The placement of Q-tipping one's ear in the same article that also warns against combining alcohol and power tools leads me to suspect that my mother is a secret contibuting writer to Consumer Reports. Or more likely your mother, since my mother loved digging deep into the recesses of what could of been my brain in her unsated quest to remove ear wax. And this site mentions that doctors warn against sticking any object smaller than your elbow into your ear, including cotton swabs.

And I say why for shit's sake would you want to put anything in your ear larger than your elbow? An elbow, even someone else's, is not effective at removing ear wax. However, your elbow is fantasitc at allowing your arm to bend so you can reach up with that fluffy little white swab so you can jam it right in that canal and dig all that yellow, goopy crap out of your ears while gently massaging the inner ear canal, generating a warm, fuzzy feeling in my brain similar to that of sitting in a hot bath and sipping 16-year old Scotch. Since I'm here, pass me a power saw.