Comments: This message has three distinct components:
The text, which appears to have been fabricated.
The image, which was almost certainly fabricated.
The video, which is authentic, though completely unrelated to the
text and image.
The image first showed up on the Internet, uncaptioned, in June
2003. As snopes.com debunker David Mikkelson has demonstrated, it
appears to be the product of combining elements from two separate
images, one of a female breast and the other of a lotus seed
pod.
The cautionary tale about anthropologist Susan McKinley and the
larvae infestation she purportedly experienced in South America
began circulating with the image in August 2003.
'Myiasis of the Breast' Is a Real Condition
The video — which is not only authentic but proves that larvae
infestations of the breast, though extremely rare, can actually
occur — was downloaded from the Web site of a medical journal and
attached to the email in late 2005. It originally accompanied an
article entitled "Furuncular Myiasis of the Breast Caused by the
Larvae of the Tumbu Fly (Cordylobia Anthropophaga)."
The case, which occurred in Nigeria, not South America, is
described as follows:
We report a 70-year-old woman who presented with a week history of
itchy multiple discharging sinuses of the right breast. The sinuses
contained wriggling larvae of C. anthropophaga. Fourteen larvae
were extracted from the breast and the sinuses healed quite well
after the extraction.
Note well that although the particulars of the Susan McKinley email
remain unsubstantiated, its anonymous author does know a thing or
two about circumstances promoting furuncular myiasis of the
breast.
"Please make sure you iron your undergarments before you wear them
and make sure that your clothes are ironed when they are dry and
not damp," the email warns. Compare that to the journal article's
explanation of how the 70-year-old patient in Nigeria became
exposed: "She usually spreads her washed dresses on a line near the
bush and does not iron them before wearing them."
