A rare parasitic infection has been found in people eight states, several that don't share borders, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calling into question just how uncommon rat lungworms really are.

Rat lungworm infection, which in extreme cases can cause meningitis in humans, was detected in 16 people between 2011 and 2017 and confirmed in 12, according to a CDC report released Thursday that acknowledged researchers might not have learned about all the rat lungworm illnesses in the continental United States in those six years.

The cases studied came from Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, New York, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. And the patients, who included children as young as 1 year old, might have ingested the parasite from their home gardens if they didn't wash their produce well, a CDC official said.

“Some of the fresh produce had been grown in the backyard,” said Dr. Sue Montgomery, a senior epidemiologist at the CDC’s parasitic diseases branch told NBC News. “They probably inadvertently ate a snail or slug.”

Full story here.

When newly-acquired Science Guy Brett made me aware of the disease called rat lungworm, he made a splash larger than anyone could have imagined. To hell with the first day employees who bring in donuts and coffees. I’m no businessman, I’ll postmates my donuts and coffee and pay an arm and a leg a hundred times out of a hundred. That’s called financial irresponsibility, that’s called living your truth, that’s called blog life. So, to hell with the suck up who acts like he’s my new donut connection- give me the employee who gives me the groundbreaking science story. Give me the employee who overcomes his fear of eye worms to give me all the fresh details on lungworms. Give me the employee who presents me the freshest dough for my hot-take oven. Give me Brett, our new Science Guy*, and lungworms. 

Now for rat lungworms, the most disgusting of lungworms. Rat lungworm occurs when a rat eats an infected snail and gives these little worms a place to grow. Long story short these worms, casually known as Angiostrongylus cantonensis, grow in the rat’s brain, the pulmonary artery and then basically get coughed up by the rat who then eats them. The idiot rat could just spit the worms out and curb stomp them, but instead it swallows them, shits them out, and then leaves them for snails to eat. 

This begs a few questions: 

1. Are rats unanimous on the spit vs. swallow debate?
2. Are rat lungworms delicious?
3. How are people getting lungworms?

For the first two of these questions, we have to look to the evidence. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Based off of tenacious research over the past six years, not done by me, we can say without a doubt that all rats prefer swallowing to spitting (to each their own) and this may or may not have something to do with rat lungworms being delicious. 

As to our third question, how do people get rat lungworms? The sentence from the above article, “[Children] probably inadvertently ate a snail or slug,” may be the most misleading sentence in the history of written language. Have you ever met a child? Any child? They most certainly eat snails and other bugs very advertently. Kids are dumb walking petris dishes and all children process all sensations through their mouths because they’re starving little fools. It’s ultimately on us, all grown people, for not nourishing our children enough. If we sent all of our children out into the garden stuffed to their child-gills full of food, then they wouldn’t be hungry enough to eat snails and rat lungworms, would they? Damn kids are way too hungry. 

In conclusion, the epidemic of rat lungworms has arisen from the rat populations habit of swallowing, rather than spitting the parasite, and the youngest generation’s penchant for sampling the garden insects. And I’ll tell you what people, it’s bad news. It’s bad news because once you get rat lungworm, you don’t come back. You’re tainted. Your whole body is ruined. That should be a mandatory first-date question: do you, or have you ever had rat lungworm? If so, then it’s a no go. How do you expect to contribute to society if you have a rat lungworm? Just say it out loud, “rat lungworm”. No no, once the lungworm touches you you’re as good as dead. Time to move out into the woods and think about what you’ve done- you eat a snail, you get rat lungworm, this is elementary stuff.