Good For What Ails You

by Dave Barry

We here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm hope you had a restful, carefree,
fun-filled summer. But before you get back into ``the swings of things'' for
fall, we'd like to take just a moment to remind you that practically
everything can kill you.

At the moment we are particularly concerned about:

LATEX GLOVES OF DEATH

We have here a Health Advisory issued June 27 by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (motto: ``We Have Not Yet Determined That Our Motto Is Safe'').
This advisory, which was sent in by several alert medical people, begins with
the following statement:

``In the spring and summer of 1995, the spontaneous combustion of powder-free
latex patient examination gloves caused four fires in different states.''

The advisory states that all four fires involved large quantities of gloves
stored in hot warehouses. But we here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm are
asking ourselves: What if a single glove (this is sometimes called the ``Lone
Glove'' theory) were to burst into flames? What if this happened while the
glove was on a doctor's hand?  And what if the doctor's hand was, at that very
moment, inside your personal body?

One thing that would happen, of course, is the doctor would charge you a lot
of money. The underlying philosophy of our entire health-care system is that
the more scary, painful, dangerous and unnecessary a medical procedure is, the
more it should cost. So you would definitely pay top dollar to have a flaming
glove thrust into what is technically known as the Booty Region. Once word of
this lucrative new procedure got around, doctors would be prescribing it for
athlete's foot.

And here's a related item to be concerned about: An alert dental surgeon named
Ian Hamilton sent me the June 1996 newsletter of the Canterbury Branch of the
New Zealand Dental Association, which contains a letter to the editor,
accompanied by a photograph, concerning a latex medical glove that was found
to have a moth embedded in one of the fingers. Yes. This means you could wind
up with a burning rubberized insect inside your body. Imagine the bill you'd
get for THAT:

Flaming Booty Moth Treatment (FBMT) -- $578,000

Recharge Fire Extinguisher -- $23

Damage To Doctor's Golf Grip -- $54,000,000,000

We know what you're wondering at this point. You're wondering: ``Wouldn't `The
Flaming Booty Moths' be a great name for a rock band?''

Yes, it would. But right now you have other important medical things to worry
about, such as:

DEADLY ITEMS UP YOUR NOSE

We have here a news item from The Denver Post, written by Jim Kirksey and sent
in by many alert readers, concerning a man who arrived at a hospital ``with a
device in his sinus cavity that potentially had the explosive force of five
powerful M-80 firecrackers.'' The device was a trigger used to deploy
automobile air bags; the man worked at a factory that manufactures the
triggers, and an explosion had caused one of them to become -- in the words of
a surgeon -- ``lodged into his nose.''

Fortunately, the device was safely removed, but the doctors were very nervous
that it might go off during the surgery. Here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm
we are wondering: Why doesn't the federal government require auto
manufacturers to warn us that air bags contain devices that could be deadly if
we get them up our noses? This is especially critical if we have very young
children, who can get ANYTHING up their noses. Very young children can get
things up their noses that are larger than their BODIES. We think the
government should require that the following statement be printed on
automobile steering wheels:

WARNING -- DO NOT ALLOW VERY YOUNG CHILDREN TO DISASSEMBLE THE AIR BAG AND
INSERT THE EXPLOSIVE TRIGGER DEVICE WAY UP THEIR NOSE, AS THIS COULD RESULT IN
YOUR HAVING TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR MORTAL LIFE TRYING TO EXPLAIN THINGS TO
YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY. ALSO YOU SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT TO READ THIS WARNING WHILE
OPERATING THIS . . . LOOK OUT!! (CRASH) TOO LATE.

On a related medical note, we received a letter from Gail White, who works at
a large hospital that shall remain nameless, and who relates the following
incident:

``A man appeared at the emergency room with his hands over his face, demanding
to see a MALE doctor, and to see him ALONE. A doctor (dreading to see some
horrible disfigurement) complied with his wishes. When the man removed his
hands, he was revealed to have a brassiere caught in his nose by the hooks.''

No, we do not know how the brassiere got caught there. Nor do we know how many
men are, right now, suffering from Brassiere Nose, but are too embarrassed to
seek medical treatment. Our best guess is: thousands. If you are one of these
unfortunate people, we urge you to seek medical help; your doctor can tell you
about a revolutionary new procedure to correct this condition.  Tell him you
definitely want the moth.