this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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Keep away from the pork sashimi y'all.
RFK is that you?
What percentage of RFK is RFK?
Huh. I didn't realize tapeworms could travel outside the digestive tract. Apparently it's much more common with "pork tapeworm" and this poor guy is thought to have gotten in this situation by eating undercooked pork.
The Daily Mail commenting on a social media post is about as legitimate a news source as "a guy that was shouting at the bins behind the pub said..."
True, but it’s the most respectable source I came across when reverse image searching this meme. I guess we could have just stuck with the meme? It doesn’t give a lot of context.
Truth to the legends... there's a reason two separate religious codes banned consumption of pork.
how separate are they
Fair point. Probably not very separate to begin with, but definitely so now.
Made me wonder what the AI overview would say when you google "you can only get a tapeworm from eating pork", but it put the Sean Locke videos at the top and then and overview saying correctly that it's not true.
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A friend said there are no parasites (anymore) in European porc so you don't need to over cook it, gotta try to find a credible source for that. He's a chef and makes like lots of canned food and more on a semi industrial scale so It's not nobody, but still I wonder.
Schweinemet (raw ground pork you spread on rolls) is relatively common in Germany. Kind of gross looking but I think it is quite unlikely to cause problems if you eat it quickly.
I can only speak about Germany, but Germany is one of the largest pork producers and consumers.
There is at least one mayor scandal every year about malpractice, lack of hygiene and/or abuse of workers at industrial animal farms and slaughterhouses. The number of government inspectors only is enough to allow for inspections about once every 20 years or so per business. Also in many cases inspections are done by the local veterinarians, who also have the farmers/slaughter houses as customers and have a clear conflict of interest.
Yeah like Buittoni and their pizzas with botulism. Nothing is perfect.
That sounds like a risk I am not willing to take
In Japan, I've also had like medium pork katsu. So pork katsu not fully cooked. I'm sure there are higher quality porks different places. Def not something I will try in US.
I think trichinosis (sp?) is rare these days, but dunno about all the other wriggly stuff
Sous vide is always an option
I've heard that as well. It's hard to figure out how many of the dissenting opinions are based on fact, and how many are outdated.
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...what's actually making the cysts radiopaque? I wouldn't have guessed tape worms or the damage they're doing to soft tissue to be anywhere near that visible on x-ray
With a lot of parasites, when they die the tissue around them calcifies (just your body’s response). That’s what we are seeing on the radiograph.
I would have assumed that perhaps it was a tracer at first.
That makes a ton more sense - thank you!
calcification, the immune system, combined with the parasite walling off the infection. the parasite itself secretes chemicals to suppress the local immune system, thats why you dont see massive immune response to so many. if the parasites suddenly die it can be a problem for the host. theres also studies going on that non-deadly parasites are result of modulating autoimmune diseases as well.
I became a vegetarian because of all the scary stuffs like this.
You can get all kinds of parasites from unwashed or underwashed produce.
Beth Mole, a writer at Ars Technica, has a fun example with Rat Lungworm: Burning in woman’s legs turned out to be slug parasites migrating to her brain.
It started with a bizarre burning sensation in her feet. Over the next two days, the searing pain crept up her legs. Any light touch made it worse, and over-the-counter pain medicine offered no relief.
and so on until it's diagnosed, then some lifecycle/vector explanation:
For instance, if a slug or snail traverses a leaf of lettuce, leaving a slime trail in its wake, the leaf can be contaminated with the larvae.
I think I read somewhere people can live of sun rays or some shit like that. 😆
Damn parasites.
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Not just this but definitely helped me in my journey. The whole idea of having to use separate cutting boards and knives just incase you get a terrible infection is totally insane.
You make it sound like you’re vegan because you didn’t like doing dishes, lol
I mean, that's a good a selling point as any.
Except you can skip that step and all of the extra cutting boards and knives if you just do your veggie prep before your meat prep.
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thanks I hate it
Is this the place to drop my recommendation for Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer? It’s 25 years old, but a fascinating read.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/filth-irvine-welsh/8805998?ean=9780393318685&next=t
Lovely fiction about the vilest cop in the world, partially narrated by his tapeworm.
The audiobook is on Hoopla: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12128143
I'd recommend the physical book.
The author does some nice tricks with the typography that you'd miss with the audio version.
Is there a cure?
No, but they won't do anything to you once they get into the muscle. They're accidental parasites at a young stage that got into the wrong host instead of prey animals.
These cysts lodge deeply into the tissue, waiting indefinitely for you to get eaten so they can break free from their capsule when stomach acid dissolves it to continue their life cycle, but since that probably won't happen, your body calcifies them. They stay in place without causing pain or harm other than activating your immune system.
I think the worst is probably when they manage to get past the blood-brain barrier into the brain, which can cause a wide range of symptoms from neuropathy to seizures, and even death. But besides being gross, they're usually nothing to worry about in other parts of the body.
Of course, the image is of a Chinese man with a severe case of infestation that made the rounds from daily consumption of raw sashimi for many years. The average person who's infected usually has a handful at most and doesn't show signs or symptoms.
These are also different from the adults that stay inside the digestive track, hook into the intestinal wall, and absorb nutrients passively from their surroundings.
daily consumption of raw sashimi for many years
Ah, so not just from raw pork
Ah so sometimes they turn themselves into pets.
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