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Health officials in Hawaii have been warning residents not to touch snails or slugs with their bare hands because of an increase in cases of people coming into contact with a rare parasitic infection known as a rat lungworm. Experts are blaming its sudden spread across the United States on climate change and globalization.

An American tourist who ate a slug on a dare was among three people recently infected with rat lungworm in Hawaii, according to health officials. The three cases are isolated and occurred months apart, according to the Hawaii Department of Health (pdf). All three were visiting from the United States. As the name suggests, rat lungworm is caused by a parasitic roundworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, that infects rats’ lungs. The parasite then finds its way into slugs, which are then eaten by rats, completing the cycle.

If you're considering eating raw or undercooked snails, slugs or centipedes — you may want to think again. Some of these delicacies may carry "rat lungworm," a parasite that can infect critters through rodent feces. Here's what you should know about the parasitic roundworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, and how it can be avoided. Where is the parasite found? Rodents have the adult form, with sickened rats passing the parasite's larvae in feces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says online. How are snails, slugs and humans infected?Infections occur in snails and slugs when they consume the parasite's larvae, the agency says, adding that humans...

A man in Australia has died from rat lungworm caused by a garden slug he ate for a dare eight years earlier. Sam Ballard, who was a promising rugby player, died at the age of 27 after developing a series of complications from the disease. Ballard was 19 in 2010 when he and some friends were drinking wine with his friends in a garden. “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown up and a slug came crawling across here,” his friend Jimmy Galvin told news.com.au. “The conversation came...

Health officials have confirmed 12 cases of rat lungworm disease in the continental United States since January 2011 — including six patients who had not traveled abroad but still contracted the illness caused by a parasite endemic to tropical regions in Asia and Hawaii. [...snip...] The disease is also known as angiostrongyliasis, after the parasitic roundworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis whose larvae hatch in the lungs of rats and then are expelled in the rodents’ excrement. At that point, the larvae can be picked up by snails and slugs, and then passed along to humans if the snails and slugs are eaten...

Centipedes mean business. They can slay animals 15 times their size, even devour whole snakes if they want. But the true horror of the centipede may be something else, hiding unseen inside their many-legged forms: a dangerous parasite, which scientists say has never been observed in these segmented critters – until now. The stowaway in question is the parasitic roundworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis – aka 'rat lungworm' – a food-borne parasite typically found in snails and other mollusks, which has now for the first time been detected in centipedes too. As for the strange reason we know this? It starts with...

Humans have been cooking food since before they were Homo sapiens....but ... There was a raw food festival in Novemeber 20-23, 2008 in Kalapana....and now this.... (From the Star-Bulletin) Jan 5, 2009: ...Halda said he and a friend, Silka Strauch, who live in Black Sands between Pahoa and Kalapana, have been eating raw vegetables and taking precautions by cleaning the produce with a peroxide rinse. He suspects they may have accidentally consumed tiny larvae of slugs lodged in the deep folds of peppers.

Sam Ballard never did anything wrong, if you ask family and friends. The teenager from Sydney’s upper north shore was having a laugh and some red wine with mates in the backyard, “trying to act like grown-ups”. It was 2010 and it was a night that would change his life, and the lives of everybody around him, forever.A slug crawled across the concrete patio and, teens being teens, a dare emerged for Sam to eat it.One of his best friends, Jimmy Galvin, later described the moment. “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying...