2008 Woodie Awards
Health urban legends
Mary-Jo Lomax / Special to La Voz
Issue date: 4/24/06 Section: Health
April 27, 2006
If you have an e-mail address, I'm sure you have received at least one e-mail message warning you about something - the dangers of reusing plastic water bottles, telemarketers having access to cell phone numbers or HIV-infected razor blades hidden on gas pump handles. The e-mails urge you to forward the message to everyone in your address book.
E-mail is a great way to get information to a lot of people very quickly, but unfortunately you can't always trust the information you're given. Some of these e-mails might be written as a hoax and others might be based on incomplete facts.
The next time you receive one of these messages you might want to check out its accuracy before hitting the forward button. One Web site to go to is http://www.snopes.com. Snopes.com collects and authenticates thousands of these cyber urban legends.
There are a few health and safety messages that have caught my attention. One is "How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone." The e-mail instructs you to perform something called "cough CPR" (take a deep breath, cough vigorously, repeat continuously).
The e-mail offers some legitimacy by citing several sources. But, according to http://Snopes.com, it is not a wise idea to try to perform cough CPR because the procedure is not universal. In other words, there are different types of heart attacks. While the vigorous coughing technique may help with one type, that same action might cause more damage if it's another type.
And there's no way you can tell which type of heart attack you might be having. To learn more about warning signs for heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest, check out the American Heart Association's Web site at http://www.americanheart.org and click on "Heart Attack/Stroke Warning Signs."
A second health-related e-mail has to do with learning how to recognize if someone has just had a stroke. The e-mail instructs you to ask the potential stroke victim to do three things: smile, raise both arms and speak a simple sentence. If the person cannot do these, you should call 9-1-1.
The folks at Snopes.com concur that this simple test is helpful in determining whether or not a person has had a stroke, but points out that the American Stroke Association has not endorsed it. The American Stroke Association lists five warning signs of stroke and urges people to become familiar with them. The warning signs are:
• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, or loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause
To learn more about strokes and to e-mail the warning signs to friends and relatives, you can check out the American Stroke Association's Web site, http://www.strokeassociation.org.
Finally, there's the message about ICE. ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. The e-mail urges people to add an emergency phone contact number under the letter "I" in your cell phone so that, in the event of an urgent situation, emergency workers can more easily locate the number of your parent, friend, sibling or whomever your designated emergency contact is.
It's a lot easier for someone in the emergency room to look for "ICE" than to scroll through your numbers and guess whom to call. I would also recommend putting the ICE info in your palm pilot and address book, too. If you want more information about ICE, check out their Web site at http://www.icecontact.com.
Mary-Jo Lomax is a health educator at De Anza College. For more information, visit the Health Center in the Hinson Campus Center.
If you have an e-mail address, I'm sure you have received at least one e-mail message warning you about something - the dangers of reusing plastic water bottles, telemarketers having access to cell phone numbers or HIV-infected razor blades hidden on gas pump handles. The e-mails urge you to forward the message to everyone in your address book.
E-mail is a great way to get information to a lot of people very quickly, but unfortunately you can't always trust the information you're given. Some of these e-mails might be written as a hoax and others might be based on incomplete facts.
The next time you receive one of these messages you might want to check out its accuracy before hitting the forward button. One Web site to go to is http://www.snopes.com. Snopes.com collects and authenticates thousands of these cyber urban legends.
There are a few health and safety messages that have caught my attention. One is "How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone." The e-mail instructs you to perform something called "cough CPR" (take a deep breath, cough vigorously, repeat continuously).
The e-mail offers some legitimacy by citing several sources. But, according to http://Snopes.com, it is not a wise idea to try to perform cough CPR because the procedure is not universal. In other words, there are different types of heart attacks. While the vigorous coughing technique may help with one type, that same action might cause more damage if it's another type.
And there's no way you can tell which type of heart attack you might be having. To learn more about warning signs for heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest, check out the American Heart Association's Web site at http://www.americanheart.org and click on "Heart Attack/Stroke Warning Signs."
A second health-related e-mail has to do with learning how to recognize if someone has just had a stroke. The e-mail instructs you to ask the potential stroke victim to do three things: smile, raise both arms and speak a simple sentence. If the person cannot do these, you should call 9-1-1.
The folks at Snopes.com concur that this simple test is helpful in determining whether or not a person has had a stroke, but points out that the American Stroke Association has not endorsed it. The American Stroke Association lists five warning signs of stroke and urges people to become familiar with them. The warning signs are:
• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, or loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause
To learn more about strokes and to e-mail the warning signs to friends and relatives, you can check out the American Stroke Association's Web site, http://www.strokeassociation.org.
Finally, there's the message about ICE. ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. The e-mail urges people to add an emergency phone contact number under the letter "I" in your cell phone so that, in the event of an urgent situation, emergency workers can more easily locate the number of your parent, friend, sibling or whomever your designated emergency contact is.
It's a lot easier for someone in the emergency room to look for "ICE" than to scroll through your numbers and guess whom to call. I would also recommend putting the ICE info in your palm pilot and address book, too. If you want more information about ICE, check out their Web site at http://www.icecontact.com.
Mary-Jo Lomax is a health educator at De Anza College. For more information, visit the Health Center in the Hinson Campus Center.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Anonymous
posted 5/15/06 @ 11:02 PM PST
What we have to have in mind when we read an article from a web site is its author.If the article comes from a good source such as the American Heart Association,for example, we can trust that information is reliable. (Continued…)
Anonymous
posted 5/16/06 @ 4:35 PM PST
I think the article has a good point, but I don't completely agree with everything because sometimes I feel the informatino doesn't have to be verified to be of benefit to me. (Continued…)
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