By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
As people pull their grills out this summer for cookouts and barbecues, there's an unknown danger that Mosaic Life Care wants them to be aware of.
Dr. Cythia Brownfield with Mosaic says people should avoid using wire brushes to clean off the grill after cooking. Brownfield says there's a danger of the wire bristles breaking off and getting into your food.
"And end up having it lodged into their throat, or even worse swallowing it into their stomach, it can actually penetrate through your intestines and cause significant disease, possibly even death, and usually it requires a surgical emergency to correct it," Brownfield tells reporters. "These can break off very easily, they're hard to see."
Brownfield says instead of those brushes, there are other options, including brushes that have coils rather than bristles.
"There's also ones that are stone," Brownfield explains. "There are some that can melt, so you have to be careful that if you're cleaning your grill when it's hot you have to make sure that that grill brush is safe to use on a hot grill, also you can even just use your regular spatula that you flip your burgers with and use that to scrub."
Brownfield says approximately 130 cases a year have been reported, but it could be far more because of being under reported.
Brownfield says while the number of cases reported may seem low, it's a problem that can easily be solved
"So even though it's rare, the same thing we look at with consumre safety products, sometimes these injuries can be rare but if they're easily fixed, it's the right thing to do to make that shift," Brownfield says.
Brownfield says cases became more prevalent as more people during the pandemic cooked at home and out on the grill.
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