(Fred the Red Shirt) wrote:

"Maxprop" wrote in message link.net...
"Scott Lurndal" wrote in message

I'll bet 52% of respondents with ovarian cancer regular
drink water with breakfast too. But that has no correlation
with cancer risk.

A few years ago a spoof study was released stating that dihydrogen oxide, a
primary constituent in certain types of foam, such as that used in the foam
take-home food containers at restaurants, might be responsible for certain
types of cancer.

I remember a parody of that sort from back when I was in high school
in the early 1970's. That was back when there were pull-tabs on beer
and soda cans and there was an UL about collecting them to fund
dialysis. Pull-tabs are long gone, but the UL survives.

As you can imagine, the media ran with the story, creating
a minor furor. A few environmental organizations even asked Congress to
look into the matter.


That sounds like more UL to me. I've never seen even one story, let
alone one falling for the spoof, in any media.

There wasn't one on Snopes, either. But at
http://www.snopes.com/toxins/dhmo.htm, there is a story about a Jr.
High student who won a science fair with a project of testing students
for their gullibility to this story. That page also includes one
version of a report on the dangers of DHMO. An update included this
item:

:Update: In March 2004 the California municipality of Aliso Viejo
a suburb in Orange County) came within a cat's whisker of falling for
:this hoax after a paralegal there convinced city officials of the
:danger posed by this chemical. The leg-pull got so far as a vote
:having been scheduled for the City Council on a proposed law that
:would have banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events
:because (among other things) they were made with DHMO, a substance
:that could "threaten human health and safety."
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