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Your Friendly Neighborhood Hookworms

May 15, 2026

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5 min read

Your Friendly Neighborhood Hookworms

In 2009, Radiolab aired a memorable episode about parasites that included a strange and unsettling story: a man named Jasper Lawrence, desperate from severe asthma and allergies, had traveled to Cameroon, walked barefoot through human feces in village latrines, and deliberately infected himself with hookworms. The result, he claimed, was a complete remission of his symptoms. He was so convinced of the benefit that he started a business selling hookworm doses to others. Now, more than fifteen years later, the episode returns with an update: what has happened since, and does the science actually support the idea that a creature many consider the grossest of parasites might be good for us?

The Rockefeller Mystery and the Southern "Laziness Disease"

The hookworm story begins not with medicine but with economics. In 1908, John D. Rockefeller sat in his New York office wondering why the American South was not economically productive. He sent a commission of economists and sociologists to investigate, and they returned with a puzzling observation: the people of the rural South seemed physically slow, pale, and weak. Some called it a "laziness disease." But one commission member suggested the problem might be medical: perhaps these people were anemic.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (01:49) **Episode Introduction** - Latif and Molly set up the episode: revisiting the 2009 Radiolab "Parasites" hookworm segment and providing a 20-years-later update on hookworm research for autoimmune disorders.
  • 2 (04:01) **Original Segment: The Rockefeller Mystery** - Robert Krulwich and the original team recount how Rockefeller's commission investigated Southern economic "laziness" and discovered hookworm as the cause.
  • 3 (08:43) **The Outhouse Solution** - The investigation uncovers how hookworms spread via feces and soil, leading to the invention of the outhouse to break the cycle.
  • 4 (12:54) **Turning the Coin: The Case for Hookworms** - The narrative shifts to consider the potential benefits of hookworms, introducing the hygiene hypothesis and the story of Jasper Lawrence.
  • 5 (13:43) **Jasper's Allergic Hell** - Jasper Lawrence describes his debilitating allergies and asthma, which drove him to seek an extreme solution.
  • 6 (15:37) **The Hookworm Revelation** - Jasper discovers research linking hookworms to reduced asthma and allergies, and decides to obtain them.
  • 7 (16:55) **The Quest for Worms** - Jasper's journey to acquire hookworms, from failed attempts to buy them to traveling to Cameroon.

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Show Notes

For most of human history, people went about their daily lives with a worm or two (or fifty) in their guts. Only in the past century, with pharmaceuticals and sanitation practices, have we made significant strides towards deworming the whole of humanity. And that’s typically been thought of as a good thing, because having too many worms in your body can–quite literally–suck the life out of you.

But is it possible to have… too few worms? Science wonders if deworming ourselves has actually led to an increase in certain chronic diseases. On this episode, we dive into Necator americanus, a.k.a. the American Hookworm, and its mysterious relationship with each of us.

We trace the hookworm’s 118-year journey from a demonized economic depressant, to its use as a desperate D.I.Y. immunosuppressant, to its potential as a medical treatment for a number of chronic diseases, everything from asthma to MS.

We’re bringing back two stories  from our 2009 episode Parasites plus new research on hookworms and autoimmune diseases, reported by Molly Webster

Special thanks to Ethan Hein for the use of his remix of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21. Plus, Doris Pierce, and Dan and Alice Hadley.

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - Pat Walters and Molly Webster
with help from - {{wREPORTERS}}

Produced by - Matt Kielty

with help from - Rebecca Rand

Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly

and Edited by  - Arianne Wack

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles - 

Effect of experimental hookworm infection on insulin resistance in people at risk of type 2 diabetes (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37495576/) by Giacomin PR et al. Nat Commun. 2023 Jul 26

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