Chapter 23.L2, Problem 14CT

In New York City, four Orthodox Jewish patients brought into an emergency clinic with seizures and other neurological symptoms tested positive for antibodies to the pork tapeworm. Taenia solium. This was embarrassing to them because they do not eat pork for religious reasons. It also became something of a medical mystery, because there were no immediate explanations for how they could have become infected. Later it was shown that the patients had recently employed housekeepers and cooks who were free of symptoms yet also seropositive for the worm infection. Use this case history to give a plausible explanation for the transmission of the infection.