Why Canada's Throat Surgeons Really Hate Grill Brushes

We'd wager with quite a bit of certainty that Canada's top-ranking ear, nose, and throat surgeons probably aren't the authorities most people look to when seeking grilling-related advice, Canadian or otherwise.

But this doesn't seem to be giving pause to said surgeons, who are desperately seeking a surefire method of removing the barbecue brush wire bristles they keep finding lodged in their patients' throats. The surgeons are now advising the public to simply avoid the use of wire brushes altogether—at least until the issue is more deeply investigated.

Swallowed barbecue brush bristles can become lodged in the throat and epiglottis—and travel throughout the body—and the problem has become so widespread that it ended up becoming a discussion point during this year's meeting of the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology. Nova Scotian otolaryngologist Dr. Ian Dempsey told CBC News that, during a discussion of ingested foreign objects, several throat surgeons voiced the severe challenges associated with finding and surgically removing the barbecue bristles.

"None of us have figured out a surefire way to get rid of them, so we'd prefer just to prevent it from happening in the first place," explains Dempsey. "We're hoping that if enough people raise this issue, hopefully we'll just eliminate those types of brushes from the market and use a safer alternative."

Dempsey explains that the struggle he and his colleagues are having is that finding a wire bristle in a person's body is like searching for "a needle in a haystack, but the haystack is your tongue. It's not an easy structure to go fishing around in, especially when it gets embedded in deeply."

While cases across Canada aren't actively being tracked, Dempsey says that Halifax area hospitals are seeing one to two cases a week.

This certainly isn't the first time experts have warned the public about the danger inherent in the use of grill brushes. As we previously reported, a study recently published by the University of Missouri School of Medicine found that almost 1,700 people have been sent to emergency rooms since 2002 for grill-brush-related injuries.

If you're blithely thinking about Bobby Flay or Steven Raichlen—and not a throat surgeon—while you're grilling during these last few weeks of summer, perhaps it's time to think again.