Can shrimp and vitamin C kill you?

No.

Well, that’s the short answer anyway. Today I received an email from a reader which claimed (in broken English – not the reader’s) that eating shrimp or prawns while taking a vitamin C supplement can cause the shrimp to react in your stomach and emit enough arsenic to kill you dead.

Here is the email:

A woman suddenly died unexpectedly with signs of bleeding from her ears, nose, mouth & eyes. After a preliminary autopsy it was diagnosed that death was due to arsenic poisoning. Where did the arsenic come from?
The police launched an in-depth and extensive investigation. A medical school professor was invited to come to solve the case. The professor carefully looked at the contents from the< h (sic). In less than half an hour, the mystery was solved.
The professor said: ‘The deceased did not commit suicide and neither was she murdered, she died of accidental death due to ignorance!’
Everyone was puzzled, why accidental death?
The professor said: ‘The arsenic was produced in the stomach of the deceased.’ The deceased used to take ‘Vitamin C’ everyday, which in itself is not a problem.
The problem was that she ate a large portion of shrimp/prawn during dinner. Eating shrimp/prawn is not the problem that’s why nothing happened to her family even though they had the same shrimp/prawn. However at the same time the deceased also took ‘vitamin C’, that is where the problem was!
Researchers at the University of Chicago in the United States , found through experiments, food such as soft-shell contain much higher concentration of five
potassium arsenic compounds.

Such fresh food by itself has no toxic effects on the human body.

However, in taking ‘vitamin C’, chemical reaction occurs and the original non-toxic elements change to toxic elements.
Arsenic poisoning has magma role and can cause paralysis to the small blood vessels. Therefore, a person who dies of arsenic poisoning will show signs of bleeding from the ears,
nose, mouth & eyes. Thus as a precautionary measure,

DO NOT eat shrimp/prawn when taking ‘vitamin C’.

 

After reading this; please do not be stingy. Forward to your friends

All of the classic elements of a hoax email are wrapped up with a lovely red bow here.

• Threat of sudden, terrible death
• Lack of specific details about who the woman is, where this happened, and when this happened.
• Something seemingly innocuous that will cause the terrible death.

Right off the bat I am deeply skeptical about the purported effects of arsenic, that it

has magma role and can cause paralysis to the small blood vessels.

This is absolute bullshit.

Symptoms of arsenic poisoning include headaches, confusion, diarrhoea and drowsiness. And you can be exposed to a lot of arsenic for a long time before you start to notice the overt signs of the poison in your system: convulsions (hard to miss), white lines across your fingernails, horrible blisters, hair loss… it’s not pleasant.

While arsenic is the preferred tool of the evil housewife who likes to watch her husband suffer a slow and painful death, it can also kill you quickly. An acute dose of arsenic will cause massive nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, kidney failure, coma and, eventually, death.

This does not match the “paralysed blood vessels” story.

Furthermore, shrimp does not turn into arsenic when it encounters vitamin C. It just doesn’t happen. Shrimp may contain low levels of arsenic, as it is a basic element and occurs naturally in the environment, but it is not a dangerous dose and your body can deal with it. Unless you eat shrimp until you sprout those weird antennae, then you might be in trouble.

I can find no research which indicates that shrimp and vitamin C can have a magical party in your tummy and turn into arsenic. Nor can I find any news relating to such a death.

Finally, and I think this is worth pointing out, if you have an allergy to shellfish, they could kill you. and if you take an extremely high dose of vitamin C it can also be very dangerous. But this is NOT the same thing. (Incidentally, there is no evidence that vitamin C taken for colds and flu has any positive effect, so you can stop wasting your money on it).

This is a hoax. Do not forward it on to your friends and family. Just press delete.

Flesh eating bananas with poisonous skins!

 

There are a lot of ways a banana can kill you: choking, allergy, well placed knife, but one  way that they will not kill you is via a flesh eating infection that has grafted itself to the skin of the banana.

The hoax mail

I have received three copies of the following email over the past few days:

please don’t eat bananas for the next 3 weeks

Several deliveries of bananas from uvongo kwa-zulu natal south africa have been infected with necrotizing fasciltis, otherwise known as flesh eating bacteria.

Recently this disease has decimated the monkey population in the south coast.

We are now just learning that the disease has been able to graft itself to the skin of fruits in the region, most notably the banana which is one of south africa’s largest exports.

Until this finding scientists were not sure how the infection was being transmitted.
It is advised not to purchase bananas for the next three weeks!!!

If you have eaten a banana in the last 2-3 days and come down with a fever followed by a skin infection seek MEDICAL ATTENTION!!!

The skin infection from necrotizing fasciitis is very painful and eats two to three centimeters of flesh per hour.
Amputation is likely, death is possible..

If you are more than an hour from a medical center burning the flesh ahead of the infected area is advised to help slow the spread of the infection.

The FDA has been reluctant to issue a country wide warning because of fear of a nationwide panic.

They have secretly admitted that they feel upwards of 15,000 South Africans will be affected by this but that these are “Acceptable numbers”.

Please forward this to as many of people you care about as possible as we do not feel 15,000 people is an acceptable number!!

This is obviously a hoax email. The third copy which I received this morning even had an official coat of arms from the South African Department of Public Service and Administration and the contact details for some hapless apparatchik who will not know what hit her when hundreds of worried banana buyers start asking about a disease she’s probably never heard of.

The Facts

This email hoax first surfaced in the USA in 1999. Twelve years later and the original hoax email has been only slightly changed for it’s South African summer holiday. Like, the only thing that was changed was the references to South African locations instead of Costa Rican ones.

The Kwazulu-Natal Agricultural Authority has released a statement refuting the claims of the hoax in general and specifically pointing out that the monkey population on the South Coast of the province is “flourishing”.

What really confuses me is the claim that the necrotizing fasciitis has grafted itself to the skin of the banana. regardless of whether or not the email is a hoax (it is) – can a bacteria graft itself to the skin of a banana, or any other fruit?

What is necrotizing fasciitis?

The US National Library of Medicine tells us that necrotizing fasciitis is a soft tissue infection, caused by bacteria which causes tissue death in skin, muscles and underlying tissue. The most often fatal form of the disease is caused by Streptococcus pyogenes. The bacteria enters the body through a cut or scrape and rapidly starts to destroy the tissue around the wound, and spreads very quickly through the flesh.

You cannot catch necrotising fasciitis from ingesting a banana. Streptococcus lives in the human body.

What is grafting?

Horticultural grafting is where the tissues of one plant are inserted into those of another plant, in a manner that makes the vascular tissue of the plants fuse. My dad has roses (the scion) grafted to the stem and roots of a hardier plant (the rootstock) so that the roses can thrive. The roses bush is grafted onto the stem of the other plant and the stem and roots provide the roses with all the nutrients they need.

Humans have skin grafts when they suffer trauma to a part of their body. Skin is taken from an undamaged area, typically after being stretched or extended in some way, and is placed over the injury. The tissue, importantly the vascular tissues, graft together and the grafted skin covers the injured area.

An important part of grafting is that the donor and the recipient (the root stock and the scion) need to be closely enough related that the tissues can meld together and work as a whole. Some skin grafts for humans are taken from animals of other species, but they still have to come from a creature similar enough to humans that the two can bond (pigs are the closest, as far as I can tell).

Bacteria and fruit. They are not similar enough to graft, as far as I an tell. A banana’s skin has no vascular structure, nor does a bacteria. Bacteria are nothing like bananas! Bacteria can feed on the flesh of fruit, animals, humans. But grafting with the skin of not only a different species, a different family, order, class, phylum, kingdom… Bacteria are an entirely different domain of life! Bacteria are prokaryotic organisms, we are Eukaryotes. They don’t even have vascular structure.

