Family members who consumed undercooked bear meat and contracted brain worms

 

undercooked bear meat and brain worms

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a number of family members were infected with brain worms after sharing a supper of bear flesh gathered previously by one of them.

In July 2022, the Minnesota Department of Health was notified that a 29-year-old male had been hospitalized many times over a two-and-a-half-week period for symptoms such as fever, severe muscle discomfort, swelling around the eyes, and other symptoms.

Following his second hospitalization, the guy told doctors that he had just attended a family gathering in South Dakota and that one of the meals they had contained kabobs made of black bear meat collected by a family member in northern Saskatchewan.

The beef had been stored in the freezer for a month and a half before being thawed for the meal. The CDC stated that because the beef was deeper in color, it was initially and accidentally served rare. Family members began eating the kabobs, but noticed that the meat was undercooked, so it was recooked and served again.

Nine family members, mostly from Minnesota but some from South Dakota and Arizona, ate the lunch, albeit some merely ate the veggies that had been cooked and served alongside the bear meat.

Doctors subsequently diagnosed the 29-year-old man with trichinellosis, a roundworm that is uncommon in humans but is frequently transmitted through the consumption of wild animals.

Once within a human host, the larvae can spread to muscle tissue and organs, including the brain.

Five more family members were infected with similar freeze-resistant worms, including a 12-year-old girl and two others who had only eaten the vegetables at the lunch. Three family members were hospitalized and treated with albendazole, which, according to the Mayo Clinic, prevents the worms from ingesting sugar "so that the worm loses energy and dies."

 The CDC warned that the only sure way to destroy trichinella parasites is to thoroughly boil the meat in which they live, to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and underlined their caution that it can cross-contaminate other meals.

According to the CDC, estimates of the prevalence of trichinella parasites in wild animals vary greatly, although it is believed that up to one-quarter of black bears in Canada and Alaska are affected.

Brain worms made global headlines earlier this year when presidential aspirant Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed that a parasitic worm he contracted years ago "ate a portion" of his brain, perhaps creating cognitive difficulties.

Nausea, vomiting, headaches, and seizures are symptoms of a brain worm infection, according to Dr. Céline Gounder on "CBS Mornings." However, some persons who get the worms may experience no symptoms at all. Gounder explained that these parasites are typically "walled off" by your immune system and calcified.