Jan

30

Bufo alvarius hops into “Ugly Betty” tv show

Filed Under Bufo Alvarius stories | 

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Bufo alvarius was one of the stars, so to speak, in an episode of the American situation comedy television program “Ugly Betty,” broadcast January 17 on the ABC network.

The plotline reportedly had the protagonist, Betty, using a perfume poisoned with, among other things, toad venom, identified by the doctor specifically as coming from Bufo alvarius.

Medical authorities have analyzed the script and found the effects of the so-called poisonous perfume to be fictional. The newspaper quoted a pharmacology professor at USC who said that the violent effects supposedly experienced by Betty were “invented by the show for dramatic effect” and that it was unrealistic to expect anything harmful to come from applying perfume containing these ingredients to the skin.

Now, maybe I am paranoid, but what concerns me is the fact that toad venom, more particularly Bufo alvarius venom, is being portrayed as the villain in this television comedy. Could it be that the next battlefield in America’s hopeless War on Drugs is being fought on network television?

One wonders what would have happened if a script writer had submitted a storyline in which Betty smoked some dried venom from a Colorado River toad and developed new insights, such as that she should not be watching so much television? Or even worse, that she should stop buying products advertised on tv?

Yes, of course that would be ridiculous. But is it not just as ridiculous as the scenario that actually happened?

Oh, well. At least they didn’t have anybody licking a toad this time.

You can read the entire LA Times story at: http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/health/la-he-unreal28jan28,1,7837073.column?ctrack=2&cset=true

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