We Thought Cancer Was Uncontagious. We Were Wrong.
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A tapeworm developed cancer inside a man’s body, and then passed the deadly disease directly to him. Doctors believed the tumors spreading through his lungs and lymph nodes were human cancer, until genetic testing revealed that the cells belonged to a parasite living inside his body. This video examines the 2013 case of an HIV-positive man in Colombia infected with the dwarf tapeworm Hymenolepis nana. One of the parasites developed cancerous mutations, and its abnormal cells escaped the intestine, entered the bloodstream, and began growing inside the human host. We explore how the patient’s severely weakened immune system allowed foreign cancer cells to survive, why the tumors were so difficult to identify, and how scientists at the CDC eventually solved the mystery. The case also reveals how poverty, interrupted HIV treatment, limited healthcare access, and an untreated parasite infection combined to create a fatal chain of events. Cancer is usually understood as a person’s own cell
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