Helminthic Therapy?

In my quest to fully understand parasites so I can finally get rid of those bad boys I ran across a few articles describing the use of hookworms and whip worms to cure autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's and allergies such as hay fever.

Is anyone familiar with this practice? It seems totally counter-intuitive to me, especially since most of us here are having such a hard time getting rid of these nasty beasts! If one person in the household ingests the worms, wouldn't then spread to other family members? I am under the impression that if one person has them then everyone else in the house would get them too. And from what I've read here on CZ, it seems like if someone has a particular parasite you then open yourself up to different parasitic co-infections, no? This just seems like a crazy idea to me. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge about this particular and seemingly dangerous practice? One guy I read about went to Cameroon to walk barefoot through open sewage to obtain his hookworms. God knows what else he picked up!

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