Vegetarian punk rock star suffers from pork-related brain tapeworm

Australian punk rock band Frenzal Rhomb was down a member recently when their lead singer came down with a case of seizures. Doctors diagnosed the seizures as being the result of a brain tumor. Whalley underwent brain surgery to have the tumor removed, and when doctors analyzed the tumor, they discovered a tapeworm lurking inside it.

Whalley, a vegetarian, is unsure how he contracted this brain tapeworm, since you typically get it from pork, and he is a stringent vegetarian. His theory is that the culprit was a burrito he ate in Central America, where this species of tapeworm is rampant. The tapeworm can also be passed through human fecal contamination, so it would only take one burrito-making, pork-eating tapeworm victim failing to wash his hands properly after using the bathroom. And bam, four years later: Brain tapeworm.

Then again, the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium) can also be contracted from infected drinking water, so there's no need to go blaming the burrito makers of the world.

Pork tapeworm is a common problem in the developing world. And it's easy to see why. Once the tapeworm gains a foothold in a host body, it can produce a quarter of a million eggs every day, which leave the host's body in their feces. (This makes me fervently hope that the Australian punk singer was more diligent about handwashing than the person who made him the hypothetical burrito.)

The typical route for infection is from under-cooked pork, which makes this as good a time as any to mention that pork should always be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees. In some cases (as in Whalley's situation) the tapeworm burrows through the intestinal wall and goes wandering around, often setting up shop in either the eyes or the brain. In the eyes it can cause blurred vision and retinal detachment. In the brain it can cause A HUGE WORM NESTLED IN YOUR BRAIN.

Whalley's doctors believed that the worm's natural immune suppression defense worked fine for several years, as long as the worm was alive. After the worm died, its decomposing corpse triggered Whalley's immune system to attack, causing the swelling, which led to his seizures.