You can't make this s**t up!

In this morning's paper (along with other atrocities to the senses, see the earlier post) there was an article about a guy suing a restaurant in Chicago because he claims he was infected with a tapeworm parasite there.

After seeing the funeral pictures I was feeling... I don't know what, really.

The article said (in part)
"A man who contends he got a 9-foot tapeworm after eating undercooked fish has sued a Chicago restaurant.

In the lawsuit filed Monday, Anthony Franz said he ordered salmon salad for lunch from (name of very-well-known Chicago seafood restaurant) in 2006 and fell violently ill. He later passed the giant parasite, which a pathologist determined came from undercooked fish, such as salmon."

I could not help but comment. In the USA this could well be used (hell, even approved and marketed) as a weight loss product.

My comment read: "Now all the girls in North Scottsdale are gonna want one. It'll be the new botox. You go to your doctor's office, eat a special plate of sushi and blam-o you've got a little friend in your gut that allows you to eat all the nasty fast food you want and still stay thin. Every year afterwards you go back in for laparoscopic surgery to remove your KFC-buddy and in the recovery room, another plate of special sushi.

I can't wait to see how the drug reps market it and what kind of pretty name they give the worm. Imagine the TV commercials!"

It was total through-the-looking-glass-after-having-seen-a-pimped-out-dead-body-before-breakfast fiction. Sounded funny at the time but who knew the response it would get... A woman wrote me and confirmed that while it may not be on the open market, it's already available. Read on:

By (kept anonymous) ".... (my username on the site deleted): They already do such a thing. It's pretty underground but you can buy the parasite overseas and use it. I've seen the delivery of such parasite and then seen it be used and then watched as HE daily ate like a pig and lost weight. Then went to the doctor, said he had visited a foreign country and got a pill to get rid of it. And it was a man, not a woman who did it. Gross."

Holy shit. I suppose it's one of those coincidences like "I have the same birthday!" that another human being could imagine and actually act upon using a parasite as a weight loss tool. I think it was 25 minutes at least before I stopped laughing at the response.