And, just in time for Halloween ...

[ysengrin]

Thirty Illnesses, Sorted According to Whether or Not You Can Eat the Victims

Illnesses Whose Victims May Not Be Safely Eaten

1. Rabies
2. Chickenpox
3. Leukemia
4. Tuberculosis
5. The common cold
6. Hodgkin's disease
7. Hepatitis*
8. Leprosy
9. Crohn's disease**
10. Mono (aka mononucleosis, the Epstein-Barr virus, the kissing disease)
11. AIDS
12. Influenza
13. Malaria***
14. Herpes (genital or oral)
15. SARS

Illnesses Whose Victims May Be Safely Eaten

1. Color blindness
2. Tourette's syndrome
3. Alzheimer's disease
4. Breast, thyroid, liver, and prostate cancers****
5. Asthma
6. HIV
7. Cholera*****
8. Chlamydia*****
9. Syphilis*****
10. Diphtheria*****
11. Muscular dystrophy
12. Tinnitus
13. Type 2 diabetes
14. Parkinson's disease
15. Homesickness

(By Maryam Akbari and Sean Michaels)

Footnotes, see below.

* It may be safe to consume a victim of hepatitis if you carefully avoid the liver.

** At one time, it was believed that Crohn's disease was a genetic disorder and thus its victims were safe to devour. Recent studies, however, suggest that Crohn's is an infectious environmental bacteria, linked to Johne's disease, which infects ruminants. If this is correct, victims of Crohn's may not be safely consumed.

*** It may be safe to consume a victim of malaria if the blood is drained and the liver is avoided.

**** Victims may not be consumed if cancer was induced by hepatitis virus.

***** Slight chance that these diseases would infect through the mouth/esophagus mucosa before they could be destroyed by the acidity of the stomach. Thus, their victims could not be said to be "safe."

Original source linked at the top of the post; via The World's Fair.

Comments

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Heh, nice. :) *saves*

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

Interesting that there are kinds of cancer (Hodgkin's, leukemia) that make one unsafe to consume, while others do not. I guess that implies that the cancer cells would survive the gut and find a place to grow and metastasize in a whole other host and wouldn't be smacked down by the eater's immune system? Not sure I buy it.

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd like to see the reasoning behind some of the choices.

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

colour blindness? tinnitus? PFF!

Might as well put in dental caries. blah.

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

If you had a large number of untreated cavities, I'd put you on the "do not eat" list - just for the likelihood of blood-borne infections.

[thakur.livejournal.com]

AIDS and HIV are the same ,actually.

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

AIDS is a recognized collection of symptoms and secondary infections that results from the latter acute stages of HIV infection - you can be infected with HIV and not show the signs of AIDS (most HIV infected folks don't). Still, I wouldn't have listed them separately, either.

That said, I think the authors were reaching to fill two lists of fifteen diseases -- and as HIV is transferable by blood I'd stick it on the do not eat list.

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, distinguising between HIV and AIDS suggests that before you eat someone you should ask them questions not just about STDs, but about their T Cell and viral load numbers. I guess it's an important conversation to have when you're on that plane that's about to crash in the Andes...

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

*gryn* Sounds like the perfect conversation to have as the plane is taking off ... "Excuse me, but in case we crash and are stranded in the wilderness for weeks, do you have any diseases or dietary habits that would make it risky to eat your corpse? You know, just in case."

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

I'm safe to eat.

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

:) Rawr