Family members infected with brain worms after eating undercooked bear meat

A number of family members who shared a meal of bear meat that one of the family members had harvested earlier were subsequently infected with brain worms, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In July 2022, the Minnesota Department of Health was flagged that a 29-year-old man had been hospitalized multiple times over a two-and-a-half-week period with symptoms including fever, severe muscle soreness, swelling around the eyes, and other various maladies.

Following his second hospitalization, the man told doctors that he had days earlier attended a family gathering in South Dakota, and that one of the meals they shared included kabobs made from black bear meat that "had been harvested by one of the family members in northern Saskatchewan."