I recently received an
email from my cousin, Cliff, warning about an all too common practice.
The message said that a
North Texas woman went boating one Sunday with her loved ones. She carried
with her on the trip several cans of sodas and placed them in the boat’s
refrigerator where it will cool and be just right whenever she became
thirsty. (Nothing is wrong with that right?)
The day after the boating
trip, Monday, the
Texas woman became
ill and was hospitalized. Her illness became worse and she was
placed in the Intensive Care Unit. She died the Wednesday.
An autopsy which was
performed on her body stated that the woman died of leptospirosis. The
disease was traced to one of the cans of sodas from which the woman drank.
It was also revealed that she drank the soda without pouring it into a glass
first.
Further tests showed, as
the doctors had suspected, that the can was infected with dried urine from
rats and that this was how she contracted the disease, leptospirosis.
Though dried rate urine
is unseen, it does not diminish the fact that it contains toxic and deadly
substances. To prevent contracting the disease this way, health officials
recommend that consumers always wash thoroughly the top part of all soda can
before they drink from them. The reason being is that these cans are usually
stocked in warehouses and are transported directly to the various shops and
supermarkets without being washed or cleaned.
A study which was
conducted by NYCU revealed that the tops of soda cans are far more
contaminated
than public toilets. As a
result there is only one sure way to avoid any disease being transported to
you via soda cans and that is to wash them, wash them, wash them before
placing them into your mouths.
To learn more about
leptospirosis click on /or copy and paste the link below in your web browser.
:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/leptospirosis_g.htm
