Accidental Host - The Story of Rat Lungworm Disease

ACCIDENTAL HOST—The Story of Rat Lungworm Disease is an urgently-needed documentary about Angiostrongylus cantonensis, a globalizing, foodborne parasite that invades human brains. The parasite was first found in rats in China in the 1930s. Today, Hawaii is an epicenter where residents and visitors alike have contracted infections leading to severe meningitis, damaged nerves, paralysis, coma, even death.

Shot in Hawaii, Florida and California, ACCIDENTAL HOST aims to save lives by sharing key facts about a little-known threat now present not just in Hawaii and the southeastern U.S. but Australia, Asia, Africa, North and South America, many Pacific and Caribbean islands, and (most recently) Spain. At the film’s center are compelling patient stories and insights shared by medical and scientific experts on how to detect, treat and dodge the disease. “After seeing this film, you will never look at a salad quite the same way again," Donald G. McNeil, an award-winning journalist formerly with the New York Times has written, "and if you're a big fan of green smoothies -- just don't go there. You will not be able to entirely erase the mental image of a rat lungworm migrating toward your brain." Or to quote the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond: “ACCIDENTAL HOST is a gripping film about a parasite that infects humans by a strange route (rats and snails!) and causes unpredictable, even lifelong symptoms. Watch this medical thriller and learn how to protect YOURSELF.”