Guard Your Grill: Patients Accidentally Swallow Wire Brush Bristles, Hospital Reports
Few things taste better at the end of a summer day than a juicy burger or steak hot off the grill. But when a piece of wire from the grill cleaning brush gets stuck in your food, not to mention your throat or stomach, that dinner can quickly turn hazardous to your health. One hospital has reported a rash of such cases.
Doctors from Rhode Island Hospital reported this week that six people came to the emergency department from 2011 to 2012 with wire bristles from grill brushes lodged in their throats, stomachs, intestines or other organs after eating meat cooked on an outdoor grill.
The cases were the second round of such injuries at the hospital. In 2009 and 2010, another six patients came to the ER with the same problems, the doctors reported in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Dr. David Grand, the lead author of the report and a diagnostic radiologist at Rhode Island Hospital, said the injuries are relatively infrequent compared with the number of people who grill and use grill brushes every day. But he said it probably happens more often than doctors may suspect.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wire-grill-brush-bristles-stuck-food-throats-hospital/story?id=16718881
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Ok, no more wire bristles on my grill....
= new reply since forum marked as read
...stop chewing on it, dude! It's not a toothpick! 
people in Kansas are just smarter I guess....
My grill grates are nicely seasoned after two summers of use. The last thing I would ever do is wash them. That's like sticking a cast iron frying pan in the dishwasher. 
