Can I Get Toxoplasmosis From Kissing My Cat?
The simple answer is that technically a person can get toxoplasmosis if they have a habit of kissing their cat on the lips or near the mouth. The reason is this: a cat washes her bottom with her tongue. Somewhere near half of cats have been exposed to toxoplasmosis at some time and many of them have it but without symptoms. However, and this is the important bit, only for a period of about 10 days in the life of the cat can there be toxoplasmosis eggs in the cat's faeces which can be transferred to the person.
You can tell, therefore, that the chances of getting toxoplasmosis from kissing your cat is extremely rare to the point where, my opinion, it could be ignored.
It should also be recognised that worldwide about 50% of people have been exposed to toxoplasmosis. This is a similar number to the percentage of cats, interestingly. Note: in America the figure is about 30%.
Another interesting point is that by far the most common cause of getting toxoplasmosis is through handling raw meat inappropriately. Clearly vulnerable people such as people with very weak immune systems and pregnant women should take particular precautions but there is never a need to get rid of your cat because you are frightened of getting toxoplasmosis in anyway from your cat including by kissing him or her.
In short, the answer to the question is "yes you can" but don't stop kissing your cat if you want to. There is a tendency amongst the news media to hype up cat stories particularly about toxoplasmosis which can mislead people and make them frightened. The reality is quite different.
If you click on the link following this sentence you will can read three articles in PDF format on the subject of people and toxoplasmosis which I hope will alleviate any fears that a reader of this article might have.
Info about Toxo
One final point, very few people actually kissed their cat on the lips. Most people kiss their cat on the forehead or above the eyes ,for example. That is another reason why the question in the title is rather pointless but it is the title to this article because it is what is called a "keyword" -- people internet search using the words in the title.
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Then there’s cats’ most insidious disease of all, their Toxoplasma gondii parasite that cats spread through their feces into all other animals. This is how humans get it in their dinner-meats, cats roaming around stockyards and farms (herbivores can contract this parasite in no other way). This is why cats are routinely destroyed around gestating livestock or important wildlife by shooting or drowning them. So those animals won’t suffer from the same things that can happen to the unborn fetus of any pregnant woman. (Miscarriages, still-births, hydrocephaly, and microcephaly.) It can make you blind or even kill you at any time during your life once you’ve been infected. It becomes a permanent lifetime parasite in your mind, killing you when your immune system becomes compromised by disease or chemo and immunosuppressive therapies. It can last over a year in any soils or waters and not even washing your hands or garden vegetables in bleach will destroy the oocysts. Contrary to cat-lickers’ self-deceptive myths, a cat can become reinfected many times during its life and spread millions of oocysts each time. The dormant oocysts often carried right in the fur of the cat for just as long, It’s now linked to the cause of autism, schizophrenia, memory-loss, and brain cancers; as well as increasing the suicide rate in women almost 2-fold even though they’ve never suffered from any mental or emotional health issues previously. This parasite is also killing off rare and endangered marine-mammals along all coastlines and inland river-otters from cats’ T. gondii oocysts in run-off from the land, the oocysts surviving even in saltwater. A catastrophic ecological disaster of multi-continent-sized proportions worse than any oil-spill that has ever existed or could even be imagined.
ReplyDeleteIts strange life cycle is meant to infect rodents. Any rodents infected with it lose their fear of cats and are attracted to cat urine. scitizen D0T com SLASH neuroscience/parasite-hijacks-the-mind-of-its-host_a-23-509 D0T html
Cats attract rodents to your home with their whole slew of diseases (like The Plague from rats and fleas, many people have died from cat-transmitted Plague in the USA already, it is alive and well and being spread by cats today). If you want rodents in your home keep cats outside of it to attract diseased rodents to your area. I experienced this phenomenon (as have many others), and all rodent problems disappeared after I shot and buried every last one of hundreds of cats on my lands. Much better NATIVE rodent predators returned to my lands, rather than these man-made cats that were just attracting more rodents.
