today. So dead salmon that

1:09:53

are created by bears are very

1:09:55

important. Back to Trigenella. I just

1:09:58

want to wrap up the... this

1:10:00

thing. So this, you know, so

1:10:02

this is another one of those

1:10:05

areas of exciting research that, you

1:10:07

know, we could, we got to

1:10:09

get together a parasite meeting to

1:10:12

fight about this, Dixon, but is

1:10:14

it the trachella species or is

1:10:16

it the host? And I'm going

1:10:18

to say that there's some evidence

1:10:21

suggesting both might be involved. I'm

1:10:23

sorry, I missed the point of

1:10:25

the question. To this, when there

1:10:28

was a recent outbreak and I

1:10:30

was talking, communicating with the folks

1:10:32

down at the CDC, we covered

1:10:35

a little bit, but yeah, and

1:10:37

that was sort of why I

1:10:39

brought up Nativa versus Spiralis, like

1:10:42

what if Nativa got into pork,

1:10:44

would we have more of an

1:10:46

issue, would it be more freeze

1:10:49

resistant? It looks like it's both

1:10:51

or proper country. It's had lots

1:10:53

of opportunities and it hasn't, so

1:10:56

far. But that doesn't say it

1:10:58

couldn't happen. Oh, I will totally

1:11:00

count. The epidemiological story that I

1:11:03

like the most is a farmer

1:11:05

story, where the CDC is convinced

1:11:07

that this farm is the source

1:11:10

of the infection. But there's no

1:11:12

evidence for it because the farmer

1:11:14

is meticulous with the scraps of

1:11:17

pork. and he buries them and

1:11:19

he just gets rid of them

1:11:21

all together. So this was told

1:11:24

to me by any IS officer

1:11:26

and he said, and he was

1:11:28

looking around and he got out

1:11:31

to the barn and on the

1:11:33

barn were several pelts and one

1:11:35

of them happened to be a

1:11:38

fox pelts. He says, oh, I

1:11:40

see you're a trapper. This is,

1:11:42

oh, yeah, we do a lot

1:11:45

of trapping. Oh, that's interesting. He

1:11:47

says, well, what do you do

1:11:49

with the carcasses of the animals

1:11:52

after you've skin them? This is

1:11:54

all we grind them up and

1:11:56

feed them to the pigs. So

1:11:58

foxes are equivalent to small bears

1:12:01

in terms of their eating habits.

1:12:03

And true, they will eat some

1:12:05

vegetables. but they're probably more carnivores

1:12:08

than anything else. So let's now

1:12:10

look through the telescope rather than

1:12:12

through the microscope and just briefly

1:12:15

discuss. And we discussed climate change.

1:12:17

Yeah, let's discuss whether or not

1:12:19

it's a real phenomenon. Climate change

1:12:22

is certainly a real phenomenon, but

1:12:24

whether it's interrupting the scavenging habits

1:12:26

of animals. or whether it's all

1:12:29

speculation. Let me ask Daniel, just

1:12:31

one question. Yeah. They treated this

1:12:33

patient with albendazole. Is that typical?

1:12:36

And will that get rid of

1:12:38

all the worms? So, great question.

1:12:40

So it is typical. I'm going

1:12:43

to give you the typical. It

1:12:45

is typical when you're considering the

1:12:47

diagnosis to use, you know, albendazole

1:12:50

or mabendazole. The other is if

1:12:52

you're really confident, you might step

1:12:54

in with steroids as well. So

1:12:57

you might, you know, particularly at

1:12:59

this stage, early on, you know,

1:13:01

you're sort of a little hesitant

1:13:04

with steroids until you're certain of

1:13:06

the diagnosis. But no, the standard

1:13:08

would be to use albendazole and

1:13:11

a glucocorticoid. Okay. What about thiobenizol?

1:13:13

That's an older drug, but it's

1:13:15

shown to be very effective against

1:13:18

the first two weeks of the

1:13:20

infection. Oh yeah, I think whether

1:13:22

you use, you know, so thiobenizol,

1:13:25

we don't tend to use very

1:13:27

much, but mybendizol and our bendazol,

1:13:29

I'll tend to use very much,

1:13:32

but mybendazol and our bendazol tend

1:13:34

to replace it. Now, will those

1:13:36

two drugs or three drugs wipe

1:13:38

the muscle? Okay. They're impervious. So

1:13:41

Eduardo Pozio is a friend of

1:13:43

mine. And he wrote that paper

1:13:45

that you picked for climate change

1:13:48

and whether or not we've got

1:13:50

a- Is this one of the

1:13:52

few things where climate change is

1:13:55

going to help us out? Maybe

1:13:57

a little warmer, a little longer.

1:13:59

some are a little less trickenella?

1:14:02

I mean, well, you can say

1:14:04

that, but the studies that so

1:14:06

far are valid for this, where

1:14:09

they've taken carcasses that they create

1:14:11

in the lab, and you put

1:14:13

them either in the refrigerator,

1:14:16

or you put them under the

1:14:18

fume hood at room temperature, and

1:14:21

you sample them every day,

1:14:23

and you digest the muscle

1:14:25

tissue with pepsin. and hydrochloric

1:14:28

acid, and then

1:14:30

you infect animals

1:14:32

with those to see if

1:14:34

they're infectious. And

1:14:36

the wisdom is that

1:14:38

most carcasses will produce

1:14:40

an infection for the

1:14:43

first two weeks after the

1:14:45

animal dies, and then after

1:14:47

that it's not really a

1:14:49

factor in terms of transmission.

1:14:52

Less than 2% of the

1:14:54

larvae are still viable. And

1:14:56

Eduardo claims that Tricanella was

1:14:58

selected for anaerobic life to

1:15:00

survive in carcasses after the

1:15:02

death of the animal. And

1:15:04

I claim that it was

1:15:06

selected for life in nerve

1:15:08

cells which precedes the death

1:15:11

of the animal by some

1:15:13

20 or 40 years in

1:15:15

some cases. and that has

1:15:17

nothing to do with whether

1:15:19

it can survive in a

1:15:21

carcass afterwards or not because

1:15:24

in nature I witnessed a

1:15:26

kill for instance when I

1:15:28

was on safari with my

1:15:31

wife in Zimbabwe in not

1:15:33

Zimbabwe in Botswana we

1:15:35

saw a cheetah actually take

1:15:38

down a male adelope. Wow.

1:15:40

And it was happening right in

1:15:42

front of us, and I got

1:15:45

a whole series of wonderful pictures

1:15:47

of this. And the cheetah stood

1:15:49

guard over this carcass and wouldn't

1:15:52

take a bite. And the guide

1:15:54

said, this cheetah will not take

1:15:56

a bite of that carcass until

1:15:59

it's sure. that the commotion

1:16:01

caused by the killing of the

1:16:03

animal didn't attract other animals like

1:16:05

hyenas or lions or even other

1:16:07

cheetahs. So we sat there for

1:16:09

an hour watching this cheetah move

1:16:11

the carcass from here to there,

1:16:13

sort of stood up and was

1:16:15

very proud of the fact that

1:16:18

I'd kill something and it was

1:16:20

gonna be able to eat really

1:16:22

well, but we couldn't tell whether

1:16:24

it did or not until we

1:16:26

came back the next morning. The

1:16:28

carcass was gone. It

1:16:31

was gone. Now, I don't think

1:16:33

the cheetah actually ate all of

1:16:35

that. I think the cheetah probably

1:16:38

was scared off by some pack

1:16:40

of hyenas and they ate everything,

1:16:43

including the bones. So they leave

1:16:45

no evidence whatsoever. Yeah, the hyenas

1:16:47

will do that. They'll eat the

1:16:50

bones. And they're the only ones

1:16:52

that can do it. But carcasses

1:16:54

don't last. more than let's say

1:16:57

two or three days. So this

1:16:59

may not, this may, this whole

1:17:02

thing of like two weeks survival,

1:17:04

it may not really be. I

1:17:06

don't think it really matters much.

