The headline at WaPo is "Medical journal’s buttocks photos show up in tabloids. Patients not amused."
Key information: The couple consented to the use of the photographs, and they were warned that there was no way to control whether the "tabloid" press would notice the story in the medical journal and run with it. The Washington Post isn't the tabloid press, because it reported on the controversy and only used a pretty stock photo of a beach not an ugly ass photo.
The couple's name has not been used, but they're afraid there's enough identifying detail — the cruise to Martinique, the name of the hospital back home — that people who know them will figure it out. The damage in the Daily Mail was already done, though, and they created this new story that I'm reading now, about the journal withdrawing the article because they raised a stink. (That's the Streisand effect.) So they're more likely to become famous for their worm-infested ass, and they're also the people who forced the article out of the medical journal where it might help other people.
On the plus side, a lot more of us know of the potential to get worms in your ass by sitting on the beach. The beach in Martinique, you're thinking. No...
When [dogs and cats] defecate on the beach, hookworm larvae can easily migrate through the sand.... [S]ome beaches along the Gulf Coast of the U. S. and the Atlantic seaboard may also be teaming with the parasites.... [W]alking barefoot on contaminated beach may cause the infection. [Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston] said he speculates that this couple may have sat bare-bottomed on the sand, or the sand may have gotten into their bathing suits.Hotez needs to take a closer look at women's bathing suits. Decades ago, women decided that the buttock was more or less part of the upper leg and could be completely exposed in the important pursuit of making the legs look longer. A woman sitting on the sand in the most ordinary women's bathing suit — unlike a man in just about any man's bathing suit — is going to have her buttocks in contact with the possibly worm-infested sand.
ADDED: Amazingly, there is also video of the worm coming up out of the sand:
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28 comments:
Crack journalism.
"The Ass Worms of Martinique" - instead of sending all that money to the NRA, why aren't we eliminating ass worms?
The New York Times is waiting to run the story until they can figure out a Trump angle.
The Daily Mail link took me to the WAPO paywall and the WAPO link took me to blank.
Maybe it's just as well.
I was curious about the 'why' of this story. Ms Althouse does not have, as far as I know, a gratuitously gross instinct. The opposite, in fact.
Ah, but then she mentioned swim suits and everything was made clear.
I wonder how many TENS OF MILLIONS of women sit on the beach. Yet the clear implication by Ms Althouse is a woman (no lady would wear anything but a Victorian swimsuit or a burkini) is an butt full of sand away from having rectal worms.
Statistics was not a strong part of the law ciriculum, was it? Too inconvenient for advocacy, perhaps.
American beaches have very few dogs and cats, so the heineys of America are safe.
Did this happen in a shithole country?
If Trump saw a woman sitting naked on Hookworm Beach he would rush onto the sand barefoot to save her.
"American beaches have very few dogs and cats..."
I think people are taking their dogs out early in the morning or in the evening. You've got your ass out there in the heat of midday, when dogs and cats have the good sense to sleep in the shade.
LOL, Bob Boyd.
Are feral cats a problem on American beaches?
"Casablanca Hotel Caught Trapping Miami Beach Cats, At Least Eight Euthanized."
NYT article on feral cats at Jones Beach in NY.
"Casablanca Hotel Caught Trapping Miami Beach Cats, At Least Eight Euthanized."
So was it the cats that were euthanized or the people caught trapping them?
Ah, the Daily Mail. What a great newspaper, and truly British in its instincts and sensibility. The DM's take on American life is both fascinating and amusing by turns. My wife reads it avidly. She sends me stories constantly, although I suspect she skipped this one, as gross isn't her cup of tea. I enjoyed the story, however. One Daily Mail habit that amuses us is their use of stock photos. They'll feature a story about a man decapitating his wife with a hacksaw, and then include a stock photo of a hacksaw, with credit given to the source (Sears, True Value). Yesterday they featured a story out of Florida referencing a woman who assaulted her boyfriend because he interrupted their sexual activity to check on something he was cooking. He fled the scene after the assault, ending up at a nearby convenience store. The DM, of course, gave us the Google StreetView image of the c-store.
Your links to the Post and Daily Mail are broken.
The article’s been removed from BMJ. The photos are no longer available. Not that we’d use them. We are thus left with a)a stock buttocks photo or b)a stock Martinique photo that does not reflect the rash in question, among other things . I chose the latter. Fred Barbash, The Washington Post. Meanwhile, yes, don’t sit bareassed on tropical beaches.
I live in the beachside town of Jupiter, FLorida which boasts of its "dog beaches" (more like "dog-friendly beaches, but that's a rant for another day). Most of the dog owners used their plastic grocery bags to pick up after their dogs but few adhere to the "always on a leash" rule. Since my adopted hometown is pretty hoity-toity, I will just assume that all these canines have had their hookworm shots and let my GF sit in the sand. I, however, will sit on a beach towel.
You can buy sunscreen with mosquito repellent in it. Why not sunscreen with hookworm repellent?
Or like Preparation H2, Hemorrhoid and Hookworm formula.
Just brainstorming.
Monetize the hookworm.
"Since my adopted hometown is pretty hoity-toity..."
I believe rich people are even more likely to leave their dog's shit on the beach.
The more interesting part is farther down in the article where they note that hookworms might cure diabetes, and they're looking for fat female volunteers!
When I lived on the East Coast, the beaches were off limits to dogs during the tourist season, but you could take dogs to the beach in winter. I have very fond memories of watching my dog from way back then -- she was such a great dog! -- frolic on the beach.
(sigh)
So there's a big worm hole near Uranus.
@Fred Barbash
Thanks for reading and commenting.
I was genuinely amused by your choice of photo.
"hookworms might cure diabetes"
Well, there's some good news and some bad news...
"We are thus left with a)a stock buttocks photo or..."
LOL. That's what the Daily Mail would do... as roadgeek describes.
The use of hookworms medically goes beyond type II diabetes.
One is asthma.
Moreover, experimental human infection with some parasitic worms confers protection against inflammatory diseases in phase 2 clinical trials. Parasitic worms manipulate the immune system by secreting immunoregulatory molecules that offer promise as a novel therapeutic modality for inflammatory diseases. We identify a protein secreted by hookworms, anti-inflammatory protein-2 (AIP-2), that suppressed airway inflammation in a mouse model of asthma,
Many autoimmune diseases may be treatable this way.
@roadgeek: They'll feature a story about a man decapitating his wife with a hacksaw, and then include a stock photo of a hacksaw, with credit given to the source (Sears, True Value).
In the venerable "Lord Privy Seal" tradition in documentaries:
A sketch in The Frost Report is responsible for the term "Lord Privy Seal", in the British television industry, to mean the practice of matching too literal imagery with every element of the accompanying spoken script. In the sketch, the practice was taken to an extreme by backing a "news report" about the Lord Privy Seal (a senior Cabinet official) with images, in quick succession, of a lord, a privy, and a seal balancing a ball on its nose.
Nematodocracy doesn't seem to die in darkness.
Nematodocracy
What the last thing hookworms hear before they infest your butt?
"The ayes have it."
"Some beaches ... may also be teaming with the parasites." Must be a pubic-private partnership.
"A woman sitting on the sand in the most ordinary women's bathing suit. . . is going to have her buttocks in contact with the possibly worm-infested sand."
And I for one definitely appreciate the sacrifice.
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