Hi Jimbo. You are the world's most insidious disease not toxoplasmosis! Read this and shut up:
Deletehttp://pictures-of-cats.org/toxoplasma-gondii-in-cat-feces-could-cure-cancer.html
So we all get brain cancers from your cats' parasites, just so you can try to cure it with your cats. Nice plan! You loatheful self-serving sociopathic parasite to humanity.
DeleteLOL. Thanks for making me happy, Jimbo.
DeleteAnother interesting experiment. They wanted to find out if dogs could possibly transmit cat-shat Toxoplasma gondii oocysts. A dog infected with T. gondii from a source-cat cannot. That stage of the parasite's life-cycle is 100% dependent on cat-physiology as its primary reproductive host. But if dogs ingest oocyst-laden cat-feces then dogs can pass the oocysts produced by cats & their common brain-hijacking parasite. ncbi D0T nlm D0T nih D0T gov SLASH pubmed/9477489?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to note that these Toxoplasma gondii oocysts shed by cats can even survive the hydrochloric stomach acids for the duration that they remain in a mammal's digestive tract. And then they doubt my words when I tell them of the studies where they found that this parasite's oocysts (seeds) can even survive washing your hands in bleach. You could wash your hands and garden vegetables in hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes for the same duration that food remains in an animal's digestive tract and even that won't destroy it. Your hands would be dissolved into a digestible pulp long before you could kill the Toxoplasma gondii oocysts.
Yeah, "basic hygiene" is going to keep your kids safe from going blind sometime during their life, becoming autistic, or die if they ever require any immunosuppressive therapies during their lifetime if they had ever played in a sandbox that a neighbor's cat has defecated in.
Go ahead everyone, drink the cat-lickers' Kool-Aid.
Someone who will save the life of a cat over yours is not to be trusted by any other human alive on this planet. Even cat-lickers can't trust their fellow cat-lickers to save each others' lives when it comes right down to it. Truth is, they'd even rather that their own family and friends die (if they have any) than any of their deadly disease-infested cats. Sociopaths and psychopaths, one and all, right to their very cores.
Woody, you know I never read your comments. Too verbose, pointless, rude and stupid.
DeleteThere's that wonderful bliss of self-inflicted ignorance within which you wallow all your sad and sorry life, that we've come to know about you so well. (In more colloquial terms, it is akin to "shoving one's head up one's own ass and keeping it there" lest they become anything more than the bliss-ninny they've always been.) Poke your own eyes out some more, see how far that gets you in life. Glad to see that you haven't changed your level of ignorance! Luckily, most other people on earth are not as self-handicapped as you. That reality beyond your mommy's-basement walls is so scary, isn't it Micheal. It shows, loud and clear. LOL!
ReplyDeletep.s. What's your excuse for the tomes of other lengthy, rambling, and pointless posts that all your cat-licking friends make as well as those of yourself? They don't have near as much valuable information in them, but you read those! LOL
Jimbo, stick with what you may know something about, Birdbrain!
DeleteThanks for this info. :)
ReplyDeleteI have been suffering from macular degeneration for about 2 years now and it's getting worse. I'm only 49 and this kind of thing doesn't usually happen before 65 (although it's not unheard of, of course)!
I am now wondering whether it could possibly be toxo related because I do kiss my 3 cats all the time (never on the mouth!), but wonder if, because they do lick 99% of their bodies with the same tongue that they lick their bum with, I could contract the disease that way?
Anyway, I think I will go to my docs and have a blood test just to check the possibility - losing my vision is very scary, and if there's any possible way to treat this, there is at least some hope to save my eyesight.
I think the best thing is to have a blood test specifically for this protozoan if such a blood test exists and it probably does. Good luck and sorry to hear you have macular degeneration. I would doubt that it is caused by your cats but wait and see.
Delete