1. How does one define what we do? Perhaps these borrowed definitions help....
Definition of parasitologist:
A quaint individual who sits on one stool looking at another.
(paraphrased from Schmidt and Roberts).
Or
Parasitologist (n.) - A person who searches for the truth in strange places. (Schmidt and Roberts, 1985)
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2. The organisms that you study - why bother?
Not only are they interesting (with many unusual biological characteristics to understand), they kill people:
A comparison:
Leading infectious disease killer in the US?
Influenza (~36,000 deaths/yr)
Leading infectious disease killer in the world? (this one might be argued!)
TB (~1.75 million deaths/yr)
~2.5-3 Million Deaths/year due to protozoan parasites
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3. Should we be concerned?
Maybe you should be!
Travel is easy, so the diseases can move (the Baghdad boil that is troubling to our troops is due to a protozoa)
History says it’s possible for insect-borne disease to be “successful” in the US (malaria, for example)
Could be in the US already? (the American trypanosome has been found in road killed animals in SC!)
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