No way, brother.

I've been smooshing your kind all over my house the past couple of weeks. In fact, I just squished about another 8 of you crawling around my kids' cough syrup bottle!

WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU???!!!

GO BACK OUTSIDE WHERE YOU BELONG!

May you savor your day deathcow. Good to see you've graced our planet with your presence for another year .... moooooo [cough]

Hiccups are muscle spasms in your diaphragm. They're triggered by coughing, laughing, swallowing air, extreme emotions, and drinking fizzy drinks. Amongst other things.

They forgot to mention that "airport personnel" (read: TSA) are usually a combination of the worst aspects of the other two types ("idiots" and "jerks").

Welcome to the US, now drop your pants, turn your head to the side, and cough. Oh, and watch me delay an entire line for 5 minutes yelling at an elderly Korean man to take off his belt, when he clearly doesn't speak a word of English.

Sad story because Whooping Cough can lead to serious health issues down the road.

Your video, Anti-vaxx mom reversal - After all 7 kids got whooping cough, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Scrubs is the most accurate portrayal of medicine on television ever. Mainly because they deal with the mundane things. Not every diagnosis is ebola, rabies or porphyria *cough* House *cough*.

They must have some legit medical advisors.

Also, numerous drugs are used off-label. Some are drugs that are widely accepted to work in certain situations, but have such a narrow target population that there is no money in funding a study to prove efficacy/safety. Others are generic drugs that have no financial upside to fund a study (mag sulfate for pre-eclampsia). More concerning are black-label warnings that are not heeded.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! [cough] Purrfection!

Sure lucky760, I'll do Splenda, since some varieties of Coke Zero have Splenda in them.

First off it is important to note that the majority of the anti-sweetener "science" has been done by one man: Dr. Joseph Mercola. Now, watch out here, because his name is deceptive. You see, Mercola is an osteopathic physician. Osteopathy is a form of pseudoscience that believes that all pathology can be solved by manipulation of the bones and muscles. There is little science to back up these claims because they are clearly insane and worthy of ridicule. So, much like his doctorate, the claims he makes against sweeteners are pseudoscientific. A number of his beliefs are: that AIDS is not cause by HIV but by psychological stress; that immunizations and prescription drugs shouldn't be prescribed but people should instead buy his dietary supplements; that vaccinations are bad for you and your children (a belief which is the cause of recent outbreaks of whooping cough, measles and mumps); and that microwaves are dangerous machines that irradiate their products (they do, but not with the kind of radiation he is thinking of). Since he made a movie called Sweet Mistery: A Poisoned World, he has been at the forefront of anti-sweetener rhetoric. If you watch the movie, note how hilariously bad it is at actual science; the majority of the "evidence" is people claiming side effects after having ingested something with a sweetener in it (anecdotes are worth nothing in science except perhaps as a reason for researching further). So, you have a movement against something seen as "artificial" by a man who is not a doctor, not a scientist and is clearly lacking in the basics of logic.

Now, Splenda. Created by Johnson and Johnson and a British company in the seventies, it's primary sweetener ingredient is sucralose. The rest of it is dextrose, which as I have said above, is really just d-glucose and is safe for consumption in even very large quantities. So really, we are asking about sucralose. Sucralose is vastly sweeter than sucrose (usually around ~650 times) and thus only a very small amount is needed in whatever it is you are trying to sweeten. The current amount that is considered unsafe for intake (the starting point where adverse effects are felt) is around 1.5g/kg of body weight. So for the average male of 180lbs, they would need to ingest 130g of sucralose to feel any adverse effects. This is compared to the mg of sucralose that you will actually be getting every day. The estimated daily intake of someone who actually consumes sucralose is around 1.1mg/kg, which leaves a massive gap. Similarly to aspartame, if you tried to ingest that much sucralose, you would be incapable due to the overwhelming sweetness of the stuff.

There is some evidence that sucralose may affect people in high doses, but once again, this is similar to the issues with aspartame, where the likelihood of you getting those doses is extremely unlikely.

The chemistry of sucralose is actually way too complicated to go into, but suffice it to say that unlike aspartame, sucralose is not broken down in the body at all and is simply excreted through the kidney just like any other non-reactive agent. The reason that it tastes sweet is because it has the same shape as sucrose except that some of the hydroxy groups are replaced with chlorine atoms. This allows it to fit in the neurotransmitters in the tongue and mouth that send you the sensation of sweetness without also giving you all of those calories. Once it passes into the bloodstream it is dumped out by the kidneys without passing through the liver at all.

In sum, if sweeteners were bad for you, they wouldn't be allowed in your food. Science is not against you, it is the only thing working for everyone at the same time. The reason sugar has gotten around this is because we have always had it. If you want to be healthier, don't drink pop, drink water or milk (unless you are lactose intolerant, then just drink water). Don't drink coconut milk, or gatorade, or vitamin water. Assume that when a company comes out with something like "fat free" it really reads "now loaded with sugar so it doesn't taste like fucking cardboard." Assume that when a company says something is "natural" it is no more natural than the oils you put in your car. IF you want to live and eat healthy, stay on the outside of the supermarket, avoiding the aisles. All of the processed food is in the aisles, not on the outsides and the companies know that you don't want to miss anything. Make your food, don't let someone else do it. And never, ever buy popped popcorn, anywhere, the mark-up on that shit is insane.

They said it fell out of the 9th floor, was hanging from the 8th and got cough on the 7th.

I heard it coughing at the end.

I (cough) saw this in 1982. In the theater, first run, with my step-brother. I had blocked that out!

Even then, we immediately knew it was completely, indescribably awful. Yet also sort of awesome. A very confusing feeling at the time!

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I just want to show this to all those gross people who don't cover their mouth when coughing.