According to CBS News, there’s a strange trend among Japanese school-aged children and teens called eyeball licking.
The trend, licking a friend or lover’s eyeballs is raising more serious concerns about the germs being spread than it’s bizarreness.
Emergency Medicine Physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, Dr. Robert Glatter, told CBS.Com, “This is a dangerous practice which has the potential to spread a number of bacteria that reside in the mouth to the eye resulting in bacterial infections such as conjunctivitis to styes as well as abscesses involving the lids and eye socket.”
According to CBS News, eyeball licking is also called “worming” and has existed for quite some time with multiple clips of students as young as 11 years old engaging in the act on Youtube.
The trend comes with many risks that include the spreading of the bacteria that causes pink eye through the tongue. Other risk could include the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases which could cause serious eye ailments including blindness.
Teens are being warned not to try this activity at all to prevent serious long-term vision problems.
CBS News