Yet Another Product Warning: Cotton Swabs Can Kill You
February 5, 2008 by Eric Eggertson
Filed under Marketing
Don’t lean a metal ladder against electrical wires. Don’t point a loaded gun at a person, including yourself. Don’t take your electrical appliances into the tub. Don’t swallow caustic substances. Don’t randomly combine prescription drugs.
To these and many more product warnings we now must add a new one. Don’t use cotton swabs in your ear.
You know, those handy things that are made for . . . cleaning out your ears?
After a Quebec man accidentally punctured his ear drum and died from the resulting infection, a coroner is recommending product warnings, so the public is as well informed as medical professionals of the dangers of over-cleaning your ears, reports CBC.
The preferred method of extricating wax and other things from your ears?
The best way to clean inside your ear is with your little finger, the coroner said.
Swear it’s true? Pinkie swear!
My all-time favourite product warning is the (possibly apocryphal) Hallowe’en costume with the label “Cape does not allow wearer to fly”.
How appropriate. And here I have just cleaned my ears with a cotton swab. I suppose those little wooden sticks meant for the ears should also have a proper warning label, eh? I wonder if the time will come when all products will be swamped with warnings. They’d better figure out a better way to package them then!
The number of warnings on ladders is mind-numbing. I suspect you have to sign a waiver when you buy rope, too.
I can just see the tiny writing on the staff of a Q-Tip: Not to be used as a weapon on a sibling; Not to be used to poke holes in your eardrum, skewer your eye, insert in your rectum; don’t share used swabs with others, especially if covered in bodily fluids like blood or pus…