http://www.nydailynews.com//front/story/363609p-309552c.html

     Does this explain that crazy lady in Apt. 5B?

     BY JORDAN LITE
     DAILY NEWS HEALTH WRITER

     Can your cat make you crazy?
     Dr. Fuller Torrey is studying whether a parasite in Fluffy's droppings
causes schizophrenia, a mental illness that strikes 2.2 million Americans
and is characterized by hallucinations, delusions and trouble regulating
emotions.

     The Washington-area psychiatrist has found that people with
schizophrenia were more likely to have had pet cats as young children, or
their mothers kept the animals during their pregnancies. Torrey is now
testing antibiotics against the feline parasite Toxoplasma gondii to treat
schizophrenia, according to an article in the December issue of Esquire. "My
wife thinks I'm probably ultimately going to be assassinated by [cat
lovers]," Torrey told the Daily News yesterday. Still, "Not only cats, but
virtually all animals carry transmissible agents, and some carry
transmissible agents that have had profound implications for the human
race."

     Torrey, president of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, believes
that swallowing or breathing parasitic spores from cat waste causes
schizophrenia. While hardly conventional wisdom, his theory is part of
scientists' growing interest in the potential environmental influences on
the development of mental illnesses, said Dr. Donna Anthony, clinical
program director for psychotic disorders at New York-Presbyterian
Hospital/Westchester.

     While today most experts believe that schizophrenia is inherited, some
psychiatrists of the past blamed it on a patient's upbringing.

     "I don't think the cause [from cats] is so direct, but certainly all
the research into possible contributions of [infections] before birth and in
early childhood bringing out a predisposition to schizophrenia is a
productive line of research," Anthony said.

     Torrey advises parents not to buy pet cats for young children, and to
cover their sandboxes to prevent cats from using them as litter boxes.

     But his theory shouldn't prompt cat lovers to abandon their furry
friends, said Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, chairman of psychiatry at Columbia
University Medical Center.

     "I wouldn't get rid of my pet just on the basis of this theoretical
speculation - unless you are looking for a reason to get rid of it anyway,"
Lie-berman said.

     Originally published on November 8, 2005