The following article is from the Speculator published by the Society for the Promotion of Dubious Knowledge (SPDK), Blarney, Ireland, Mid-Summer's Day 1997.
A spokesman from the Royal Bloodletting Institute (RBI), commenting on an article in today's issue of the medical journal Hacksaw, said that it appeared that an exciting medical discovery had been made.
The article reports that at the village of Lesser Bloodington in South Derbyshire a leukemia "uncluster" or "anti-cluster" has been discovered. Scientists drew circles of 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-mile radii around this village, which lies in bleak, uninhabited, moorland country-side.
In the population within the 20-mile radius circle five cases of childhood leukemia were to be expected over the past 20 years whereas only one had been reported.
"This result is highly significant" a spokesman said. "It leads us to speculate on a new phenomenon. Leukemia clusters have long since been recognized and they keep popping up all over the place but this is the first time that an uncluster has been reported. This is as exciting as black holes," he went on to say. "Our next job is to find a cause for these unclusters."
Speculating, he went on to suggest several courses of further investigation including the high population of sheep in the region. "We are immediately contacting the Minister of Health," he said, "with a request for a supplementary budget of 2 million pounds to further investigate this exciting discovery. What other new health benefits might we find in the uncluster area is beyond human imagination!"
A spokesman for the local Regional Planning Board informed this reporter that his Board had requested a crash plan to be prepared for siting a new town in the area, with all the health benefits it would bring to new residents.
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