1:17:09

And in particularly in the Arctic,

1:17:11

even though the temperatures are changing,

1:17:13

they haven't changed that much and

1:17:16

there's still a lot of ice

1:17:18

there in the winter, and there's

1:17:21

still a lot of cold. And

1:17:23

so the Tiva does very well

1:17:25

into those conditions. And in fact,

1:17:28

I wouldn't be surprised if someone

1:17:30

actually dug up. a carnivore like

1:17:32

a saber-toothed tiger or a sloth

1:17:35

and looked in the muscle tissue

1:17:37

of the sloth and found living

1:17:40

army that would be quite a

1:17:42

fine but yeah it would certainly

1:17:44

illustrate the power of yeah let

1:17:47

me answer how far I mean

1:17:49

I know we've done it what

1:17:51

have we done in the lab

1:17:54

like five years in grizzlies but

1:17:56

you know, who knows what the

1:17:58

actual limit is. Right. But I

1:18:01

think the big worry is the

1:18:03

first two weeks. The carcass will

1:18:06

be discovered by smell. Yeah. And

1:18:08

the game is over at that

1:18:10

point. So I think Eduardo wrote

1:18:13

a good article. I enjoyed reading

1:18:15

it and He even

1:18:17

used one of my references.

1:18:19

All right. But the idea

1:18:21

is that climate change is

1:18:23

going to increase temperatures, it's

1:18:25

going to be less snow

1:18:27

coverage, and it's going to

1:18:29

reduce transmission of triccanella, right?

1:18:31

No, I think it would

1:18:33

actually increase transmission. Yeah. Yeah,

1:18:35

because if you don't have

1:18:37

any snow, the carcass is

1:18:39

always available. It's not buried

1:18:41

underneath the heap of ice.

1:18:43

So, yeah, animals are always

1:18:45

hungry. They never pass up

1:18:47

a meal, even if it's

1:18:49

a rotting carcass, they don't

1:18:51

pass that up. Which I

1:18:53

can't figure out how they

1:18:55

do that, because you and

1:18:57

I wouldn't eat that stuff

1:18:59

or a bet. Even if

1:19:01

it was non-toxic, you're looking

1:19:04

at a piece of meat

1:19:06

that's probably autoized and digested

1:19:08

already. And you're just gonna

1:19:10

drink it almost. And animals

1:19:12

just dig into that stuff

1:19:14

like it was... I'm thinking

1:19:16

of the buried shark that

1:19:18

I once ate in, and

1:19:20

Iceland, where you bury a

1:19:22

chunk of shark and let

1:19:24

it ferment in the ground

1:19:26

for a year and then

1:19:28

you regret doing that. Is

1:19:30

that, is that a, there's

1:19:32

a Norwegian dish that's, it's,

1:19:34

I forget the name of

1:19:36

this dish, it's fermented shark,

1:19:38

it is fermented shark, yeah,

1:19:40

yeah, and, no, that, not,

1:19:42

not my favorite, not for

1:19:44

me, thanks. Even with a

1:19:46

Scotch. All right. So Dixon,

1:19:48

if the biomass of Tricanella

1:19:50

declined, would that be a

1:19:52

bad thing? Not in my

1:19:54

view. No, but I don't

1:19:56

think it will. I honestly,

1:19:58

I can't imagine it. I

1:20:00

think with it. The temperature

1:20:02

goes up, you get more

1:20:04

animals, you don't get fewer

1:20:06

animals, you get more animals.

1:20:08

The mating season is longer,

1:20:10

that sort of thing. Okay.

