Long time readers know of my interest in the ongoing research into the weird effects of toxoplasma infection.
Now it turns out that it seems to affect the gender balance of offspring from infected mothers!:
The parasite, toxoplasma, infects around 15% of Britons, but up to 80% of the population in some countries. It is spread by contaminated cat faeces, but also lurks in uncooked pork and beef.
Researchers in the Czech Republic collected medical records from 1,803 newborn babies between 1996 and 2004 and checked them for information on the mothers and babies including gender, the number of previous pregnancies, and the mother's levels of toxoplasma antibodies.
They discovered that women whose antibody count was high - suggesting a substantial infection - had a much higher chance of having baby boys. In most populations the birth rate is around 51% boys, but women infected with toxoplasma had up to a 72% chance of a boy. Toxoplasma causes congenital defects in newborns and can trigger miscarriages, but a link with the gender of newborns has never been identified before.
What other surprises about this bug are out there yet to be discovered?
By the way, this fairly recent study, if I read it right, implicates strong maternal toxoplasma infection with schizophrenia in their adult children. I believe men are much more likely to get schizophrenia than women. Does the discovery that the maternal infection favours boy babies account for this higher rate in men?
Repeat after me: cats really are evil.
2 comments:
Given the poor infrastructure in Iraq since the war, what is the reliability of the information in death certificates? Frankly, I am a little surprised that there were even that many death certificates issued. Is there a financial incentive for relatives to falsely claim a death in the family?
well - is there a financial incentive? If so, what do you think it is?
There is clearly a more tangible financial incentive for the jewish people to falsely infalte the deaths in the holocaust - do you think the death toll in the holocaust is inflated?
Your comments a dripping with racism, whether you realize it or not
It's a fairly obvious question to ask, given that many non war supporters are expressing scepticism about the survey's accuracy. From my quick read of the Lancet article, there is no discussion of whether there is any likelihood of fraudulent claims of deaths. For all I know, there may be no possible financial incentive, but I don't have a clue how Iraq works.
Given that anti war people like to portray post-war Iraq as a complete basketcase, I am really only following their line of thought in being surprised at how many death certificates were available on this survey.
Let's leave the Holocaust of it, shall we, as it is completely irrelevant.
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