Breast Rash
Claim: Photograph shows a breast rash caused by South American larvae.
Status: False.
Origins: This item is another example of a common Internet phenomenon: Someone makes an image available on-line, the picture begins to circulate through e-mail forwards, the original attribution or explanation for the image gets lost along the way (or was never provided), people begin to make up stories to explain the origin of the now-sourceless picture, and those fabricated explanations become attached to the image as it continues to circulate. We've seen this phenomenon before in the maggot photographs (disturbing image warning), only in this case it isn't just the explanation that's fabricated; the image is a phony one created through digital manipulation as well.
This image appeared on the Internet back in June 2003 (on a web site with a collection of other manipulated photographs); at that time it carried no explanation at all and was soon attributed by others to some new type of "body modification." Not until a couple of months later did it pick up the story about an anthropologist named "Susan McKinley" who returned from a South American expedition to notice a "very strange rash" on her breast caused by "larvae" which were "feeding off the fat, tissue, and even milk canals of her bosom." No known medical condition causes a result like the one depicted here, and the breast tissue around the supposed "larvae infestation" (larvae of what?) is too healthy (no redness, inflammation, or necrosis) to be believable. This image appears to be the product of the melding of a photograph of a woman's breast and a picture of something similar to a lotus seed pod: (see pictures)
In 2005 someone combined the picture and text quoted in the "Example" box above with an existing video clip that seemingly shows maggot-like creatures being removed by forceps from a woman's infected breast, and in November 2005 we began seeing versions that claimed the patient had developed her condition due to the flooding of New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005
My aunt, Head Nurse at Tulane Memorial hospital in New Orleans Louisiana sent me this email. The attached video is that of a female patient who, due to the flooding of her home wore the same clothes for days. The contamination in the water was so bad she first broke out with a rash on her breast and then she had a lump on her breast and she popped it and puss excreted from the lump. After treating it herself for days she finally went to seek medical attention and when she did they found serious infection! They later sedated the patient and found that these insects were within the fatty tissues of her breast and within the milk producing glands (sorry not a TRUE medic), she is also 3 months pregnant! And to think, we though Rita was bad on us! If you pay attention you can see them moving in and out, gross, but one of the issues they are now dealing with in New Orleans with patients.
This is a genuine video, but it has no connection to Hurricane Katrina. It shows the treatment of a Nigerian patient with breast lesions and multiple sinuses containing Tumbu fly larvae. (Fourteen separate larvae were eventually extracted from the breast.) The authors of a 2004 medical journal article on the case noted at the time that only "one case has been reported in the English literature."
Last updated: 6 April 2006