Rumour busted: Can one (effectively) inhale a lump o'crud breathing @ KAF?

[The Bread Guy]

Short answer?  No.

This from Stars & Stripes:

.... There are a couple places on base where the air is particularly hazardous, choked with “moon dust,” very fine dust found in Iraq and Afghanistan, or smoke from the trash-burning pit, Wright said in an e-mail. To cut down on the air pollution, an incinerator is being built to take care of the trash.

But inhaling a candy bar-sized lump of human waste? Is that even possible?

To find out, The Doctor turned to Dr. Mark Nicolls, associate professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Stanford School of Medicine.

“Interesting question,” he said in an e-mail. “I have not heard of this before. The answer is, I think, is that it would be highly unlikely for a candy-bar-sized lump (a la ‘Caddyshack’?) of fecal matter to accumulate in someone’s lung after breathing in organic matter that may contain fecal matter.”

The rumor supposedly comes from a study into airborne fecal matter at Kandahar Air Field conducted by one of the countries providing troops in Afghanistan, such as Australia. But NATO has no record of any country conducting such a study, Webster said.

“Short answer — that rumor is a bunch of crap,” he said, obviously not realizing that making jokes about sewage is The Doctor’s job

THE RUMOR DOCTOR’S DIAGNOSIS: This rumor is false, but there’s no doubt that the “Poo Pond” reeks worse than anything, with the possible exception of North Jersey.

U.S. and Canadian information on the issue attached.

 

[PMedMoe]

Nice rumour. 

I can just imagine where it came from too.  We were in KAF doing air sampling in Nov-Dec 2009.  We certainly weren't testing for fecal matter.  :

 

[CombatDoc]

This is the rumour that refuses to die!  It is a well known fact that when the flit hits the shan over here in theatre, one can easily ;D ingest the aerosolized flit!

 

[Timmy!]

What about the Brit that swam across the poo pond and die?

Or the T-55 in the poo pond?

Or the Soviet soldier's buired in the poo pond?

Or ECOLOG steals people socks.

Oh the madness!

 

[CombatDoc]

Or ECOLOG steals people socks.

That's fact, not fiction. ;D

 

[Timmy!]

Some how I ended up with same kind of socks. But one is a different size... So all my socks have a blue ring.. minus one with a white one. Go figure.

 

[The Bread Guy]

What about the Brit that swam across the poo pond and die?

Here's one answer to that one (or a variation on the theme, with a Canadian angle in the comments).....

.... I heard about this when I first got here about 3 months ago, and was told it was a Canadian Spec Ops person. They said he did it on a dare that it couldn't be done. But I didn't hear anything about any medical attention being served, although I would speculate that he would need some anti-viral medication after swimming through it as I am sure it has some pretty nasty bateria in it ....

 

[Timmy!]

Here's a pic of the other poo pond. I took it this morning. Near Hotel Kanadhar.  ;D
The other poo pond is kind of out of my way, unless I'm going for my morning run.

Enjoy.

P.S. I belive the "THE RUMOR DOCTOR" should try a visit here. Going for a morning jog is always intresting here.  ;D

Your Guys have a lovely KAF Day...

 

[Northern Ranger]

I think the report is a crap!  I breath in big dose of Bull S#$% every day at work. ;D