Your brain might already be infected with a brain-eating virus

Look—I woke up this morning, fixing to get my coffee from La Reunion, and then I read this headline, and my *cafecito* almost went flying across the room. Y'all, we're talking about a brain-eating virus. That you might *already have*. And you've probably never even heard of it. Is this a movie plot? Because it feels like a movie plot.

### What is this thing?

Okay, deep breaths, *mi gente*. The virus is called JC polyomavirus, or JCV. For decades, doctors thought the only people who got sick from it, developing a fatal brain infection called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), were those with seriously compromised immune systems. Think HIV patients or folks on certain immunosuppressant drugs. But new research is saying, "Surprise! It's not just them anymore." The actual percentage of people carrying this virus is staggering.

* Nearly 90% of adults globally carry JCV.

* Most people never show symptoms because their immune system keeps it in check.

* However, new findings suggest that PML can develop even in people without profound immune suppression, which is the truly wild part.

So, while it's still rare to develop PML, the idea that this thing is just chilling in almost all of us, waiting for... who knows what... it's a lot to process before 8 AM. It's like finding out everyone in Dallas has been secretly carrying around a mini-version of Big Tex in their pockets this whole time, just waiting for the State Fair to bust out.

This is the kind of news that makes you want to go home, pull a blanket over your head, and pretend the only thing to worry about in Dallas is the traffic on the Tollway. But seriously, it's a fascinating and terrifying look at the unseen world living inside us. Makes you wonder what else we're all just carrying around, huh?

Dallas on the wire — big hat, bigger story.

Y'all, the crew talks about all sorts of wild stuff like this every morning — catch 'em live at mornings.live.