»The most disgusting pic ever! And it's real!«

These images are in fact real and undoctored, and they are indeed photographs taken of a patient whose brain surface was exposed and crawling with insects. The pictures date from October 2002, and they are photographs of a man in his 70s who was suffering from an unusual form of cancer which had eaten away at the upper portion of his skull and scalp but who had not sought any medical treatment because the condition was not causing him pain. The man was brought to the trauma center at Stanford University Hospital (where the photographs shown here were taken) by San Mateo County paramedics who had been summoned to the scene after the man was involved in a minor automobile accident and who found him in his car in the condition pictured.