I don’t have a definite yes/no answer to the question of whether or not a bacteria can graft itself to the skin of a banana, but I can say that based on the research I have done, it would be vanishingly unlikely.

Finally, South Africa does not have an FDA. The Food and Drug Administration is a governmental arm of the USA. They freak out about Listeria (one of the bacteria that causes food poisoning) outbreaks that result in no deaths. There is no way that they would say that 15 000 infections to a disease as scary as necrotizing fasciitis could be considered “acceptable numbers” and the suggestion is disgusting.

 

Toilet Stall attacks

The festive season is upon us and South African’s are getting ready for our two favourite pass-times: Shopping and Crime (okay, maybe drinking beer and swearing at the neighbours are more preferred, but bear with me here). Of course, along with this upsurge in crime, there is an increase in emails claiming to be warnings from the South African Police Service (SAPS) about terrible crimes and plots afoot.

I have received a number of these types of emails in the past few weeks, and here is the first of them:

TO THE MEN: WARN YOUR LOVED ONES!

TO THE WOMEN: REMEMBER THIS!

Please pass on to all the ladies you know and care about. 

Don’t be surprised to see a n@ked woman walking out of a shopping mall restroom:
With what is being called amazing regularity, victims of this new crime wave have been found walking out of shopping mall restrooms completely naked. The scam begins when a man slips into a women’s restroom and sneaks into a stall. He waits until there is only one woman in the restroom in a neighboring stall. He then quickly puts an out of order sign on the outside of the restroom door. The out of order sign guarantees no one will soon come to the woman’s
rescue. The criminal stands on the toilet and points a handgun into the next stall,demanding the woman’s valuables binding her hands and mouth, and
RAP!NG HER. 

After getting her cash, jewellery and credit cards, he orders her to remove all of her clothing and kick them out of the stall. The thief tosses the clothing into a shopping bag, and slips back into the mall. In some instances the sight of the woman’s nakedness sparks his lust, and he then r@pes her before fleeing the scene. It usually takes an hour or two before the woman work up the nerve to leave the restroom in the nude, giving the criminal ample time to make his get away, sometimes with her own car. The woman is eventually left naked and humiliated in a mall full of strangers.

Main targeted areas include 
· Gateway- 1 incident – 1 criminal – woman valuables taken 
· La Lucia- 3 incidents – 2 criminals – 3 women valuables taken 1 r@ped 
· Pavilion- 1 incident – 1 criminal – woman r@ped 
· Sanlam Centre- 1 incident – 1 criminal – woman hijacked 
· Cresta Mall - 4 incidents – 2 criminals – 3 women valuables taken – 1r@ped 
· South Gate Mall - 9 incidents – 4 criminals – 3 women valuables taken – 6r@ped 
· The Glen Mall - 4 incidents – 2 women valuables taken – 2 r@ped 
· Sandton Mall - 5 incidents – 2 criminals – 3 women valuables taken – 4r@ped

The best defense is to never go into a shopping mall restroom alone, as only women who are by themselves are being targeted. Take a lady friend or a family member with. If you do find yourself in this situation, do not be passive. Make as much noise as possible. These criminals are looking for quiet victims so they can make an easy escape. Be careful out there !!!

This has so far been a nearly perfect crime, as none of the perpetrators have been caught. Don’t let this happen to another woman.

It is believed that this happens to young boys also, 6 year old was sodomised by a gentleman at the Southgate Mall recently whilst the mother was waiting outside the rest rooms for him she only realized 30 minutes to an hour later when he did not come out of the restrooms that there could be a problem. 

The next gentleman walking in was asked to check and found him crying in the stalls as he could not move. 

Take care people, summer is here and we are all going be going out on different ventures.

_______________________________ 

Inspector Ian Roberts 
SAPS Public Information Officer

I have removed the bright blue, purple and red font colours because, really now, that type of formatting is a crime.

Basically, this email claims that women are being robbed and raped in the bathroom stalls of shopping malls and left naked. They stay in the stalls and only come out much later. This claim has been circulating as a hoax email since 2002 and older debunkings can be found at About.com, Hoax-Slayer and Snopes. All three debunkings offer the same basic points as arguments that this email is a hoax:

1. The 2002 email claiming to be from “The AP News Wire” certainly is not associated with the Associated Press.
2. There are no news reports of such an incident having taken place.
3. Malls have regular bathroom cleaning checks and these bathrooms are not empty for hours on end.

This particular email is obviously a descendent of those earlier mails, much of the wording is the same except for a few changes. Somebody also decided that specific details are necessary to make the story more believable so he/she slapped in some shopping centre names and claims of crimes. He also adds the name of a Police “Public Information Officer” to the bottom of the mail.

There are a few things that alert me to the fact that this could not have been sent by anyone in the SAPS, and especially not a PR officer.

1. The grammar and spelling are not professional enough to come from a PR guy. Now, I know that the SAPS is not renowned for it’s impeccable literacy, but I have never seen an official statement where they insist on spelling “naked” and “rape” with @s and !s so that it isn’t a bad word.
2. This particular email also contains a claim about a young boy being sodomised and, this is what makes my blood boil, the person who wrote the hoax calls the perp a “gentleman”! Gentlemen don’t sodomise little boys, and I don’t think anyone in their right mind would refer to someone who did in such flowery terms.
3. The mother of the little boy apparently waited “30 minutes to an hour” outside the bathroom for her son. Yeah, right! When I send my son in to the bathroom alone I watch that door like a hawk and if he takes longer than 5 minutes I call in to see what he’s up to. I don’t think I’m that unusual as far as mothers go. And I can’t imagine standing around for an hour waiting for the little guy to pee. This did not happen.

If you want to see what a real SAPS media release looks like (which is how they would release a warning) visit the SAPS News Site. They even have a section of their website dedicated to safety tips and a special page for shopping safely. No mention of toilet stall rapists.

Although I find nothing compelling in this email to suggest that it is true, I concede that crimes such as this could, and may already, have happened. But this email is a hoax. The claims made, the statistics randomly generated, all of it is fake.

But please do take care of yourself during the holidays.

Tornadoes in Joburg this weekend?

This morning I received an e-mail claiming that gale force winds and tornadoes would hit Johannesburg this weekend and that these would be accompanied by massive winds. Here is the e-mail in its entirety:

BREAKING NEWS Gail force winds of up to 300km are expected for the Johannesburg region during the course of the weekend. This bad weather that is approaching will reach Johannesburg region later this afternoon approaching from the west rand and heading towards the east rand with possibilities of stronger tornado’s experienced last weekend. Please make sure that you get home early as the roads are going to be chaotic due to the weather. Please make sure you and your loved ones are in doors when the wind starts to pick up, please make sure that pets are indoors as well.

Please see the photo attached from HAARP weather institute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is obviously a hoax. The red flags are so bright and hoisted so high that I’m getting a headache from the sudden change in colour of my horizon (I like blue skies).

When ever you receive an e-mail like this, keep your eyes peeled for the following dead give-aways:

1. Grammar worse than a 6 year old. Serious weather warnings are not issued by people who don’t know how to string a sentence together properly. It is extremely important that a weather warning not cause confusion and it has to be properly written. Phrases like “This bad weather that is approaching will reach Johannesburg region” should immediately trigger your bullshit detector.

2. Critical factual errors are another major red flag. If you were to represent wind speed in metric units, you would say km/h (kilometres per hour), not just km. And a hurricane with a wind speed over 250km/h would be a category 5 hurricane! When last did we have one of those in Joburg? Never!

An enormous weather system, such as the one depicted in the image included in the e-mail, is actually a hurricane, not a tornado, and can not form over the West Rand of Gauteng. They need water, enormous open stretches of it combined with strong winds and the absence of  geography. That is not what the West Rand is. It has the Magalies mountains, for a start.

