> On Mar 23, 2020, at 7:32 AM, shadow at shadowgard.com (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>
> Fungi are the most likely to cross over, as they are essentially
> treating use as a food source and don't do a lot of interaction with
> the body as anything other than a collection of useful organic
> molecules.
>
>
> This is why most fungal infections are on the *surface* of the body.
> If they go internal, they'll have to deal with the immune system.

Note: the lungs are considered, more or less, to be the ’surface’ too. I'm intimately familiar with a particular fungal infection endemic to my part of the world https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/features/valley-fever.html Most people who have lived in this area for any length of time have gotten it.

It does cross species lines; dogs are quite susceptible. https://vfce.arizona.edu/valley-fever-dogs/symptoms

Three of ours have had it, and the most common manifestation in dogs is joint damage from internal infections. My Mom’s dog has what they thought was a tumor on her spine that turned out to be a large fungal mass.

Bringing back something like this from elsewhere could be pretty bad, especially if it gets established in the local environment.

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs