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A cautionary tale:

We just received this health warning at our company:

A lady in Belgium went boating for the day, taking with her some cans of soft drinks. She drank one and was admited to hospital the following day having contracted Leptospirosis. When analysed, the can was found to be heavily contaminated with Rat urine. Unfortunately, the lady lost her battle with the disease and passed away.

A cautionary tale indeed. The moral is - Don't drink straight from the can, unlsess you have washed it first. As I recall, I was given the same advice about screw and crown-cap bottles when I was working in Egypt.

 Good advice Wozzer. The same applies when drinking straight from bottles of course. Particularly in a pub!. The bottles may have been stored in the pub cellar, a lovely place for rats to reside!

 thanks for the tip must tell the kids!!!!!!

I always drink from the can/bottle, but as of now I will makes sure it is washed first.

les

 It's also a good reason not to swim in rivers!

Not only is there the danger of swallowing some, if you have a cut it can get into the wound.

Quote: Originally posted by jeepster on 19/08/2004

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 Good advice Wozzer. The same applies when drinking straight from bottles of course. Particularly in a pub!.

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OMG, that is awful, i do wipe can tops etc before drinking from them but only because of dust etc, i didn't realise you could catch other things too, i will be extra cautious from now on specially with the childrens drinks.............

Post last edited on 06/09/2004 00:04:23

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I can vouch for NOT drinking from cans ........ about 10yrs ago I got an infection on my tongue from a dirty can ..... not a very nice experience .. and a difficult area to apply cream ... for about two weeks I had to use a gel on my tongue, which was difficult to apply, didn't taste to good and even harder to speak ... it left a thick layer to cover my tongue (makeing it double it's normal size) and I had to peel it off to eat .. my friend was more fortunate her's was on her lips

Reading this first posting we were the lucky ones

We have never done it since