By: Karie Youngdahl, Project Director of History of Vaccines
Schistosoma mansoni trematode. Courtesy of CDC
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia recently hosted parasitologist Eugene H. Kaplan, PhD, for a talk about his new book, What’s Eating You? People and Parasites (Princeton University Press, 2010). Kaplan is an emeritus professor at Hofstra University.
Kaplan’s harrowing talk highlighted fascinating and gruesome facts about human parasites, including guinea worm, schistosomes (the parasites that cause bilharzia, or snail fever), filarial worms, lung flukes, tapeworms, and the common pinworm. A global traveler, the author has contracted many parasites himself and so knows firsthand some of their health effects.
What happens when a North American traveler picks up parasites more common to other geographic areas? Apparently, lack of resources for tropical diseases is not just a problem in tropical areas: Kaplan drew attention to a dearth of tropical disease specialists in the United States. In fact, looking for treatment for dysentery he’d picked up on a trip to Tanzania, he was able to locate only four tropical disease specialists in the New York City area. Only 35% of U.S. medical schools offer courses in parasitology, and for most of those that do, the course is not required for graduation.
Apart from looking at the state of parasitology in the United States, Kaplan often points out the odd interplay between the pharmaceutical product landscape and the needs of the developing world. Veterinary medicines developed to treat parasites in the developed world’s pampered domestic animals find human applications in Africa and Asia. In particular, Kaplan’s story about a treatment for sleeping sickness, the world’s second most common parasitic illness, is telling. In the late 1990s, supplies of a “wonder drug” for sleeping sickness were diminishing: eflornithine was remarkably effective in treating sleeping sickness, but the market for it couldn’t support its ongoing production. Then a pharmaceutical company found that a topical form of eflornithine could reduce unwanted facial hair in women. Production of the drug ramped up for this cosmetic use, and, after some encouragement from the global health community, pharmaceutical companies donated supplies of it to the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders. Sometimes the discrepancy in global health status leads to productive solutions.
Kaplan’s book, rich in illustrations, detailed information about the biology of parasitism, and quirky personal stories, is an excellent introduction to the complicated role of parasites in the human experience.
Karie Youngdahl is the Project Director of History of Vaccines. Please visit their blog, which can also be found on our blogroll.
Look for the launch of History of Vaccines on October 1, 2010, at www.historyofvaccines.org. The History of Vaccines is a website designed to communicate the historical contribution of vaccines and antibodies to human health in order to explain the role of immunization in the human experience.
