Child who suffers from rare, serious nosebleeds cured with pork

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last updated 8 January 2015

Researchers from Detroit Medical Center were honored Thursday after discovering that stuffing pork in the nose can cure serious nosebleeds, The Seattle Times reports. Dr. Sonal Saraiya and her team were awarded a 2014 Ig Nobel prize, which "celebrate[s] the unusual, honor[s] the imaginative — and spur[s] people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."

Saraiya and her team used the method as a last-ditch effort after more traditional methods failed, putting pork products in a patient's nose twice. The treatment "successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly [and] effectively," likely due to the "clotting factors in the pork... and the high level of salt," which helped to absorb fluid in the nose. The patient was a 4-year-old child who suffers from a rare blood condition in which his blood fails to properly clot, The Seattle Times said.