Management has synonymously been associated with bad decisions, selective cost cutting, raising it’s own salary and attempting to rob others of their ideas. This perception has led people to view managers as parasites, which according to new scientific data may be more correct than we previously thought.

After the recent discovery of the ADMIN gene, scientists examined the brain tissue of deceased management staff, following the collapse of the management environment during the GFC. Working with the scarce amount of tissue they were able to extract from the management specimen, parasitology experts have for the first time released data regarding a new variant of Toxoplasma gondii. Long known to cause changes in host behaviour, and recently demonstrated to cause schizophrenia like illness (for which anti-schizophrenia drugs are just as efficacious as anti-parasitics), scientists began examining the personality traits associated with management.

Working with cohorts of 20, behavioural experts analysed the personality changes that led to members being promoted to managerial roles. They discovered that those who were promoted began to exhibit anti-social qualities, were more paranoid of their workmates, showed heightened egotism; aggression, were more introspective; were more prone to violence and displays of territorial behaviour. In fact, no matter how small the promotion, position or responsibility, the management candidate promotees treated their post as their “little empires” Chief Scientist Broughton D’Lerium said. After making the management team redundant and awaiting their Toxoplasma depression induced suicides, scientists recovered parasites from 100% of the managers.

The confirmatory isolation of parasites and the strongly correlated symptoms of management have now led to a new disease being categorised in the American Psychiatric Handbook. Bourgeoisie Oppressor Schizophrenic Syndrome or (BOSS) sees paranoid individuals elevated to positions of authority. They believe they are nineteenth century factory owners and their employees cannot be trusted, promptly becoming overbearing micromanagers who must be involved in everything but do nothing to ensure the job is done. To make sure work is done, infected individuals cut overtime but increase hours, “under the belief they own all individuals under them, their brains and internal organs” the handbook states. Luckily the law does not recognise claims of ownership over visceral organs, however this has scarcely stopped those under the influence of BOSS, like Kerry Packer. It is thought the infection is responsible for management’s choosing to buy cheap instant coffee, due to infected individuals believing that good coffee may result in diminished return from the caffeine hit by creating a pleasant internal atmosphere.

Commander Harrison Biscuit, leader of the new Utopian College of Emergency for Medicine’s Management Infection Programme said that “T. gondii and the ADMIN gene are strongly synergistic. The paranoid managers tend to decrease the efficiency of their organisations, further counteracting the efficiency boosts offered by technology.”

Management is a dog eat dog world, which explains the spread of the BOSS disease in upper strata of companies, public sector and parliamentary bodies. However, given the behavioural traits and theorised sexual reproductive cycle in the colon of managers, many scientists are hailing this as positive evidence that mangers evolved from cats around 20,000 years ago, strongly debunking the claim that world leaders are lizard people. The new isolated strain Toxoplasma gondii managemnetii is soon tipped to be used as a test to determine the viability of candidates entering graduate business school, and may replace the MBA as the gold standard qualification for being an executive.

Sir G. Lamblia

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Having a toothpick fish (the Candiru) take a detour up your urethra doesn’t really bear thinking about. The idea of maggots crawling around under your skin sickens you. It is true, humans are afflicted by some pretty nasty parasites. At least we can be thankful for bacon.

But things could be much, much worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVZUVeMtYXc

Imagine a parasite that alters your appearance so that you look like food for something higher up in a food chain you have no place being in. That is exactly what happens when an Amazonian nematode infests an ant called Cephalotes atratus – the nematode turns their abdomens into juicy red berries that birds can’t resist. The nematode then gets a free ride all around the jungle. A similar thing happens to snails infected by the trematode flatworm Leucochloridium paradoxum – the developing trematode offspring engorge the eye stalks of the snail making them look like pulsating green delicacies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw

Or imagine you’re a builder and something comes along and deposits its larvae inside of you. These larvae take over your ‘mind’. You stop your current building projects, and before your impending death the larvae force you into building them a nice home to live in. No, this isn’t science fiction, this is what happens when the web-building spider Plesiometa argyra is parasitised by the larvae of the wasp Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga. Another example of ‘arthropod mind control’ is the Nematomorph, or horse-hair, worm that makes grasshoppers jump into water – where they drown because they can’t swim (and the worm doesn’t bother to teach them)….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN2XMyxAs5o

With the animal kingdom seemingly rife with ‘zombifying parasites’ (see the slide-show at Discover Magazine) it makes one wonder, are there strange parasites controlling what we do, that we don’t know about? Maybe that’s how we should view  self-destructive memes like suicide bombing and the acceptance of quackery – as parasites of the mind. Having a Baloney Detection Kit handy is a good way to keep these parasites at bay.

Addendum (15th December 2009): Actually there may well be at least one ‘real’ ‘zombifying parasite’ out there affecting mammals (including humans) – check out this fascinating conversation with Robert Sapolsky on ‘Toxoplasmosis and Free Will’ from Edge.

But for me there is one parasite scenario that ‘out freaks’ all others:

Imagine  a parasite that enters your body through your respiratory openings before latching onto the base of your tongue. Then, after snuggling into its new home, it feeds and grows by sucking the blood out of your tongue. Your tongue atrophies away to nothing. Then something truly weird happens. The parasite takes pity on you and actually replaces your tongue and does what your tongue once did!

For fish, this bizarre nightmare is a reality – the parasite is an isopod named Cymothoa exigua, the tongue-eating louse. This is believed to be the only example of a parasite the destroys a host organ then functionally replaces it.

So, remember, look on the bright side, OK?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo

Learn more about the wonderful world of parasites from Carl Zimmer (@CarlZimmer):

• ‘Do parasites rule the world?’
• The Wisdom of Parasites
• The book ‘Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures’

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Apparently the worst thing that can happen to a parasite is to end up inside the wrong host…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQWgUht-ObI

Although the dangers posed by the Candiru or Toothpick fish are certainly exaggerated, it really can embed itself in the human urethra as this case described by Dr Samad Anoar demonstrates. All things considered, I suggest resisting the urge to urinate in the Amazon should the opportunity arise.

Visit The Poison Review for an excellent review article on the Candiru.

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog