Duct Tape Doesn’t Work on Warts After All

Ask any handyman, and one will learn that the universe is held together with duct tape. It can not only tape ducts, but it doesn’t do a bad job of making a non-stick shower, and in a pinch it does a good job of weather-stripping doors and windows. Rumor has it that it can fix wading pools, remove nail polish and serve as an insect trap. Thanks to Dutch researchers, though, the world now knows that duct tape can’t get rid of warts.

Dr. Marloes de Haen of Maastricht University spend a fair amount of money and time determining that a 2002 study by Dr. Dean Focht of Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington was wrong when it “proved” that duct tape did remove warts. Researchers involved in the new study wrote in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine that duct tape worked only slightly better than a corn pad, which they used as a placebo.

“After 6 weeks, the warts of 8 children (16 percent) in the duct tape group and the warts of 3 children (6 percent) in the placebo group had disappeared,” they wrote. In a study of 103 kids, this isn’t really all that impressive, and it could be well within the margin of error. At the same time, the kids with the duct taped warts (a fine name for an alternative rock band, by the way) had rashes and other skin problems that the corn pad control group didn’t experience.

The Dutch study called into question the methodology of the Tacoma research. The American study, which was also published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine some time ago, claimed that duct tape worked better than cryotherapy (freezing the things off with liquid nitrogen or something else that’s damned cold), but the researchers didn’t actually examine the kids. They merely phoned them up and asked if the wart had gone away.

The Dutch researchers expressed some disappointment. “Considering the serious discomfort of cryotherapy and the awkwardness of applying salicylic acid [another medically valid treatment] for a long time, simply applying tape would be a cheap and helpful alternative, especially in children,” Dr. de Haen wrote. On the positive side, duct tape will remain an over-the-counter fix-all rather than a prescription item as a result of this study.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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