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"Felidae ... is a family of mammals in the order Carnivora, colloquially referred to as cats ... The family Felidae is part of the Feliformia, a suborder that diverged probably about 50.6 to 35 million years ago into several families. The Felidae and the Asiatic linsangs are considered a sister group, which split about 35.2 to 31.9 million years ago" (Wikipedia).
Historically, the scientific community has fingered cats as the main player in the Toxoplasma Gondii ("Toxo") parasite development.
It is an unsupportable bias (Merchants of doubt in the free-ranging cat conflict; cf. CDC "people are more likely to get [toxoplasmosis] from eating raw meat or from gardening [than from cats]".
Actually, the likelihood that one will be infected with Toxo by a dog is more scientific:
"Possibly all mammals, including humans, can become infected with Toxoplasma ... Ironically, contact with dogs is more of a risk factor for becoming infected with Toxoplasma than contact with cats ... most infections in the United States and Europe among adults are probably acquired from undercooked meat. The especially high seropositive rate in France (up to 90%) is likely due to a cultural predilection for lightly cooked or raw meat. Mutton and pork are more common sources than beef. There have also been a few isolated reports of Toxoplasma being transmitted via tachyzoites in unpasteurised goat's milk."
(Apicomplexa, Tulane Univ., emphasis added). The protozoa were on the Earth within many biological creatures hundreds of millions of years before placental mammals, such as cats and dogs, came into existence.
So scientists with cat bias leave out a substantial history, that of protozoa, to which Toxo belongs:
"Protists were a dominant form of life on Earth 1.5 billion years ago. While protozoans evolved early and have survived to the present day as unicellular organisms, they have undoubtedly undergone considerable evolutionary change." (Encyclopedia Britannica).
"The Protozoa are considered to be a sub-kingdom of the kingdom Protista, although in the classical system they were placed in the kingdom Animalia. More than 50,000 species have been described, most of which are free-living organisms; protozoa are found in almost every possible habitat. The fossil record in the form of shells in sedimentary rocks shows that protozoa were present in the Pre-cambrian era ... Toxoplasma gondii, a very common protozoan parasite, usually causes a rather mild initial illness followed by a long-lasting latent infection." (Medical Microbiology. 4th edition, Chap. 77) .
Note that "Pre-cambrian" would be prior to 538.8 million years ago (Wikipedia, Cambrian), so Toxo, as I "said", was around long before cats were.
Cats are placental mammals that originated following the Fifth Mass Extinction ~65 mya (Science Daily), ~473.8 mya after Toxo's gang, protozoa, emerged.
So, we can dispense with the modern myth that Toxo is from the catosphere (I am only saying that because "dog started it"), and instead let's get down to brass tacks:
(On The Origin Of The Home Of COVID-19, quoting The Guardian & writers Jan Dutkiewicz and Troy Vettese, emphasis added). Cats are not a favorite food in the USA.
In the USA pork, beef, chicken, and others in the "mass production of animals for food" industry are the favs, and the clonal type Toxo in mammals within that food producing realm can spread the infection without cats:
"Furthermore, these clonal types all exhibit the ability to be transmitted via a direct oral route between intermediate hosts, which may have not been a biological feature of the ancestral Toxoplasma or other closely related species like Neospora ... This acquisition of direct oral infectivity combined with domestication of animals could promote a rapid, and primarily asexual, expansion of Toxoplasma."
(ibid, Apicomplexa). The asexual spread of Toxo means "without cats" being a part of it:
"The global predominance of three clonal Toxoplasma gondii lineages
suggests that they are endowed with an exceptional trait responsible
for their current parasitism of nearly all warm-blooded vertebrates.
Genetic polymorphism analyses indicate that these clonal lineages
emerged within the last 10,000 years after a single genetic cross.
Comparison with ancient strains (∼1 million years) suggests that the
success of the clonal lineages resulted from the concurrent acquisition
of direct oral infectivity. This key adaptation circumvented sexual
recombination, simultaneously promoting transmission through successive
hosts, hence leading to clonal expansion. Thus, changes in complex life
cycles can occur rapidly and can profoundly influence pathogenicity."
(Expansion of Toxoplasma Via Enhanced Oral Transmission, emphasis added). So, since "toxoplasmosis remains one of the leading single causes of death related to foodborne illness in the United States", we need to "follow the money food" (Understanding Toxoplasmosis in the United States Through “Large Data” Analyses, emphasis added).
II. That's Not All Folks
I am exploring the possibility that Toxo is the home microbe host of corona viruses (The Coronaviradae, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs:
"Viruses are not living things. Viruses are complicated assemblies of molecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and carbohydrates, but on their own they can do nothing until they enter a living cell [e.g. a protozoan eucaryote Toxo]. Without cells [e.g. a protozoan eucaryote Toxo], viruses would not be able to multiply. Therefore, viruses are not living things.
When a virus encounters a cell [e.g. a protozoan eucaryote Toxo], a series of chemical reactions occur that lead to the production of new viruses. These steps are completely passive, that is, they are predefined by the nature of the molecules that comprise the virus particle. Viruses don’t actually ‘do’ anything. Often scientists and non-scientists alike ascribe actions to viruses such as employing, displaying, destroying, evading, exploiting, and so on. These terms are incorrect because viruses are passive, completely at the mercy of their environment."
(Virology Blog, emphasis added). As I have pointed out repeatedly in this Dredd Blog series, SARS-CoV-2 (like all viruses) must have a microbial cell as its host.
Toxo is quite able to host viruses and it is not limited to the cat bias methodology of reproduction, i.e. as pointed out above, Toxo can be spread without sexual dynamics (cats need not be involved at all).
III. Healthy People Can Have Toxo In Their Blood
Studies of blood donation samples indicate that Toxo is a main player in other ways "The most frequent bacterium was Escherichia coli ... and the most prevalent parasite was Toxoplasma gondii" (Metagenomic analysis and identification of emerging pathogens in blood from healthy donors).
We all know that blood and food are ubiquitous and don't need cats either, eh?
IV. How Low Can Society Go?
In a paper Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Political Beliefs and Values, 2022, by authors from a NATO, European Union country, Czechia, asks an interest-grabbing question.
I prepared a long list of other scientific papers cited in that paper, along with the country of origin of those cited papers (in Appendix One).
The paper and those it cites to indicate clearly that there is good reason for the ongoing research to intensely focus on the issue of Taxoplasmosis:
"Toxoplasma gondii is frequently described as one of the most successful parasites, due to its ubiquitous distribution, the wide range of host species it is able to infect and its high prevalence rates around the world."
(ibid, Apicomplexa). That could be explored further, including: Can the Common Brain Parasite, Toxoplasma Gondii, Influence Human Culture?, Epigenetic Manipulation of Psychiatric Behavioral Disorders Induced by Toxoplasma gondii.
Regular readers may remember that Dredd Blog has asked these questions for about a decade (see How To Identify The Despotic Minority - 17, quoting Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala, 2012).
V. Closing Comments
The post How To Identify The Despotic Minority - 17 quotes from the, at one time, most quoted historian of that time.
A historian who points out that 26 prior civilizations have committed suicide.
Something has to cause dementia in the mind, i.e. suicidal tendencies or risk aversion on a massive scale, for that to happen.
Our current civilization, the first one to be able to destroy all human life on Earth, needs to get busy getting rid of whatever is leading us in that direction.
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.