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Ever since the late 1990s, multiple accounts shared online have been spreading the tale of deaths purportedly caused by people who unwitting drank from soda cans whose exteriors were contaminated with rat urine. In keeping with standard scarelore, the names of the victim and where and when these tragic events happened were not included in these stories (although when writer informs us that the victim was a family friend's friend in an attempt to establish his connection to the events described), and a search of news items fails to turn up anything about anyone's having died in the fashion described. By September 1999 a expanded variation of the deadly rat excretions theme with additional details appeared on the Internet: Despite the vividness of the story, nothing about such a death turned up in the news, and there was no record of anyone, store clerk or otherwise, dying at the St. Francis Hospital after coming in contact with rodent droppings. Adding to this story's implausibility were the questions raised by the few checkable details offered in the text. The St. Francis Hospital is in Honolulu, as is the Pali Momi Medical Center. Honolulu is on the island of Oahu. We're told the doomed store clerk was working in Maui. Someone who'd become ill on Maui likely would have first gone to a medical facility on that island even if he was later transferred by air or sea 75 miles to the larger facility in Honolulu. More simply, even if a sickly store clerk in Maui did end up in the St. Francis Hospital on Oahu, he shouldn't have been seen in an emergency room on Oahu; he should have first visited or been taken to an emergency room on Maui. As the National Center for Infectious Diseases noted of this e-mail: Most scares contain a vague whiff of plausibility, and this is true with both stories listed above. Although there is nothing inherently toxic about urine or feces from a healthy rat, excretions from a sick rat are another kettle of fish, and perhaps that is what this bit of scarelore is addressing. There have been several rat urine stories in the news of late. Leptospirosis, better known as Weil's disease, is a potentially deadly illness caused by bacteria passed along to humans in contact with urine from diseased animals (rats, frogs, rabbits, snakes, pigs and dogs). It is picked up rurally from swimming in contaminated lakes and reservoirs. In cities, the bacteria are passed along more easily — people splashing through puddles in areas that have a large rodent population might contract the disease, and eating or drinking contaminated food and water is always a danger. Leptospirosis can also be contracted by rubbing eyes with dirty hands. People with open cuts and wounds are especially vulnerable to the bacteria, as it can be picked up almost anywhere. As the rat population in cities grows, so does the potential for contact with this disease. Leptospirosis typically causes aches, pains and fever that go away on their own. One in ten cases includes high fever, jaundice, meningitis (inflammation of the brain lining), acute kidney failure, internal bleeding and, occasionally, death. Victims can die if they develop serious kidney or liver complications. In extreme cases, death follows three to six days after infection. The disease is treatable with antibiotics. In November 1998 leptospirosis killed eight people and hospitalized one hundred in China. In the same month in 1997, 22 people died from the same cause out of the 300 who were infected with it. In the United States, 100 to 200 cases of leptospirosis occur each year (with about half of those in Hawaii), according to the Center for Disease Control. Another disease passed on through rat urine is hantavirus. It is transmitted to humans through breathing in particles of an infected rodent's urine, droppings or saliva. The virus becomes airborne when excrement dries. Early symptoms mimic the flu and can progress to respiratory failure. Since 1993, 21 deaths in the United States have been blamed on this disease. In general, urine-encrusted soda cans are not the most likely purveyors of these diseases. Most cans of soda are packaged into cardboard boxes while still on the production line and thus aren't at any risk of contamination. Additionally, once bottlers have mixed soft drink syrup in with soda water and sweetener, they try to get the finished product to the consumer as expeditiously as possible. Soft drink bottlers don't warehouse large inventories of finished product for any length of time — freshness is everything, so the product is moved out quickly, leaving little opportunity for rodents to use the tops of cans as latrines. Nonetheless, it's still always a good idea to wipe off cans from exposed six-packs or those dispensed from drink machines, if for no other reason than to avoid picking up something passed on by the human handlers of the product.
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