My Dad had his spleen removed when he was a kid, and a number of years ago (10) was told he had to carry a card around with him that said something like

"I have had my spleen removed and may be subject to overwhelming infection."

Seriously. We told him he shouldn't use that as his opening gambit when talking to girls :-)

You realise of course that this is an April Fool. The author of the article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology, is Rio Palof - an anagram of "April Fool"...

Well, this brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "navel-gazing",