Australia: Cardiac Arrest Up 20%

An obscurantist theory of what is causing the alarming spike.

A friend just sent me the following report from Australia, and he asked me what could be causing this alarming trend.

When I was in graduate school I sometimes attempted to write poems in the style of famous poets. I was inspired by the infamous Salt Lake City forger, Mark Hofmann, who wrote and sold multiple forgeries of Emily Dickinson poems—both in her handwriting and her style.

In this spirit, I will attempt to write—in the style of the bizarre people who control our health and media agencies—a theory of what is causing the rising incidence of cardiac arrest in Australia.

The alarming 20% spike of cardiac arrest in Australia is likely caused by growing awareness of climate change. The distressing understanding that everyone will soon perish from rising temperatures and sea levels is compounded increasing encounters with the country’s dizzying array of venomous snakes.

Rising temperatures are emboldening previously shy serpents such as the eastern brown snake to show up uninvited at picnics and barbeques, causing the guests to have heart attacks.

According to renowned herpetologist, Dr. Clive Obvious, rising temperatures are also causing a proliferation of reptilian rabies—a viral illness that causes venomous snakes to become enraged. As a first line of defense, he proposes vaccinating the country’s entire snake population.

Yet another promising strategy is to inject the country’s entire rodent population with sedatives, which will in turn be ingested by venomous snakes.

“You would be surprised by how many pharmaceutical agents work like a charm on snakes,” he explains, and cites the Merck Veterinary Manual of Analgesics, Sedatives, and Anesthetics Used in Reptiles.

“Vaccinating and sedating venomous snakes is the first step to reducing these frightening encounters with humans that are causing the alarming rise of cardiac arrests,” Dr. Obvious explains.