Finally, HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program does not have a weather satellite and is not a weather institute.

3. Precautions that will not help you. If you are in the path of a hurricane like the one depicted, you will not be safe inside your house with the doors and windows closed. You will need to be in a hurricane shelter, preferably underground.

4. Do Not Panic! If an e-mail like this is scary, and encourages you to tell everyone you know, pass it along to friends, or go home early, Don’t. Rather check the WeatherSA website for the truth (or otherwise) of the warning and take suitable precautions.

In summary, this e-mail is obviously a hoax – the picture is taken from the Space Shuttle of a large hurricane over the Atlantic ocean. There is NO indication that this “warning” comes from any official weather agency, it’s just some moron with nothing better to do than try and spread panic. They didn’t even sign their name.

When you receive e-mails like this, don’t send them on, just Press Delete.

Will Aderoid be our second sun this June?

Yay! It has been a long, looooooong time since I got a chain e-mail full of nonsense that I could blast out of the water. Today I received the following e-mail and I instantly had to brace my arms against the desk to prevent myself from crashing my forehead into the pine-effect finish.

Here is the original e-mail in all its multi-colour font glory:

Share this with your friends,as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.
Two Suns on 21June 2011

21st June – the Whole World is waiting for…………. 

Star Aderoid will be the brightest in the sky, starting 10 June. It will look as large as the sun from naked eye. This will culminate on 21stJune when the star comes within 34.65M miles of the earth. Be sure to watch the sky on june. 21 at 12:30 pm. It will look like the earth has 2 suns.!!

The next time Aderoid may come this close is in 2287

Yeah! Right On Man! Right On!

Right… Do I really have to point out to anybody that this is not true? This e-mail cannot possibly reflect any state of reality in which we exist. Why? Well, it’s relatively simple really, and I will quickly point out to you exactly what makes me so confident that this e-mail is about as reliable as an Andorian who shows up right on time to help you steal a super-weapon from under the nose of your nemesis (don’t click that link if you are watching Star Trek Enterprise for the first time).

First of all, this e-mail claims to alert you to an astronomical event just a little too similar to the indestructible annual hoax e-mail which claims that Mars will come so close to the Earth that it will appear the same size as the full moon. I have thoroughly addressed that cartload of manure over here.

There are a number of red (and green, and purple, and blue) flags in this particular e-mail which should immediately convince you that it is suspicious, and the most obvious is the horrendous formatting. Serious news is never presented in multiple colours and sizes, with seemingly random sprinkles of punctuation and grammar.

Secondly, and this one really is a kicker, there is no star known to modern science which can be found if you look up the name “Aderoid” in either the NASA Star and Exoplanet Database, the SIMBAD Astronomical database, the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic database, or Wikipedia! This is not a nuclear weapon in Iraq, this is a star, if it existed close enough to us to pass within 35 million miles of the Earth, we would know about it.

And that is another important consideration (and my personal favorite), if a star comparable to our sun (and I’m going to say that it would be, for the sake of argument) were to pass within 35 million miles of the Earth, or 34.65 million miles to be exact, we would be burnt to a crisp and the planet would resemble Mercury, hot, lifeless, barren in every sense of the word.

The closest that the Earth ever comes to the sun is approx. 147 million kilometers. That is five times the distance that Aderoid is supposed to pass by our rock. We are talking about a star less than 1/5th the distance from us to our own sun. We wouldn’t be taking pretty pictures, we would be incinerated.

Most importantly, however, is the fact that a star (or any object) which was approaching the Earth would not suddenly become visible, and appear as large and bright as our own sun, and then disappear again within a few days. The universe just doesn’t work like that. If Aderoid existed and it was approaching our solar system, we would know about it long before it came closer to us than our own star!

Aderoid doesn’t exist, it’s not going to materialise out of the ether and disappear again leaving joyous smiles on our faces and cool photo’s of double sunsets, and I’m not going to believe e-mails this incredibly stupid. Nor should you. Push delete!