> Cat's themselves are not very sanitary. Better than rats, sure, but they are a source of toxoplasmosis

Hyperbole and toxoplasmosis go well together.

In particular: it's a limited time window when an infected feline could transmit toxoplasmosis. It can be dangerous to pregnancies, or immuno-compromised individuals.

Most humans (and other beings) aren't pregnant or immunocompromised, but the drama of the topic gets clicks, so it's a meme of sorts, and it resurfaces every six months or so in the news as if a revelation.

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kirubakaran 8 hours ago | parent [-]

> Most humans (and other beings) aren't pregnant or immunocompromised

Just because pregnant and immuno-compromised people are in the minority, it's not a big deal?

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sporadicism 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Additionally, I can't imagine being blase about gaining parasites just because you're not pregnant or immunocompromised.

	▲	jjtheblunt 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		no one is being blase : we're immersed in a biological world teeming with such critters...and we exist through evolutionary adaptation to such. for fun, check out mites around eyelashes, for an innocuous example.
	▲	nkrisc 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You’ve likely already got many critters living in an on you.

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jjtheblunt 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

it's a big deal for some, but not for all individuals, is the point clearly made.

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kirubakaran 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Well you wrote "Hyperbole and toxoplasmosis go well together". It's not "hyperbole" to care about others, however few they are, even though you yourself might not be at risk, right?

But I don't mean to be confrontational. I understand that it is probably annoying to hear toxoplasmosis talked about like it is black death.

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colechristensen 7 hours ago | parent [-]

A third of the entire human population is infected with toxoplasmosis, in some places nearly every human.

If you put humans in a sterile bubble you get a different set of diseases, to a considerably greater degree because your immune system evolved in an environment where you actually got infections.

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kirubakaran 6 hours ago | parent [-]

By that logic, we shouldn't be fighting malaria in Africa either.

Are there any benefits to toxoplasmosis besides some people finding the vector cute? The alternative isn't living in a sterile bubble.

	▲	colechristensen 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Without infections your immune system gets bored and starts attacking you. You need to have something for your immune system to do on a regular basis. Toxo is to a very large degree asymptomatic. You are full of and covered with organisms. Being paranoid about infection isn't helpful to anyone. Ok you don't like cats, that's fine, but are you as passionate about rare steak which is a much more common vector? Malaria... is not asymptomatic.