From Adrian Bowyer
A third of the human race is infected by Toxoplasma gondii, which is implicated in ills from schizophrenia to car accidents (30 May, p 42). Its cysts are virtually indestructible in people.
It reproduces only in cats. Surely the primary attack must be against that stage of its life cycle? I don’t mean trying to get rid of domestic cats – human sentiment dooms that. But priming cats’ immune systems to attack the parasite in its vulnerable breeding phase, which lasts only a few weeks, would surely be possible. If this were included in the vaccinations that kittens get, we might be able to reduce the disease significantly.
Of course, we might then discover that the increased risk-taking the disease induces is essential to human success, and that it was a mutualist symbiont, not a parasite…
Foxham, Wiltshire, UK
