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Pandora's avatar

Why isn't there a remedy/cure for the T gondii parasite that can pass on from cat poop to humans if it is so dangerous?

Asked by Pandora (32436points) May 27th, 2016

I just read this article that T gondii could significantly increase your risk of developing a mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, addiction, or obsessive-compulsive disorder later in life.
Tgondii

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12 Answers

CWOTUS's avatar

That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.

Remedies and cures for disease do not “just happen” because “we need them”. Someone, probably some corporation – in fact, the kind of large pharmaceutical corporation with more money than God, which a lot of people hate for no more reason than that – will have to spend a lot of time, effort, manpower (in other words, “money, money and more money”) to discover, develop and satisfactorily prove a cure or remedy, and then spend millions more to promote it so that it becomes well known around the medical community, so that it can be prescribed.

And it’s not even a certain outcome. It’s not like the Big Bad Pharmacorp can just dump a pile of money somewhere, wait long enough and have exactly what they need to make a huge return on their investment. They could lose it all if the development fails to find a cure in the first place, or if it proves to be ineffective or dangerous in testing, and never even makes it to market. Even worse, they could spend the time, effort, money in development, then spend millions more in testing to prove that it is effective and seems to have relatively benign side effects, spend millions more to promote and produce it – and then find out, too late! – that it is actually quite dangerous for reasons that had not been anticipated, and spend hundreds of millions in settling lawsuits.

It’s a risky business. You don’t get drugs in the pipeline “just because it’s so badly needed”.

Jak's avatar

Because…. nobody has found one yet?

Pandora's avatar

Oh, actually found out there is a cure. http://www.drugs.com/health-guide/toxoplasmosis.html Also people can get it from eating pork that isn’t fully cooked or handling raw meat. Especially dangerous for pregnant women.
I guess another issue would be, is why aren’t there more public warnings.

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cazzie's avatar

Last I checked Good Housekeeping magazine wasn’t a medical journal.

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dappled_leaves's avatar

I know someone whose sibling went blind in one eye as a child due to toxoplasmosis. She was lucky not to lose her vision completely. I don’t know why there aren’t more warnings about it, either. “Nothing has happened to me” isn’t a very good reason, and I rather suspect that it is because the sensible thing is for humans not to keep cats as pets – and no one wants to tell people that.

jca's avatar

When I was pregnant, I was told that due to being a cat owner I probably already had the toxoplasmosis in my body. I had a cat who had toxoplasmosis once

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