{"id":2034,"date":"2011-10-25T06:47:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T10:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/?p=2034"},"modified":"2015-06-04T15:15:38","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T19:15:38","slug":"important-reminder-dont-eat-garden-slugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/important-reminder-dont-eat-garden-slugs\/2011\/10\/25\/","title":{"rendered":"Important Reminder:  Don&#8217;t Eat Raw Garden Slugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the pages of the <em>New York Times<\/em>, courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.promedmail.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">ProMED<\/a>, comes this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/18\/health\/18global.html?scp=1&amp;sq=slugs&amp;st=cse\" target=\"_blank\">case report<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>An Australian man has been hospitalized for more than a month in serious condition as a result of eating two garden slugs on a dare&#8230;The 21-year-old Sydney man apparently contracted a rat lungworm parasite from the slugs, which pick it up from rodent droppings. The parasite, a nematode called <em>Angiostrongylus cantonensis<\/em>, can cause fatal brain swelling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/10\/garden-slug-yum1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2063\" title=\"garden slug yum\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/10\/garden-slug-yum1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"145\" \/><\/a>From the perspective of an Infectious Diseases doctor, the surprising thing isn&#8217;t that a person would actually eat a raw garden slug &#8212; or even, as in this case, eat <em>two <\/em>raw garden slugs. After all, in our field one regularly hears of risk-taking behavior that, to quote <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Portnoys-Complaint-Philip-Roth\/dp\/0679756450\" target=\"_blank\">a particular novel<\/a>, &#8220;&#8230; runs to Z and beyond!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nope &#8212; my favorite part of the case report is this line:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWe hope this will help to remind others to avoid eating raw slugs,\u201d the moderator, Eskild Petersen, said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And with that, Public Health Crisis averted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the pages of the New York Times, courtesy of ProMED, comes this case report: An Australian man has been hospitalized for more than a month in serious condition as a result of eating two garden slugs on a dare&#8230;The 21-year-old Sydney man apparently contracted a rat lungworm parasite from the slugs, which pick it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,8],"tags":[61,331,376],"class_list":["post-2034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infectious-diseases","category-misc","category-patient-care","tag-angiostrongylus-cantonensis","tag-eosinophilic-meningitis","tag-garden-slugs"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}