WTF Stories of the Week

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Don't you love a country where things are banned "just to be safe" without any evidence of problems? There's some serious Big Brother shyte here.

I don't think that is so much the issue here. This wasn't a new law passed, knee-jerk, to ban something. It is an existing law that is specific but can't easily expand to accommodate a new development.

It has always been the law in Florida that cosmetology devices used for certain purposes must be cleaned to certain standards between customers. It isn't surprising that nobody writing the law thought to add "unless said device is a small fish." But this issue of overly specific (and therefore inelastic) statute and rulemaking is an ever running discussion. For one point of view on it I would recommend a booked called The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America by Philip K. Howard.

And even then I'd say a strong case could be made that this is a situation where, if cosmetology is going to be a regulated industry, the burden should be on the practitioners to show safety rather than the regulators to show harm.

After all, for the same reason the nail people wear gloves and are required to change them, these fish will be potentially in contact with bodily fluids. If they were offering a treatment where mosquito bites were shown to relax wrinkles I think we'd all see why it wouldn't be good for the same mosquitos to be used on different people. A fish's mouth isn't necessarily all that different.

That said, I assume offering this as simply a "fun experience of fish eating your toes" would probably be perfectly legal so long as it wasn't under the cosmetology banner (and therefore regulated by those standards).