Shanghai Refutes Rumors That Nucleic Acid Testing Will Increase the Risk of Throat Cancer

Recently, there has been another rumor that “nucleic acid/antigen sampling swabs are toxic”. This time, the rumor-mongers are even more abhorrent. They not only used the “poisonous cotton swabs” pictures that have been clarified by the Shanghai rumor-refuting platform, have no scientific basis, and are full of errors, but also add fuel to the rumors and say “prediction: after this year, there will be severe cases of throat cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer patients across the country. increase, especially in Shanghai”.

Zhang Jiaxiong, director of the Otolaryngology Department of the Tenth People’s Hospital of Shanghai, said in an interview with the media that sampling swabs are medical supplies, and all qualified products have been disinfected and will not cause damage to the human body. Therefore, citizens do not need to spit after completing the sampling. or gargle.

As for the rumor that “after this year, the number of throat cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer patients has increased sharply, especially in Shanghai”, Zhang Jiaxiong said that there is currently no evidence to support this view. In fact, the incidence of throat and nasopharyngeal cancer in the population is very low. Moreover, the sampling swab is designed with the user experience in mind, the texture is soft and fine, and the irritation to the nasopharynx is very slight. Even if some samplers occasionally “start with a heavy hand” and cause temporary discomfort to the sampled person, this discomfort will recover quickly and will not affect their health. Zhang Jiaxiong said: “Laryngeal cancer is like most tumors. The exact cause of the incidence is still unknown. The so-called sampling swab will cause throat cancer also lacks scientific basis.”

In response to the most widely circulated picture on the Internet, “It’s not called a cotton swab”, the Shanghai Rumor Refuting Platform also reminded once again that the relevant pictures are rumors. In the whole picture, except “it is chemical fiber” which is partially correct, the rest of the content is wrong.

It should be reminded that chemical fiber does not mean toxic, and many clothing materials are also chemical fiber products, which directly contact the skin and even the oral cavity and nasal cavity, and will not affect health. The sampling swab uses flocked chemical fiber, and the fine nylon fiber is fixed on the top of the sampler to better collect the sample. The data shows that flocked swabs can elute more than 85% of the sample collection volume; traditional cotton swabs, especially those made of absorbent cotton, cannot completely collect and elute samples.