![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
clickies
Today we ALMOST went to the children's museum! we did actually meet ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiggrrl and her sweet little sproglet, but we got horribly lost before that and the wheelchair for some reason didn't charge and AUGH. but we did get to have snacks together. and we're going to attempt the park next week (here's hoping.)
clickies:
All of these I think I've seen more than once on my flist; i just forget who.
Jennifer Mather, squid psychologist.
interview with terry pratchett about his alzheimer's and his best work.
This one is especially important to me because it's a HUGE pet peeve of mine: the founder of the antivaccine movement faked the autism/vaccine link. I know there are a few legitimate reasons for not vaccinating or for delaying vaccinating (egg allergies, bad reactions to previous vaccines, kids with immune system problems) but the majority of kids get more benefit than not. (not to mention that bloody woman (Jenny McCarthy i think her name is) that was on Oprah or whatever show it was claiming that she cured her son and blahblah about vaccines are so bad and they caused the kid's autism? she's a former playboy bunny. she does not have an ounce of medical training. and yet people are willing to take her word on this.)
(sorry. i just really hate the whole thing. hatehatehate. it's like giving children raw milk instead of pasturized. there's a reason kids used to die in the middle ages.)
tiggrrl and her sweet little sproglet, but we got horribly lost before that and the wheelchair for some reason didn't charge and AUGH. but we did get to have snacks together. and we're going to attempt the park next week (here's hoping.)clickies:
All of these I think I've seen more than once on my flist; i just forget who.
Jennifer Mather, squid psychologist.
interview with terry pratchett about his alzheimer's and his best work.
This one is especially important to me because it's a HUGE pet peeve of mine: the founder of the antivaccine movement faked the autism/vaccine link. I know there are a few legitimate reasons for not vaccinating or for delaying vaccinating (egg allergies, bad reactions to previous vaccines, kids with immune system problems) but the majority of kids get more benefit than not. (not to mention that bloody woman (Jenny McCarthy i think her name is) that was on Oprah or whatever show it was claiming that she cured her son and blahblah about vaccines are so bad and they caused the kid's autism? she's a former playboy bunny. she does not have an ounce of medical training. and yet people are willing to take her word on this.)
(sorry. i just really hate the whole thing. hatehatehate. it's like giving children raw milk instead of pasturized. there's a reason kids used to die in the middle ages.)
no subject
WOULD YOU REALLY? REALLY?
Ugh. Wtf. Middle ages, indeed.
no subject
no subject
GARRRR I hate some of the vaccine stuff, too. Just don't get me started on Jenny McCarthy.
no subject
All I can think of now when I hear people go on about vaccines and how 'bad' they are (a bunch of crap- I am sure they were right in line for their polio and MMR vaccines) is that episode of House where House went on in that cheery tone about baby coffin colors LOL :)
no subject
no subject
I broke my leg after eating fish. Logically, fish eating causes leg breakage.
Logic is not people's strong suit, and I wish they would stop appealing to it like it was some kind of voodoo god of selective coincidence.
no subject
(Uh, no, but twirling on ceramic tiles...)
no subject
Someone implies that there may be a link between the thiomersal mercury compound vaccine preservative and autism. A lot of alarmism ensues, especially since mercury is easily recognised as being DANGEROUS. So a thousand soccer moms get all up in arms and start sprouting pseudomedical crap, as well as assuming it was the actual vaccine and not the ingredient used to preserve some vaccines which was suspected of causing autism. I guess that was too tenuous for them. So a thousand doctors get all up in arms and start sprouting very sarcastic medical crap.
When certain medical bodies decided to remove the thiomersal preservative from vaccines, a lot of groups decided this was an admission of guilt and that this ingredient CAUSED AUTISM. Never that the medical establishment was simply being precautionary and removing a potentially otherwise toxic ingredient. Autism diagnosis rates did not fall.
It all causes this huge backlash and people start saying very stupid things. I just wish I could innoculate the entire debate with anti-stupid, because after a while both sides start to sound equally shrill and petty. Nobody looks at it scientifically and the research pretty much gets buried under a snowstorm of conflicting ideology.
One teeny correction: By then, though, it was too late, and the modern antivaccination movement was born. Not so. People have been anti-vaccination since Salk stabbed his first volunteer. It's just one of those things.
no subject
no subject
it's like giving children raw milk instead of pasturized. there's a reason kids used to die in the middle ages.
*applauds* *STANDING OVATION, EVEN* That really irritates me too. UGH. People are so stupid sometimes.
no subject
no subject
I still got Mys vaccinated. My rules were that she had to be completely healthy at the time. She ate nothing but organic, vegetarian foods leading up to her vaccinations. We dosed her with anti-inflammatories that she had taken in the past and homeopathics for her immune system. She was breast-fed. She had ONE vaccination at a time, because I didn't want her to miss out on her other vaccines because she had one bad reaction. The Dr. thought this was brilliant even though he had to special-order everything, given our family history he thought it was worth it, and started suggesting it to nervous parents. We got to do this because we live in Canada and even though our gross income was $5/mo. LESS than our rent, we had full coverage for the vaccines, any way we wanted them.
Oh, and as a note, at the time that Mys had her first vaccine there were SEVEN pediatric Diptheria cases in the hospital across the street. Seven. It is the world's most resurgent disease with a 5%-10% mortality rate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diptheria
(I will note that Mys made her own choice not to get the Gardasil vaccine. We looked at tests that are showing that it has questionable effectiveness and she felt that she ran the chance of it wearing off before she was sexually active. She plans to get whatever variant exists at the same time she takes care of b/c, when she's ready.)
no subject
Some people are sensitive to certain things. I don't believe autism is caused by vaccinations, although I won't outright refute the possibility-- I believe it'd be far more likely for a kid to contract measles from a measles vaccine than autism.
I think it might be like the apparent link between hallucinogenic drugs and schizophrenia. LSD can 'cause' a person to become schizophrenic, but only if they had an existing predisposition, because of the chemical reactions in the dopaminanergic things or whatever... And who's to say they wouldn't have gotten it anyway, just later on? A possibility, however slim, of some 'triggering' effect.
If I have kids, I of course plan on getting them vaccinated. If they're my own biological kids, not adopted ones, I'll just let their doctor know of my own reaction, and see what he says.
no subject
My aunt had that too. I didn't get the DTP, I got them all separately*. The doctor looked at my mum funny when she insisted that I didn't have the vaccine until I was older, since I was born premature and was still all tiny and red and uggers. I don't blame her for not wanting me to have it at that time.
The ugly part of the debate is that anyone who asks for caution in vaccinating (like my parents) gets treated like a raging hippy. Well, my parents were and are raging hippies, but what they aren't are idiots. It's an emotive debate that often boils down to ideology versus ideology, not rationality and epidemiology. Take the measles vaccine. It's a very virulent disease, so to provide coverage and quell an epidemic I believe that around 97% of people have to be vaccinated.
*I've had pertussis. I got it at fifteen along with five or so people from my school. Either the vaccine wears off or it doesn't provide full coverage. Again, it's an epidemiology thing.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
The anti-vax people drive me crazy. I spent a few years on a health discussion board. You are right, it's all ideology. There is a reason why the # of measles cases is rising in the US.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I may have an autoimmune disorder of odd causes (i.e. no research into why), and Asperger's as a extremely unlikely of my mother using extremely large amounts of Mylanta while I was in the womb, but I still would rather have all that than be handicapped because of polio, or dead because of smallpox.
Did you get the link I sent you?
no subject
no subject
GAH.
I join you in your hatred.