Urine Eye Drops: Oui Or Non?

In case you've run out of stupid stuff to do to yourself, like, juggling chainsaws, taunting pit bulls, or clamping your genitals in a hot waffle iron, this is your lucky day. Thanks to the wonders of Twitter there are now SO many more stupid, self-destructive things at your disposal that it's simply a matter of choosing your favorite color and flavor.

Well, today the color is yellow and, while I don't know anything about the flavor of urine (at least that's my story), it probably doesn't taste any worse than Diet Pepsi. But the flavor doesn't matter because this is not about people drinking urine, but rather putting it in their eyes. Now, what could possibly go wrong here? 

Well, we're ACSH, and that means that nothing gets by us. We are an information-generating machine, which is why we're discussing this critical topic while the Times, Wall Street Journal, and Mother Jones all missed it (1).

Staying on topic, urine has been used for all sorts of things over the years. Drinking urine is commonplace in India (2), but it has now spread to the U.S. as well, along with a bunch of ludicrous health claims, such as a treatment for acne, allergies, viral and bacterial infections, hair loss, cancer... many more. 

But putting pee in your eye? I don't want to judge without having the facts at hand. This is where Twitter comes in handy. I don't know the Twitter handle of this group, but it's a pretty good bet that it is not @HarvardReunion. Nonetheless, let's give them a fair chance.

This particular thread (below) starts with some guy whose name is hidden by a purple thing, and although his motive for putting pee in his eye isn't clear, no one can question his eloquent prose.

1. Things start out well enough:

2. But his good fortune does not persist:

3. Luckily, Green idiot comes to the rescue:

4. We have a working hypothesis! Perhaps Purple Idiot didn't use the pee often enough.

5. But let's not forget that we are now in the era of personalized medicine where one size does not fit all. Regrettably, Green Idiot's advice does not work for Purple Idiot: 

6. Fortunately, Twitter does attract legitimate scientists. The physiological expertise of Yellow Idiot becomes immediately evident:

7. And this is clearly the advice that Purple Idiot sought as it has enabled him to come up with a differential diagnosis:

8. Which can then be used to refine the therapy, which, for whatever reason, he finds oddly amusing.

9. Since we at the American Council are firm believers in the peer review process, it's a damn good thing that Turquoise Idiot stepped into this role: 

OK, so now we know all about eye urine therapy. I was going to write more, but all this discussion has prompted me to take a monster whiz, so I better wrap this up here and hit the men's room before...

Damn.

Too late.

NOTES:

(1) Mother Jones misses just about everything else, so this should come as no surprise. 

(2) In India, drinking urine is a fairly standard practice, however, the issue of drinking cow urine is hotly contested. I think I'll stay out of this one.