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1 .This is Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute?
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2 .City dwellers across the U.S.might agree on one common enemy: bed bugs.
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3 .But hey, not to worry, right?
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4 ."Bed bugs are not known to spread diseases, but bites can be very itchy and irritating."
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5 .Or so says the New York City Department of Health.
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6 .But that assertion may not be true.
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7 .Because a new study suggests bed bugs could be capable of spreading infection¡
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8 .specifically, by passing on the parasite that causes Chagas disease.
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9 .Chagas can cause anything from mild headaches to eventual heart failure.
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10 .The condition is usually spread by what's called the kissing bug, a relative of bedbugs, which also feeds on blood.
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11 .But it doesn't pass the parasite through its saliva, as happens with malaria, for example.
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12 ."You get it when the bug bites you and then defecates on you.
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13 .The parasite is in the feces of the bug."
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14 .Michael Levy, a disease ecologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
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15 .Levy says scratching the bite then works the parasite into the skin, infecting the victim.
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16 .Levy and his colleagues wanted to see if the same thing could happen with bed bugs.
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17 .So they let em loose on mice that carried the Tripanosoma cruzi parasite.
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18 .The bugs caught it and were then able to transmit the parasite back to mice.
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19 .With one caveat, some mice actually hunted and ate the bugs, a sure route for infection.
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20 ."People don't eat bed bugs, so we're not really at risk of being infected through the oral route by bed bugs."
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21 .That said, one mouse actually did catch the disease not by snacking, but through a bedbug bite, more analogous to the way a human might.
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22 .The study is in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
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23 .Any advice for the bed bug¨Cphobic?
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24 ."Don't panic. It's important to remember that bed bugs may be able to carry the disease, but they don't cause it."
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25 .Meaning, you'd need to live with someone with Chagas disease, who can pass the parasite to a bed bug, and then actually catch it from that bug.
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26 .Still, Levy says, bugs pave the way for pathogens to spread.
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27 ."It's very dangerous to let bugs that feed on human blood get out of control, like unfortunately has happened in the United States and across the world with bed bugs."
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28 .Maybe it's time to treat bed bugs like a public health issue, Levy says, rather than just a pest.
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29 .Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
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