Melinda Wenner Moyer, a science writer and Slate parent advice columnist writes an article about the dangers of sandboxes. She opens her article with a flashback story of her daughter playing in a sandbox; grabbing a handful of sand and eating the sand. Then, the owner of the sandbox tells Moyer she thinks her cat poops in the sandbox. Moyer goes on to discuss the NSF Organization of Public Health sampled 26 public places that were commonly known for having germs such as, public restrooms, doctors’ office toys and children library books, were incomparable to the millions of germs “harboring” in sandboxes. Moyer warns parents’ uncovered sandboxes are used as bathrooms for animals. Consequently, sandboxes turn into “giant parasite Petri dishes.” …show more content…
Out of the ten sandboxes, two of them contained Toxocara eggs. Toxocaras are parasites that “burrow” in your liver, eyes and central nervous system. Sometimes toxocaras show no symptoms of living in the body, which can cause a lot of problem from not having proper treatment. McGill University also discovered more parasites in the sandboxes, Ascaris and Toxoplasma gondii eggs. Moyer says researchers in Japan used night cameras to record activities around three open sandboxes to see how many times animals poop in them. After five months into the research cats used the sandboxes as a litter box 961 times and dogs used the sandboxes 11 times. Moyer reveals her “favorite” parasite, Baylisascaris procyonis. She says it’s the “absolutely most terrifying” parasite that could be in a sandbox. Baylisascaris procyonis is a roundworm that usually comes from infected raccoons. Studies say 4 out of 5 raccoons carry the parasite and when the raccoons poop, thousands to millions of eggs per day are in the poop. Researchers in Chicago took samples of raccoon poop in near neighborhoods to test how Baylisascaris procyonis could be killed. Moyer calls the parasite “virtually indestructible.” Clinical reports prove getting infected by the parasite can cause “devastating neurological disease and …show more content…
When I was growing up I was raised with boys so I did what the boys did. One day my mom saw me playing in the dirt and told me, “keep your hands out the dirt because cats poop in dirt.” I was about 4 and didn’t really understand what the problem was. I continued to play in the dirt when my mom wasn’t around. I also remember the times I used to play at Sonics’ playgrounds when I would go visit my grandparents. Playgrounds at sonic used to have sand covering the ground and you could play in it like you were at the beach. This was about 7 or 8 years ago so I don’t remember if I used to play in the sand but I probably did. Sonic playgrounds were full of uncovered sand, which means multiple animals probably used it as a bathroom. I never got sick as a child so I don’t think I had any parasites. I do remember little babies sitting on the ground unattended playing in the sand, the babies most likely ate the sand