Pigs were first infected with tapeworms through contact with humans

Just the opposite of what is happening now, humans were the ones that infected pigs with tapeworms during the early years of human history.

Eric P. Hoberg, of the U.S.D.A.’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md., concluded in 2001 that people contracted tapeworms millions of years ago in Africa, long before the emergence of agriculture and domestic animals. It was humans who infected pigs with tapeworms, not the other way around, Dr. Hoberg and colleagues reported. Indeed, people infected pigs not only with Taenia asiatica but also with a second species of tapeworm, Taenia solium, which humans seem to have acquired either by eating each other or by eating dogs.

If pigs had a religion, it is pretty easy to guess which species they would designate as unclean.

Source: New York Times
Image: Wikipedia
Tags: Tapeworm | Parasite | Pig | Human