We are not making this up.
The Pentagon is begging the public to stop sending flea and tick collars to troops in Iraq. They appreciate the sentiment, “but the fact is that flea and tick collars are not approved for humans and in fact are quite detrimental to the skin. Our skin is different from that of dogs, and the pesticides tend to burn our skin,” says Army Maj. Dwight Rickard, contingency liaison officer for the Armed Forces Pest Management Board. This isn’t just a case of well-meaning but mentally challenged citizens: a 1999 Rand survery discovered that about 20,000 personnel used flea and tick collars in the first Gulf War, and linked their use to some symptoms of the Gulf War syndrome. Everyone head over to the Darwin Awards and make an appropriate submission.