The only way to settle this is for paghat to gather up some of her
friends and have them have various poinsettias rubbed all up and down
their naked bodies and post the video on the internet. The friends will
all have to be hot young naked and female for publicity reasons,
otherwise, no one will watch and so effectively prove nothing. I will
volunteer to do all the rubbing for this um very scientific experiment.

Meanwhile paghat can drink a cup of poinsettia tea and refrain from
having her eyes bug out or running off to the bathroom. Later she can
post the results of a colonoscopy showing no weird latex crud lining her
intestines. For show she can crumple some leaves or flowers in her hand
and knuckle her eyes a couple of times for good measure. if she is
blinded, this will make the moles in her garden happy ("ah yes, paghat
the molegirl, she's one of us now!")

for paggers: tickle

for publicity "Cereus-validus..." wrote in
om:

Say what you want about the Poinsettia industry and hospitals not
wanting their emergency rooms clogged during the holiday season but
Santa Claus is based upon an actual person better known as Saint
Nicholas. Tell the Greeks that there never was a Saint Nicholas and
you will be in serious trouble.

Interesting how all the studies on the non-toxicity of Poinsettias
originate from Ohio State and they also happened to play a role in
developing the improved cultivars we grow today.

Never said that one would drop dead from handling Poinsettias, only
that many people experience allergic reactions to handling them akin
to poison ivy poisoning. Many emergency rooms don't want to deal with
that either.

Rat are capable of eating many things that certainly would make us
sissy humans very ill. Everyone except Joe Rogan and a few iron
stomached contestants on Fear Factor perhaps.

"paghat" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"Cereus-validus..." wrote:

The big question is why do so many people so desperately want the
florist Poinsettia to be non-toxic?

What is their real motivation for making that claim?

Real question is how could someone as knowledgeable as you usually
seem to be on a few topics such as succulents refuse to believe the
clear & definitive studies that prove you could feed poinsettias to
animals in controlled laboratory settings where effects can be
carefully measured, & there is zero toxic effect, not even a contact
dermatitis response from handling the poinsettias & getting the latex
on your nose & face while eating the bracts, leaves, stems, stamins,
or roots -- across the board non-toxic.

Keith L. Smith, Associate Vice President for Agricultural, Ohio State
University horticultural extension, attempts to make it easy to
understand, stating: "Research conducted at The Ohio State University
and other institutions has proved the old wives' tale that
poinsettias are poisonous to be false."

See for example:
Grabmeier, Jeff. ³Despite the Myth, Ohio State Study Proved
Poinsettias Non Toxic.² The Ohio State University News, December 15,
1988.

Or see this classic study:
Stone, R., & Collins, W. "Euphorbia Toxicity in Rats", Toxican volume
9, 1971. This report on the Ohio State University study discovered
rats could thrive on a diet of poinsettias with zero toxic effects,
not even dermatitis from handling all parts of the poinsettias to eat
it. Other euphorbias were toxic, but not this one. Extrapolated to
humans it was stated in no uncertain terms that a 50 pound child
would have to eat the equivalent of 500 to 600 poinsettia bracts to
experience even a mild stomach upset. That kid would get sick faster
eating that much mashed potatoes with gravy!

For an on-line resource, see this North Arundel Hospital overview on
the harmlessness of poinsettias:
http://health.northarundel.org/child...ency/poinsetti
a/poinsettia.htm Whatever the voices in peoples' head tell them,
believe me, this hospital isn't being propogandistic; they're heading
off pointless wastes of everyone's time when parents freak out
needlessly & use up emergency room resources because their kid gummed
a poinsettia.

Rutgers University offers a concise little fact sheet entitled in
large capital letters Poinsettias Are Not Poisonous exclamation mark:
http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~floriculture/publications/poisonpt.htm
See at Ohio State U this reminder not to worry about this non-toxic
plant being toxic:
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/story.php?id=2763

Many if not the majority of plants in its family are toxic or can
cause skin blistering, but poinsettias is one many exceptions.
Without a specific allergy that would make someone equally allergic
to pencil erasers & anything else with a latex base, poinsettias are
harmless. Controlled studies prove them non-toxic; major universities
and their horticultural extensions say they're non-toxic; poison
control centers say they're non-toxic; the Center for Disease Control
says they're non-toxic; growers say they're non-toxic. Of these only
the growers would have any cause to be propogandistic about it, but
would be sued into non-existence if some kid or pet got sick from
false claims of safety.

Heck, even the National Security Institute calls this one of "the
most widely believed folklore myths" with zero credibility:
http://nsi.org/Tips/poinsett.html and if these
paranoia-profiteering national security wonks can't work up some
paranoia against poinsettias, why should you? Of course, NSI does
profit from espionage, so maybe they're just covering up for the how
poinsettia vendors who have put listening devices in the poinsettias
& the flowers are reporting your every move to the government.

Really there's nobody thinks they're toxic but people who are kinda
ignorant of the topic & thereby continue to believe a baseless fable.

So my question is, is someone forging your posts to make you look
less knowledgeable than you would ordinarily appear to be, or have
you really lost your mind? Because this is exactly the kind of
mistake you are so often ribbing others about, as though it takes a
complete nincompoop to persist in believing the unreal is real.
You've been posting this nincompoop-style error about twice a day.
What's next? Are claims of the non-existence of Santa Claus, The
Great Pumpkin, & the Easter Bunny likewise mere propoganda? If the
science is not to be believed, then maybe they're also wrong that
monkshoods ARE toxic & we should use the roots as relish. Maybe
aspirin doesn't actually help headaches. The thing about no longer
believing the actual science of a thing is that pretty soon all
realitly is up for grabs. You could fall off the planet because
there's nothing to guarantee gravity will keep working.

The only things ACTUALLY toxic on a poinsettia are apt to be the wide
array of chemicals used by growers to keep stems from splitting, to
induce rapid growth, & to keep insects from nibbling on them before
people with bad taste in flowers buy them.

your pal,
paggers

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com