Sunday Times: Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality
They may look like lovable pets but Britain's estimated 9m domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people's personalities.
The startling figures emerge from studies into toxoplasma gondii, a parasite carried by almost all the country's feline population. They show that half of Britain's human population carry the parasite in their brains, and that infected people may undergo slow but crucial changes in their behaviour…
The [Stanley Research Medical I]nstitute has already published research showing that people infected with the toxoplasma parasite are at greater risk of developing schizophrenia and manic depression…
[Professor Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague] also discovered that people infected with toxoplasma had delayed reaction times—and are at greater risk of being involved in car accidents. "Toxoplasma infection, could represent a serious and highly underestimated economic and public health problem," he said.
Would we put up with this shit from any other species?
Remember the recent British foot and mouth crisis? Millions of animals that were no direct threat to human beings were slaughtered. So why treat these parasite-infested, bird-butchering moggie vermin any differently? They are a menace to society, and to the environment.
Someone should do something.
See also:
- A Modest Proposal
- Saving 120 million birds and animals with one stone
- Miaow again!
- Alergy
- Feline stressed?
- One lump or two?
- Ruddy hell!
(Do you spot a theme developing here?)