In article , Katra wrote:
As for safety, more folks are concerned about possible pathogens that
dogs may carry in their poop, including parasites. Most dog parasites
tho' are not communicable to humans.
Not exactly. Coccidia and giardia don't really give a flip what they
inhabit (beaver, elk, and cattle can all carry them, as well as
dogs; drinking from those sparkling mountain streams is a good way to
get giardia).
Note that I said "most" parasites. ;-)
There are always exceptions...

Of course. Without exceptions, how would one define the rules?

Dog and cat tapeworms, if ingested by humans, may live there for awhile
but they won't reproduce in humans and complete a life cycle. Same I
think goes for the common Ascarids?

Yes, but what can happen with ascarids (roundworms) is that instead of
migrating to the gut where they belong, they wind up in the liver,
brain, or some other organ that does not cope well with them at all
(I've heard of one winding up inside an eye!) Admittedly this is a
very rare freak occurance that can also happen with human pinworms,
but if you're feeling paranoid, there's something more to worry about
for ya

If you make a habit of licking your shoe soles, you'll come up with
roundworms or pinworms fairly quick. You can almost always culture
coccidia and giardia from any dog if you work at it hard enough, being
they are natural inhabitants of the gut.
Yeah, Giardia is pretty universal! Even birds get that and it makes them
(and humans) very sick!

Well, not exactly. An *overgrowth* is what makes you sick. Having a
little giardia or coccidia (which is more common in birds) in your
system won't, if you have a normal healthy immune system and a
reasonably normal balance of gut bacteria.

Cat feces are somewhat more of a problem, what with -- now I can't
make the name come to mind, but the common pathogen that is a specific
hazard to pregnant women.
Toxoplasmosis.

Yeah, that's the one.

You have to work at it tho' to get it, but pregnant women still should
not clean litter boxes. You can get the cats tested and treated for it
if you are all that worried. :-)

Same with any parasite

The issue with human feces as compost isn't so much normal stuff it
carries no matter what (ie. the usual bacteria and parasites), but
rather stuff that someone living in Mexico or the Phillipines or China
has adapted to because it is part of their environment: that is,
anyone who survives to adulthood has an immune system that can cope
with it, thru long exposure. Naturally, some babies die before they
can develop resistance.

But we who live in "civilized" countries have no immunity to such
organisms AT ALL, so if WE are exposed, we are at much worse risk to
get really sick. Also, a lot of the 3rd world countries, where human
feces are used for compost, have a fairly high incidence of cholera
and other diseases that are shed in feces, without much distinction
made between compost from healthy individuals or sick ones.

The U.S. health service has occasionally issued advisories against
Americans going to Mexico City, because that brown haze over the city
is NOT just ordinary dust or smog -- it's the dust from dried human
dung from all the surrounding slums where there is no plumbing and
people just shit in the streets. The residents have adapted to it (per
above), but someone from another ecosystem is very likely to become
ill from it.

Conversely, the common canine diseases that shed in feces or urine
(such as parvovirus and distemper) are not transmissible to humans.

~REZ~