Yesterday, New York Times writer Thomas Fuller, wrote a piece about the injurious side of Thai food delicacies.
Taken from NYT article featured here
The raw fish that is so avidly consumed in the stilt houses that sit among rice paddies and wetlands of the country’s northern provinces contain parasites that can accumulate in the liver and lead to a deadly cancer. Known as bile duct cancer
Bile duct cancer is prevalent in Thailand and represents the majority of the nearly 70 liver cancer deaths a day in Thailand. Dr. Banchob Sripa, the head of the tropical disease research laboratory at nearby Khon Kaen University, says that “it’s the most deadly and persistent cancer in the region.”
Concurrently, Dr. Peter Hotez, President of Sabin Vaccine Institute, characterizes liver flukes as “one of the most important infectious causes of cancer that no one has ever heard of.” Dr. Hotez also explains that
even though Thailand is a middle-class country, there are still pockets of intense poverty — and with that poverty come high rates of neglected tropical diseases. We’ve got the technology to make vaccines. But we don’t have the funding.
Thus, like several of the NTDs we focus on, these parasites get less attention because they rarely afflict wealthy urban populations.
Check out the full article here!