news flash

here's an excerpt from an e-mail i recently received.

We have been inundated today with calls from parents who have children suffering from what sounds like bacterial folliculitis after participating in a huge "Mud Mania" event at a county park last weekend. Over 5000 kids played in the mud for 2 days and >150 have reported a rash that looks like bacterial folliculitis. (Like the hot tub version only mud-related.) We've conducted interviews today alone on 111 kids. Your ER may be seeing kids with a folliculitis-like rash and a history of rolling in the mud at a county park. The cases we have interviewed seem to all be getting well without treatment. We have convinced a very small number of pediatricians to culture the rash, but most are making a clinical diagnosis. Besides folliculitis, some of these kids have been given diagnoses of varicella, scabies and sand flea bites. Since they all rolled in the same mud and have the same symptoms, I suspect they are all folliculitis. When the cultures come back, we'll know more. You may want to pass the word to any interested parties....

in short,

rolling in the mud is unsanitary.

i report it to you.