The Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide

"Dihydrogen Monoxide" is actually a synonym for "H2O" -- the scientific name for water.

The "dihydrogen monoxide" warning is a parody of exaggerated health alerts of the type we find circulating on the Internet every day, warnings that spread needless fear by taking advantage of scientific ignorance and consumer gullibility. It's actually quite instructive, if taken as an exercise in critical thinking. By presenting a series of essentially true statements in a grossly misleading way, even something as harmless as water can be made to sound like a dire threat to human health and environmental safety.

The text itself dates back to 1988, two years before it was first posted on the Internet by one of its authors, a U.C. Santa Cruz student named Eric Lechner. Lechner and his cohorts subsequently created a tongue-in-cheek Coalition to Ban DHMO. Thankfully, the Coalition's efforts were somewhat less than successful.