Residents of a village in Yorkshire in the north of England have expressed outrage after frog larvae, also known as tadpoles, were discovered in their drinking water, according to media reports from July 6.
The locals have branded the situation a “Dickensian scandal,” according to a Sky News report.
At a nearby village, residents are made to boil their tap water before drinking it or risk the consequences of drinking water contaminated with E. coli.
A local political figure, Sir Simon Clarke, attended Britain’s Commons. He stated that “A regulation 18 notice which specifies that the water requires boiling before drinking has been in place permanently since December 2017 and indeed residents report to me finding tadpoles and other life in their drinking water.”
It is utterly wrong that in 2023 the residents of Aysdalegate don’t have access to safe drinking water – and indeed have found tadpoles coming through their taps. Yet @NorthumbrianH2O have told my low-income constituents it would cost £100/home to quote for mains connection (1/) pic.twitter.com/TrXiyu7pGZ
— Simon Clarke MP (@SimonClarkeMP) July 6, 2023
Tadpoles wriggle in the Bressone pond at the Chalet-a-Gobet in Lausanne May 11, 2012 (credit: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS)
What happens if someone ingests a tadpole?
In response to a video of a child being fed tadpoles, Paediatric Dr Pei wrote about the dangers of such actions, according to The Straits Times.
“It is said to be able to detoxify sores or ulcers,” Dr Pei wrote. “However, eating live tadpoles like that, even children without sores can develop sores, because they could contract infections from the germs on the tadpoles’ bodies.”
In a peer-reviewed study, published in the academic journal Infectious Diseases Of Poverty Journal in 2017, researchers backed Dr Pei’s concerns over the danger of ingesting tadpoles.
“Our surveys showed that 11.93 per cent of tadpoles in Henan province are infected with plerocercoids (the infective larval form of tapeworms),” the researchers wrote. “Eating live tadpoles is a high risk for sparganum infection. Comprehensive public health education should be carried out for people in endemic areas and the bad habit of eating live tadpoles must be discouraged.”
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