Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality

This is an article about the parasite toxoplasma gondii, carried in a cycle by cats and rats, which infects half of the human population of Britain and up to 90% of the human population of France. It makes all kinds of modifications to your personality, detailed in the article. The parasite has been known of for decades, but the fact that it has actual effects on behaviour is a recent finding.

I had a lot of contact with cats as a child, and would assume I'm infected with it, especially given this:

"By contrast, the infected men appeared to suffer from the “alley cat” effect: becoming less well groomed undesirable loners who were more willing to fight. They were more likely to be suspicious and jealous. “They tended to dislike following rules,” Flegr said. "

I'm not super aggressive by any means, but I am a scruffy loner who dislikes following rules. It'd be amazing if that came down to a parasite!!!

Last paragraph:
Dr Dominique Soldati, a researcher at Imperial College in London, is studying ways of blocking toxoplasma from getting into cells. “Once you are infected you cannot get rid of this parasite and the numbers of them slowly grow over the years,” she said. “It’s not a nice thought.”

I don't agree that this is a particular problem. I imagine humans have had this parasite for millenia; it's probably shaped the human condition to some extent. So it's not like this is a new and scary threat, just an unexpected quirk in how we come to be who we are. Cool!