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High flying mothballs

Teenagers will try anything for kicks, but unlikely French fad seems to be sniffing mothballs. Reuters reports that two young French twins were hospitalised after developing scaly skin and physical and mental unsteadiness. A strange bag of mothballs in the hospital tipped off doctors to the cause, and the twins confessed that they were inhaling and chewing mothballs on a daily basis. It seems unnecessary to add a ‘don’t try this at home warning’, but just in case - mothballs contain substances found in air fresheners and insect repellents which, can cause liver and kidney failure if inhaled, as they are actually intended to keep larva from nesting in clothing. Lovely.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .