Diana Pica of Waterford is a registered nurse. She and her husband have one daughter and three cats. In the past, doctors have warned that pregnant women should never clean a litterbox.

Ten percent of all cats carry a dangerous parasite which causes an infection inhumans. It's called Toxoplasmosis. The infection can cause malformations, mental retardation and cause a woman to miscarry. Now, alarming research on cats adds one more danger to the list.

"We have found that there's an elavated antibodies to toxoplasmosis in the spinal fluid of people who have accute onset schizophrenia," Dr. Fuller Torry of the University Health Sciences department, said.

Torrey is a leading researcher on schizophrenia. He and his colleagues have looked at the rate of some mental illnesses in adults who were exposed to cats as children versus those who weren't.

"In two separate studies we have been able to show people who have schizophrenia and manic depressive illness have had more exposure to cats in childhood," he said.
http://www.stanleylab.org/Document/Toxo%20meeting%20summary.htm