I'm surprised the media in its infinite wisdom hasn't latched onto the whole popcorn lung thing with more zeal. I mean, the last "oh my god, we're all doomed to die from some hideously obscure illness" media craze has probably been the SARS epidemic. And although PL isn't as frightening globally, it deserves more press.

If you haven't heard about PL, aka Bronchiolitis obliterans, it's a debilitating lung disease that usually infects microwave popcorn factory workers. The disease is caused by consistently breathing in fumes from butter-flavored microwave popcorn. The chemical diacetyl that creates the butter flavor is the culprit. Recently a non-factory worker named Wayne Watson (age 53) developed the illness due to his addiction to the snack, adored by DVD watchers everywhere. Wayne's "heavy consumption" (cbsnews.com) of popcorn consisted of two bags a night. He no longer eats it and his once incredibly restricted breathing has improved somewhat. I don't eat popcorn very often but I work with a lot of people who like to eat the extra butter variety for breakfast or as a mid-afternoon snack. A few I talked to about this remain unfazed. My theory is that CNN, MSNBC, FOX News Network and maybe even E! need to hype this up.

Remember the thoroughly disgusting flesh-eating disease scare from the early/mid nineties? I certainly do. I'm not a hypochodriac by nature but that freaked me out. For a few months, every time I nicked my legs while shaving or did something really bad like gouge my finger with a chisel while carving plaster for my 3-D Design class (that b------ Adolfo Doddoli gave me a B++. I mean, what the hell kind of grade is that, anyway? Seems like a B++ might be equivalent to, say an A! I shed blood for that project!) I became convinced that no matter how much Bactine and Neosporin I doused my skin with, in the morning half of it would be, well, eaten. Why was I so paranoid with fear? Because every network was proclaiming the streptococci bacteria to be running rampant over the globe. So until I discovered that becoming infected with it is such a rare occurrence that only approximately 10,000 people in the world contract it per year, I couldn't get disinfected enough to satisfy my news induced hysteria.

So media moguls, make more out of this popcorn lung thing. I'm sure your afraid of losing all those Pop Secret dollars but just think of how you can cash in once all the drug companies start marketing their vaccines.

Food for thought, no?