Flick mosquitos or you could get sick and die

[Towncrier]

Another interesting tidbit from boingboing.net:

If you catch a mosquito feeding on you, you should flick it away rather than squashing it, lest you drive its infectious guts into your body.
The issue is reviewed in an article published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine that focuses on a 57-year-old Pennsylvania woman who died in 2002 of a fungal infection in her muscles called Brachiola algerae.
Doctors were puzzled because the fungus was thought to be found only in mosquitoes and other insects. But it's not found in mosquito saliva like West Nile virus and malaria, so a simple mosquito bite could not have caused the infection.

The article's authors concluded that the woman must have smashed a mosquito on her skin, smearing its body parts into the bite.

Ewwwwww. So please stop squishing mosquitos and start flicking them instead. Don't say you haven't been warned.

 

[minniepumpernickel]

Yuck, I wonder what part of PA she got that in? I've got a few mosquito bites from the weekend.

 

[Towncrier]

My new motto is:
Flick, don't squish

 

[Cinderellafifi]

Great motto!! LOL!!

Just another thing to worry about...

 

[chell]

Oh my. Why would you want to squish it onto yourself anyway? EEK!

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by Towncrier
My new motto is:
Flick, don't squish

I see "curious" bumper sticker potential here...

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

Somehow this sounds like a Harry Potter flick.
Flick and swish...or is that swish and flick with a little leviosa thrown in.

 

[Towncrier]

No no, my dear. It's levio-SA.

 

[Eeyore1954]

Interesting addition to this from CNN.com...

Despite the Pennsylvania woman's case, Roger Nasci, a mosquito expert at a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facility in Fort Collins, Colo., said there is no scientific basis for switching to flicking.

He also pointed out that flicking the bugs off is not a permanent solution.

"Unfortunately, then the mosquito often goes on to bite another person, or bites you again," Nasci said.

I'll continue to squish 'em myself.

 

[Bob Slydell]

Originally posted by Eeyore1954
Interesting addition to this from CNN.com... I'll continue to squish 'em myself.

You just have to be a contrarian, don't you Steve?

 

[LuvN~Travel]

It does have a point, though, after all who wants bug guts on them?

Kim

 

[Brisully]

I am just wondering who had the job of "Mosquito Fungus Checker"!!!!

 

[Banzai]

I wanted to be the first to joke about HP.