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December 10, 2004
Are The Lights On At the CDC?
Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) blew the lid off one of the nation's most pressing public health scourges: Christmas lights. While you may think they are little more than an innocent holiday tradition, it is now clear that Christmas decorating is slowly crippling our nation. According to a CDC study reported in the agency's cheery journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, more than 5,000 Americans suffer "holiday-decorating-related falls" each year. Despite widespread coverage of the CDC's statistical malpractice that led to a massive overestimation of obesity-related deaths, this holiday-decoration study seems gift-wrapped for public health zealots. After all, it is now evident that we have an epidemic of Christmas slip-and-falls.
Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) blew the lid off one of the nation's most pressing public health scourges: Christmas lights. While you may think they are little more than an innocent holiday tradition, it is now clear that Christmas decorating is slowly crippling our nation. According to a CDC study reported in the agency's cheery journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, more than 5,000 Americans suffer "holiday-decorating-related falls" each year. Despite widespread coverage of the CDC's statistical malpractice that led to a massive overestimation of obesity-related deaths, this holiday-decoration study seems gift-wrapped for public health zealots. After all, it is now evident that we have an epidemic of Christmas slip-and-falls.
Recent headlines might lead you to believe that the CDC has shifted its focus from fighting minor annoyances such as AIDS, the Ebola virus, and malaria to more pressing issues like the supposed added cost of airline fuel due to obesity (found in a recent one-page-long "study") and the plague of holiday lights. The CDC's incontrovertible evidence should be a call to action to combat this ominous public health threat before it literally cripples our nation.
Knowing how hysteria follows CDC announcements of this sort, we expect to see the following quotes soon from some of the most insufferable scaremongers:
Santa-sized naysayer Kelly "Big Brother" Brownell:
- "We live in a toxic light environment."
- "This could be the first generation of decorators to lead shorter lives than their parents."
- "In my mind there's no difference between Rudolph and Joe Camel."
The Grinch-like Marion Nestle:
- "The Christmas light industry is just another example of late-stage 20th century capitalism and I can't fix that."
- "Christmas is too cheap in this country."
Not-So-"Wise"-Man Michael Jacobson:
- "You can hang Christmas lights if you want to, but just know that they are going to kill you."
- "We need a one percent tax on every Christmas light. The proceeds would go to a national decoration education fund."
- "I'm not ruining Christmas. Christmas is being ruined by the tree tinsel industry."
Tinsel Terrorist John "Sue the Bastards" Banzhaf:
- "We might discover that it's possible to become addicted to the all-American tradition of Christmas lights."
- "We're going to sue them and sue them and sue them."
The reindeer-obsessed Neal Barnard:
- "To let a child decorate a Christmas tree is a form of child abuse."
- "Christmas lights are just as dangerous to public health as tobacco use ... It's time we looked into holding the light producers and Christmas outlets legally accountable."
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