Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site hlwpc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxt!mhuxv!mhuxh!hlexa!hlwpc!rpm From: rpm@hlwpc.UUCP (Dick Muldoon) Newsgroups: net.rumor Subject: Re: Re: Cure My Cold, Please Message-ID: <628@hlwpc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 12-Nov-85 10:01:53 EST Article-I.D.: hlwpc.628 Posted: Tue Nov 12 10:01:53 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 13-Nov-85 08:07:57 EST Distribution: na Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Short Hills, NJ Lines: 29 Tim Mikkelsen in <15100001@hpfclp.UUCP> writes: > I also seem to remember a medicated 'kleenex'. Eliot C. Dick (Univ of Minnesota? Wisconsin?) came up with an iodine-treated tissue that was tested at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, as a way of cutting down transmission of cold viruses from the October newcomers to those who'd wintered at the station. Soaked in iodine and wrapped in their own plastic sheaths, the tissues were distributed to everyone on station to be used immediately to wash face and hands after a sneeze or a nose-blow. It worked! Incidence of colds (aka URI--upper respitory infection) declined dramatically. One side-effect however, was a profusion of brown noses, brown hands, brown faces, etc., due to the iodine. On the ice, nobody cared. In NYC I doubt the stuff would sell. I lost track of the work until a picnic some months ago, when I re-met one of the folks who worked on the project. He said they found that using tissues soaked in ascorbic acid was just as effective as using tissues soaked in iodine--and a lot more pleasing cosmetically. (There really *is* something to taking vitamin C for colds; you rub it on your hands and face to kill the virus before it spreads!!!) I don't know for sure, but I think some tissue company is working on a commercial "Cold-Killer" product using the results. (Least I hope so: when I was with National Science Foundation's Antarctic Program we liked to point to this project as one that could have real economic/health returns (as opposed to all the others...)) Dick Muldoon {ihnp4}..hlwpc!rpm (201) 564-4043 HL 1L-413 AT&T Bell Laboratories, Short Hills, NJ