Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
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Monday, May 08, 2006
"I was not willing to wait ten or more years for the drug companies to bring a drug to market. Based upon what I read, and what I learned about the hookworm I decided that I was going to try and infest myself with hookworm in an attempt to cure my asthma.
...But where to go to find these hookworm? Intensive searches of the WHO website turned up just one map showing hookworm distribution in only one country: Cameroon. I read extensively on Cameroon. ... The average annual wage is less than $700, it is at the epicenter for malaria and is afflicted with a legion of horrific diseases. ... The highlights are malaria, dengue fever, river blindness, sleeping sickness, filharzia/elephantiasis, bilharzia (nasty!), rift valley fever, two varieties of hepatitis, cholera, typhoid and yellow fever. Filharzia is my least favorite, a mosquito born nematode (worm) that takes up residence in your lymphatic system and that if left untreated the worms proliferate and so clog your lymph system that your extremities swell with undrained lymph to produce elephantiasis. It is in incurable, but can be managed with treatment. I don't think I got it but I won't know until 2007.
It only begins there.
The astonishing (and also a bit horrifying) story of one man's quest to cure his asthma using hookworm (via Waxy.)
Comments:
Poor SOB. Most parasitology labs in the US could have provided him with live samples.
For people who want to try this, go to a major university and enroll in a parasit class; once you know the prof, they'll probably hook you up. (Pun intended.) Most parasit profs are bizarre, trollish folk who have at one point deliberately infected themselves to see what it's like.
RL
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For people who want to try this, go to a major university and enroll in a parasit class; once you know the prof, they'll probably hook you up. (Pun intended.) Most parasit profs are bizarre, trollish folk who have at one point deliberately infected themselves to see what it's like.
RL
# posted by 
: May 18, 2006 5:52 AM
: May 18, 2006 5:52 AM
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