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Or a right to make a balanced decision on deworming?

Posted by rdoehring on 24 Jan 2019 at 02:14 GMT

While the adverse consequences of carrying large numbers of helminths are indisputable, we are beginning to recognise that their absence is not without its problems. The explosive increase in non-communicable diseases: auto-immunity, allergies, obesity and its corollary of type II diabetes, depression and autism, correlates with the disappearance of helminths in the industrialised world, to the extent that growing numbers of persons in the West are deliberately colonising themslves with helminths such as Necator americanus to treat or prevent these diseases, with good effect. Children born to women who have been dewormed are more likely to suffer from eczema than children whose mothers were not dewormed.
Deworming is a simple decision in respect of a person with symptomatic anaemia, but by no means a straightforward choice for someone in good health.
A "right" to deworming is a laudible aspiration, but only if it is matched by a right to decline deworming and a right to the information which will enable the choice to be exercised wisely.

No competing interests declared.
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