{"id":886128,"date":"2026-10-18T02:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886128\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T02:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:02:13","slug":"cdc-deadly-brain-fungus-in-healthy-americans-is-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886128\/","title":{"rendered":"CDC: Deadly Brain Fungus in Healthy Americans Is Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        An obscure fungus that targets the brain is no longer staying so obscure. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/volumes\/75\/wr\/mm7540e1.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CDC report<\/a> says cases of Cladophialophora bantiana, a black, melanin-containing mold, have climbed sharply in recent years, and it&#8217;s not just hitting people with compromised immune systems, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/health\/brain-infecting-fungus-kill-7-10-patients-rise-across-america\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fox News<\/a>. About half of known infections have been in otherwise healthy patients, and the fatality rate hovers between 60% and 70%, even with aggressive treatment. &#8220;Where people get it from and why it primarily goes to the brain &#8216;remain a little bit of a mystery,'&#8221; according to Dr. Joshua Lieberman, who helped put together the CDC&#8217;s latest report, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/infectiousdisease\/generalinfectiousdisease\/123281\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MedPage Today<\/a>.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        Data from a University of Washington lab shows detections almost quadrupled between 2023 and 2025, with cases identified in 21 states and Washington, DC, and the highest numbers in California, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The fungus is thought to enter via inhalation or skin wounds, then travels to the brain, where it typically appears as a hard-to-diagnose abscess. The CDC is pushing for national case reporting and urging doctors to consider fungal causes when evaluating patients&#8217; brains.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; An obscure fungus that targets the brain is no longer staying so obscure. A CDC report says&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[13011,3615,1491,81444,35962,97,84278,21],"class_list":["post-886128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-americans","tag-brain","tag-brains","tag-fungi","tag-fungus","tag-health","tag-mold","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}