The word Sensational simply grabs your attention and does not let go. Being the curious geek that I am, I grabbed my sacred dictionary to look for this powerful word and I came across a few interesting definitions:
- Exceptionally good
- Attracting a great deal of interest
- And giving too much emphasis to the most shocking and lurid aspects of something
Wow. The last one took a bit of a bad turn for the worse.
Kind of like the sensational article published by The Daily Mail in early October titled: “Can a job in a nail salon harm unborn babies?”
Stop the press! This has got to be news! How could we have missed this as an industry that is decades old, where 95% to 98% of all people working as nail technicians are women? Heck, the majority of those in child rearing years! Holy cow… now that I think about it, for several generations, professional nail technicians have been reproducing just like every non professional nail technician… How could we have missed this? It’s about time a study like this is made public!
The sensationally stinky story
I began searching and sifting the net in search of all of the actual articles and papers that the Daily Mail were using for their references. I began sending off vast amounts of emails and making long distance calls to Canada in an attempt to clear the air. I was corresponding with doctors and scientists and even the Daily Mail journalist (who’s only response was a rather cold and rude email that was as much help as taking a laxative for a toothache).
Eventually, I received an email with pages of documentation on the study where each page was dubiously stamped ‘Confidential. Do not distribute’. I eagerly read and devoured the Holy Grail of my search only to discover that oddly enough, there was not a nail technician in sight that participated in the study. Out of 200,000 mothers to chose from, they whittled the list quickly down to 82, and then down to 32 (none of them nail technicians). Some of those 32 people that were left included people that admitted to binge drinking and marijuana use.
Eh? You read right. You had a couple of drunk and possibly stoned Funeral Embalmers, about 8 Lab Technicians, one Chemical Technologist, a Science Teacher and some other odds and ends. The closest one could come to resemble a nail technician was one Hair stylist and one Salon receptionist (What kind of salon? Who knows? Since when did the receptionist have massive exposure to salon solvents?).
Put on your own investigative hat and figure out why the Daily Mail didn’t title the story: “Can a job as an Embalmer harm unborn babies?”
Reading the study is quite sensational. Most of those included in the study were not even exposed on an occupational level to the solvents mentioned. In fact, reading the study I was surprised to discover their own mention that there was simply not enough data to actually draw a conclusion!
