Eating Leps or their host plants could be worse than drinking a little diluted insecticide

[Paul Cherubini]

mbpi at juno.com wrote:

> I've eaten Escargot and sauteed, newly emerged Cicadas
> (which tasted like freshly "cut grass" to my discerning palate...), so
> I'm open to "unusual culinary experiences."

In the last two days I've received the following two e-mails about
severe toxic eye reactions of three different people who handled 
milkweed plants or monarch butterfly chrysalids (names of the blinded 
people have been witheld for privacy reasons). Now imagine what could have 
happened if they had eaten the milkweed leaves or monarch chrysalids!

Hi Paul,

I, too, have had terrible problems with milkweed and my eyes.  Last year one 
of my eyes was swollen shut for three days.  It gradually stopped burning and 
returned to normal.  I wear gloves or wash about a hundred times a day!! 
I can handle pupae and my eyes start to itch and I know if I touch my eyes I've had
it!  Now, my husband is a different story.  He was in the greenhouse 
cutting when it happened.  Some of the sap flipped up into his eye. 
Direct hit, undiluted sap.  It's going on two weeks of lost vision.  The
redness is better on the white of his eye and the cornea is almost grown 
completely back.  But the swelling they can't get to go down is causing 
loss of vision.  The eye specialists are shaking their heads and won't even 
comment.  They don't know anything about milkweed, of course.

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Hi Paul,

I've gotten milkweed in my eye dozens of times, and it is awful.  Each time, 
I nearly lose my vision for about 2 days...everything looks as though I'm seeing 
through a cloud of steam.  I always recover, but I always worry if I'm doing 
permanent damage. Even if I am very careful not to touch my eyes and wash 
my hands when handling milkweed, I may still get this vision thing every few 
weeks.I suspect it can come even from opening a box of caterpillars that is 
warm and somewhat humid...the fumes of the milkweed hitting the eyes.

 
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