CA company says $ 80 used tissue helps fight flu

A California-based company says its used fabrics, which sell for $ 79.99 online, "train your immune system" to fight the disease as you please.

But medical experts say that is not how it works.

VaevTissue.com sells a single product, non-prescription fabrics "specially treated with organic ingredients" to help customers "get ready for the flu season," according to the site.

"We are not talking about chemicals or prescription drugs here in Væv," says the website. "We believe that the use of a human sneezing tissue is safer than needles or pills."

The company started in Denmark but has recently opened a store in Los Angeles, according to the website.

"The simple idea is that you now choose to get sick, thinking that you will not get sick of the same cold … later," said founder, Oliver Niessen, according to Time. For example, someone with an upcoming vacation may wish to get sick in advance to prevent their illness from spoiling their trip.

Charles Gerba, a professor of microbiology and environmental science at the University of Arizona, said there are "a lot of things wrong with this idea," Time reported.

"There are more than 200 types of rhinovirus, so you will have to stitch about 200 tissues each time to get a different one," he said.

"The reason we have no cure or cold vaccine is that they are too many and they continue to change," KFOR's Dr Dave Hnida wrote about VaevTissue.

Hnida also asked how do you know that the person who sneezes in the tissues even has a cold and not allergies?

Niessen told Time that his company has a stable of about 10 certified sneezers who are actually sick. "A sick person sneezes into a lot of our paper tissues, then we put them in our packaging, and that's how they work," he said. "We just send it by mail."

Even then, "there is no evidence that it will work," said Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Health Center, Yahoo reported. Adalja added that you have to put the virus in contact with the mucous membrane of your nose. "In general, you sneeze into paper tissues, not by sticking your nose."

This leaves at least one other possible obstacle: "The factor" ewww ", writes Hnida, according to KFOR. "We all have our personal thresholds, but this one erases mine. Used tissues disgust me.

The fabrics are currently out of stock, according to a note on the store page of VaevTissue.com, but Niessen said everything could be a "very boring" hoax, reported Time. "People think it's a fake," he said. "It's not."