Headline Of The Day

That's how Barstool Sports spins an NPR report on a Danish study about a feline-borne parasite that has been shown to affect human behavior. Barstool Sports:

Probably the least surprising study of all time. Anyone who knows somebody with a cat could have told you this. Just the saddest group of people on the planet. Waiting on their slave master pets who withhold any affection whatsoever. Drowning them in PurinaONE hoping to get a tiny purr of delight out of them. Of course the cat doesn’t give a shit and just walks around shoving it’s asshole in everybody’s face. It’s depressing as all fuck. Like people [who] buy cats hoping for a taste of Toxoplasma gondii because they don’t even have the balls to hang themselves on their own.

Charming. The NPR story does make one ponder the "crazy cat lady" label, however.

BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS: The cited feline parasite has previously been shown to have links to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The parasite is particularly dangerous to immuno-suppressed people such as those undergoing chemotherapy and the HIV-positive. A significant number of American HIV patients, perhaps as high as 40%, exhibit the antibodies to the parasite. HIV-related manifestations of the infection, which are often fatal, plummeted in the late 90s upon the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy, too late for several of my friends and for Real World star Pedro Zamora, all of whom died of toxoplasmosis.