b) Use soap.
c) Sing “Happy Birthday” at a normal tempo. Do not stop washing until you’re done with the entire song.
And by the way, quit rubbing your eyes so much!
(Thanks to Yvette Christianse for this one.)
2. If You Eat Meat, Cook It Good
A major vector of parasites is predation: one animal eating another. That’s because when you eat an animal, you’re exposing yourself to every parasite adapted to living inside that animal, and every parasite adapted to all the things it eats.
Meat-borne parasites include hookworms, tapeworms, blood flukes, and more. There are zillions of them. Your humble author is a vegetarian (for non-parasite-related reasons), but you don’t have to go that far. It doesn’t hurt to eat a few worms every once in a while, as long as they’re thoroughly cooked. So don’t eat rare meat, and memorize this simple rhyme:
If your burger oozes red,
Send it back; them worms ain’t dead.
3. Don’t Swim in Tropical Rivers
The tropics are the warmest places on earth, and warm water is a great place for parasites to spend time outside a host. Commonly, tropical parasites jump from their host into a river, then swim around looking for the next host to invade. They can enter your body through your skin, mouth, eyes, and other orifices. These parasites include the famous guinea worms, those snaky things that roost in your leg and have to be spooled out like spaghetti on a fork. Ew.
The ocean is fine (it’s salty) and so are swimming pools (chlorinated), but don’t swim in tropical rivers. And if you must swim in tropical rivers, for heaven’s sake don’t pee! Your urine will attract a spiny creature called a candiru, which swims furiously toward any urine it smells, and will lodge in your … Well, where it lodges depends on whether you’re male or female, but either way, you don’t want it lodging there.
Just don’t pee in tropical rivers. Trust me.
4. Don’t Have Unsafe Sex
Parasites and viruses and bacteria that have evolved to live in human beings are often found in … human beings. For this and many other obvious reasons, be careful with your body when you’re getting close to someone else’s.
5. You Have Parasites—So Deal With It
Okay, here’s the thing: No matter how careful you are, eventually you’ll wind up parasitized. Some scientists consider all bacteria and viruses parasites; by this definition, having a simple head cold means that millions of little parasites are living inside you. But don’t freak out about it. It’s all part of the rich tapestry of life, blah, blah, blah.
Tough luck. Nature isn’t just the simple barnyard set you got when you were five years old: pigs, cows, goats, and a dog. It’s also liver flukes, guinea worms, and skin mites. All of nature’s creatures have to eat, and it just so happens that some eat you. But it’s not worth losing sleep over. Humans have had these little friends along since the beginning of our species. So deal with it. Hey, at least they’re mostly too small to see, and that’s better than, you know, lions eating you.
And remember, the vast majority of human beings in the developed world die in car wrecks and from cancer, heart disease, and smoking—not blood flukes, lung-worms, rinderpest, or toxoplasmic brain infestations.
Just don’t pee in tropical rivers. Really. Just don’t.
No, really.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Here are some books for reading more about parasites and rats and other icky things. Because you know you want to.
Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer (Touchstone, 2000)
Practically every parasite mentioned in this novel can be found in this very enjoyable book, plus many more. Without Parasite Rex, Peeps could not have been written. And it has pictures. But trust me, if you value your sleep, don’t look at the pictures.
Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan (Bloomsbury, 2004)
A beautifully written history of rats in New York City. As a bonus, there’s a field guide to rat-watching in Ryder’s Alley, a tiny little rodent heaven downtown. And yes, there really is a family called the Ryders, who I’m fairly sure are nice people and not really vampires.
Bitten: True Medical Stories of Bites and Stings by Pamela Nagami (St. Martins Press, 2004)
All you ever wanted to know about diseases that spread through bites and stings, and then some. Did you know that if you punch someone in the mouth, there’s a bacteria that can spread from their teeth to your knuckles and eat your hand away? Hitting people is bad.
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (going strong since 1859)
The book that started it all. The key to understanding modern biology, from DNA to dinosaurs, and of all the great books of science, the most readable. And those stickers on textbooks, the ones stating that evolution is “only a theory”? Not true. When scientists use the word theory, they don’t mean “something that hasn’t been proven to be a fact.” They mean “a framework for understanding the facts.” So guess what, it’s a fact that human beings have evolved from other primates over the last five million years. (Like we share 98 percent of our DNA with chimps by accident?) But the framework we use to make sense of this fact is called evolutionary theory, Darwin’s awesome mash-up of several concepts: inherited traits, mutation, and survival of the fittest. So yes, we’re all distantly related to modern-day apes. Find that hard to believe? Dude, look around you.