1:20:12

That'll do it for TW

1:20:14

246. What a wonderful twip

1:20:16

it was too. Actually, we

1:20:18

have one letter, let's read

1:20:20

it. Sure. We got Frank

1:20:22

rights. I'm a loyal listener

1:20:24

and sometimes donor to Twix

1:20:26

for 18 years. A grand

1:20:28

thank you to Vincent and

1:20:30

all participants for the Twix

1:20:32

Education and entertainment each year,

1:20:34

each time I hear you

1:20:36

discuss Lyme and other tick

1:20:38

board diseases. I hope to

1:20:40

hear a detail. about the

1:20:42

often referred to minimum attachment

1:20:44

time to transmit. We've got

1:20:46

the CDC link here, where

1:20:48

it said ticks needs to

1:20:50

be attached from more than

1:20:52

24 hours to begin filling

1:20:54

with blood before they can

1:20:56

transmit spread Lyme disease bacteria.

1:20:58

If true, this should provide

1:21:00

plenty of time for the

1:21:02

average person and their partners

1:21:04

to look for and find

1:21:06

an attached tick. living and

1:21:08

hiking in Northwest Connecticut for

1:21:10

many years. I'm very familiar

1:21:12

with the routine. Who better

1:21:14

than the TWP crew to

1:21:16

discuss the step-by-step process of

1:21:18

various ticks attaching, injecting their

1:21:20

chemical cocktails, and drawing bullet.

1:21:22

Dixon and Daniel often provide

1:21:24

this in great detail for

1:21:26

redoved titsy or mosquito disease

1:21:28

transfers, just as common sense

1:21:30

is surprisingly uncommon. Scientific communication

1:21:32

is often frighteningly unscientific. Thank

1:21:34

you for Thank you all

1:21:36

for being the source for

1:21:38

factual, no nonsense, and scientific

1:21:40

approach to presenting information best

1:21:42

regards, Frank. So I will

1:21:44

say, this is interesting, so

1:21:46

this is true. It probably

1:21:48

takes more than 24 hours

1:21:50

for the deer tick to

1:21:52

transmit the lime, the Brelius

1:21:54

Spirickeet, which is, you know,

1:21:56

thus, the songs about, you

1:21:58

know, checking. my partner for

1:22:01

ticks, the famous Western song, and

1:22:03

something that you should do, but

1:22:05

I think there's a couple issues

1:22:07

here. One is there are other

1:22:09

pathogens in the ticks which actually

1:22:11

can spread in as little as

1:22:13

15 minutes. Can you believe that?

1:22:15

And also when the tick, the

1:22:17

lymphal tick, first attaches, it's so

1:22:19

small, it's the size of a

1:22:21

poppy seed. And often it's up

1:22:23

in an area where maybe it

1:22:25

would be indiscreet for you to

1:22:27

be checking unless you were very

1:22:30

intimate with the partner. So.

1:22:32

Right. All right, that's TW 246.

1:22:34

Show Notes Microob. TV slash

1:22:36

Trip. You can send us

1:22:38

your questions or comments to

1:22:41

TWIP at microob. And again,

1:22:43

if you like this work.

1:22:45

This science communication, please support

1:22:47

us, microbe.TV slash contribute. Daniel

1:22:50

Griffin, Columbia University

1:22:52

Irving Medical Center,

1:22:54

Parasites Without Borders.com.

1:22:57

Thank you, Daniel. Thank

1:22:59

you, and everyone be safe.

1:23:01

Dixon de Pomier is at

1:23:04

Triccinella.org, the Living River.org. Thank

1:23:06

you, Dixon. I like to hear you.

1:23:08

Share your knowledge of so many years

1:23:10

with us. I enjoy being asked.

1:23:13

I do. I'm Vincent Rachanello,

1:23:15

you can find me

1:23:17

at microbe. TV. Music

1:23:19

on TWP is by

1:23:21

Ronald Jenkins. You've been

1:23:23

listening to This Week

1:23:25

in Parasitism. Thanks for

1:23:27

joining us. We'll be back

1:23:30

soon. Another TWP is parasitic.

1:23:32

What did this mean, Dixon?

1:23:34

I wanted you to say it. I

1:23:37

thought you meant yourself. No, no, no,

1:23:39

no. I was... for a deal. It's

1:23:41

fine.