Finally, someone has come up with a good use for acetaminophen

Finally, someone came up with a good use for acetaminophen.

Inject the drug into dead mice. Then drop the mice from helicopters into the jungles of Guam.

So obvious! Why didn’t anyone think of that before?

Actually it sounds slightly crazy unless you’ve spent years trying to control Guam’s brown tree snake population. As it turns out, tree snakes have something in common with humans – an overdose of acetaminophen is fatal.

After WW II, the U.S. military presence in Guam accidentally introduced the brown tree snake into the jungle environment. And this is one hungry snake. Within a few years, several bird species became extinct.

About ten years ago, the USDA and the EPA teamed up to figure out the best way to kill the snakes. And it’s taken them that long to realize that acetaminophen was a perfect tree snake poison.

So the dead mice get injected, then fitted with a paper streamer designed to tangle the mice in upper tree branches where the snakes live.

U.S. officials are still not sure this plan will work. But here’s a thought: If the mice are injected with batches of that tainted Johnson & Johnson acetaminophen for kids, the snakes might also develop a nasty bacterial infection.

Worth a try!

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson

Sources:
“Mice join fight against invasive snakes on Guam” Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes, 9/2/10, stripes.com