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You are here: Home / Consequences

Consequences

by @heymistermix.com|  November 22, 20166:24 pm| 94 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity

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The college my daughter attends is having a mumps outbreak — four confirmed cases.  All the students who contracted mumps were vaccinated.  Apparently, the MMR vaccine does not provide full protection for all kids vaccinated: Sad! If there were no mumps vaccine, hundreds of kids experiencing the symptoms of mumps, which of course would be: Terrible!

The interesting part of this story involves the students who were never vaccinated.  Some of them are survivors of childhood cancer or other diseases that affect their immune systems. The others had parents who believed that their special snowflakes shouldn’t be exposed to those terrible vaccinations.  Both groups of kids are being sent home for 28 days by Student Health, since mumps is especially contagious, and the doctors don’t want to risk having an outbreak spread via students who have no resistance to the virus.

For the kids who had cancer or some other illness that compromised their immune system, this will be yet more evidence that God doesn’t exist.  I hope they will go home to a nurturing family who will help them through yet another shitty consequence of their disease.

For the kids of parents who thought it was a good idea to skip immunizing them, my fondest wish is that they realize that their parents are shitheads.

We live in a terrible world full of awful things.  The best among us try, as much as they can with the many limitations imposed upon them by the human condition, to make the world a tiny bit better. Every single advance they make is thwarted by stupidity and willful ignorance. I am sure that the dumbshits among us – who seem to be outnumbering everyone else – will take this outbreak as another example of why vaccines aren’t worth the effort.  Even so, the best of us will try to make a better vaccine – until they’re unfunded or eliminated by some other means.

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Previous Post: « Florida Woman! (Not BettyC!)
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Reader Interactions

94Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    November 22, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    I hope your daughter’s vaccine holds strong.

  2. 2.

    Major Major Major Major

    November 22, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    We live in a terrible world full of awful things. The best among us try, as much as they can with the many limitations imposed upon them by the human condition, to make the world a tiny bit better. Every single advance they make is thwarted by stupidity and willful ignorance. I am sure that the dumbshits among us – who seem to be outnumbering everyone else – will take this outbreak as another example of why vaccines aren’t worth the effort. Even so, the best of us will try to make a better vaccine – until they’re unfunded or eliminated by some other means.

    I feel like this might be a metaphor for something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  3. 3.

    Schlemazel

    November 22, 2016 at 6:47 pm

    Do not be silly BC! The anti-vax morons will take the fact that some kids that did get vaccinated got mumps anyway as evidence that all vaccines are frauds and you should never torture your children with them because they will just get all autisemd up. just as you have predicted.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    November 22, 2016 at 6:48 pm

    @Schlemazel: BC? It’s MM.

    Adam thought it was Tim in the last thread. What’s going on?

  5. 5.

    Barbara

    November 22, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    Getting mumps as an adult is not a good idea. If you run into one of these non-vaccinating charlatans, I dare you to say the following: “so I guess that instead of having talent or ideas or something else that sets you apart from other people, you have to settle for being the kind of parent who doesn’t mind exposing their kids to a higher risk of death. Well, I guess that does make you kind of distinctive in an evil kind of way.” That would be the truth for most of these people. They don’t give a rat’s ass about vaccines. They just need an easy way stand apart in their own minds.

  6. 6.

    Ruviana

    November 22, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    Between the election and the many many deaths, most recently SEK’s, which I am feeling particularly hard, I’m learning about the terrible world of awful things. Is it wrong of me to wonder if the special snowflakes might be sent home to expose and sicken their parents? Perhaps, but it quiets my mind.

  7. 7.

    Mary

    November 22, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall that my alma mater required proof of vaccinations before I could matriculate.

  8. 8.

    Barbara

    November 22, 2016 at 7:00 pm

    @Ruviana: Don’t be silly. At this point, most of their parents were actually exposed to the disease as children. Like I was (along with all three of my siblings, at the same time — my poor mother). Unlike the vaccination, getting the disease is pretty foolproof in conferring future immunity.

  9. 9.

    dr. luba

    November 22, 2016 at 7:02 pm

    @Ruviana: Their parents were probably vaccinated.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 7:05 pm

    Chris Matthews just asked KellyAnne Conway why Trump let HRC “off the hook”.

  11. 11.

    gene108

    November 22, 2016 at 7:07 pm

    @Mary:

    I think a lot of the mandatory vaccination requirements got dropped as people wanted exemptions due to personal beliefs.

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 7:07 pm

    HE DOES NOT GET TO FUCKING DECIDE YOU ROTTEN ASS BITCH MOUTH.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 7:08 pm

    Somebody needs to beat the fuck out of Chris Matthews. Where is goblue when he is so desperately needed?

  14. 14.

    Major Major Major Major

    November 22, 2016 at 7:09 pm

    @Corner Stone: *appreciative whistle*

    Hoo boy.

  15. 15.

    opiejeanne

    November 22, 2016 at 7:09 pm

    @Ruviana: Their parents are likely to be immune already because THEIR parents had them vaccinated (if it hasn’t worn off; some vaccines need to be renewed after many years), or if older they possibly had the mumps already.

    Which reminds me: there is a mumps vaccination with my name on it at the clinic, just waiting for me. I’m 66 and managed to never catch it. The last blood test they ran showed that I have no antibodies so I need to present my arm to them soon, maybe on Friday.

  16. 16.

    Ruviana

    November 22, 2016 at 7:10 pm

    @Barbara: Great, now I’m all verklempt again. I was one of those kids who got mumps through exposure to other kids with mumps. I’m old.

  17. 17.

    Percysowner

    November 22, 2016 at 7:10 pm

    @Mary: I’m old enough that I got the actual diseases, because there was not vaccine. When I went off to college, they made me get boosters for the DPT before I could get in. I think that is a great requirement. If the special snowflakes aren’t getting vaccinated for medical reasons, then they shouldn’t get the perks of higher education.

  18. 18.

    Percysowner

    November 22, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    @opiejeanne: They can test for mumps antibodies? Because I had both measles and chickenpox, but not mumps, AFAIK. I’ll have to ask my doctor the next visit. I don’t want mumps.

  19. 19.

    Ruviana

    November 22, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    @opiejeanne: Good luck! Given that I’m right behind you in age, though I had the mumps, mayhap I should check my own self too.

  20. 20.

    opiejeanne

    November 22, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    @Mary: I went to a Cal State; I had to show proof of vaccination before I could enroll as a Freshman, but that was back in the Dark Ages (1968).

    We did have an outbreak of measles in the dorms, and I caught it from the man I’m married to.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    November 22, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I know! How often do you get to cheer for a 12 word ALL-CAPS comment?

    P.S. that comment needs at least one more “FUCKING” somewhere.

  22. 22.

    bemused

    November 22, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    The pea brain that has a pretty high opinion of himself. He drives me crazy.

  23. 23.

    gene108

    November 22, 2016 at 7:14 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    What I do not get about Chris Matthews or George Stephanapolous is why they are such assholes to Democrats.

    I cannot recall any Republican, who served Republican Congressmen or in a Republican Administration, not being all on board with current Republican talking points of the day.

    Some go off on special topics that irk them, like Pat Buchanan being a bit critical of Iraq War 2 or Reagan’s OMB guy being against reckless tax cut and blowing up the debt, but they never jettison the rest of the Republican agenda.

    Even when Democrats can get their own on TV, they are rarely loyal Democrats.

  24. 24.

    Elizabelle

    November 22, 2016 at 7:14 pm

    I got mumps within the same year JFK was shot. @Corner Stone: laughing, appreciatively.

  25. 25.

    opiejeanne

    November 22, 2016 at 7:16 pm

    @Percysowner: Yup, I asked them to check for the antibodies. I caught everything except for mumps, even though I was exposed to it several times when I was a little kid. Chickenpox, measles/rubella/rubiola, etc.
    They vaccinated us for everything that they could back then, but my kids were vaccinated for more than twice as many things as we were.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    November 22, 2016 at 7:17 pm

    @gene108: Bribery works.
    just sayin

  27. 27.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    November 22, 2016 at 7:18 pm

    @Percysowner: Getting mumps and getting precollege booster: ditto and ditto. I still remember how miserably sick my 6-year-old self was, almost 50 years later. It’s worse for adults. As for the booster, I went to a tiny all-resident private college that could afford to tell non-vaxxers to buzz off, and still does.

  28. 28.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 7:18 pm

    Where is rikyrah when I so desperately need someone to comment on Yamiche Alcindor?

  29. 29.

    Citizen_X

    November 22, 2016 at 7:21 pm

    @Corner Stone: Apparently, nobody in America has any clue how America works anymore.

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 7:21 pm

    Chris Hayes, a lonely nation turns it’s eyes to you. woo woo woo.

  31. 31.

    Major Major Major Major

    November 22, 2016 at 7:22 pm

    Here’s a fun article. http://www.vox.com/world/2016/11/22/13702842/donald-trump-working-class-whites

    If you analyze Trumpism like support for a far-right European party, what you tease out is that it all comes down to having a less-than-college-level education (plus being white). Once you control for this, economic factors lose all predictive value.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    November 22, 2016 at 7:22 pm

    Mumps is one of those diseases that can provide a Darwin Award to the lucky male who catches it — one common side effect is sterility. It’s thought that a late teenage case of the mumps is why George Washington never had children with Martha Custis, who was a widow with two children when they married.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    November 22, 2016 at 7:22 pm

    @Mary:

    I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall that my alma mater required proof of vaccinations before I could matriculate.

    I know for damn sure my alma mater did; I remember having to get a measles booster. Of course that was A) 25 years ago, before the anti-vax hysteria kicked up B) a private school, which didn’t have to respond to stupid political pressure and C) a tech school, which should make the people going there a bit more receptive to things like modern medicine.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    November 22, 2016 at 7:25 pm

    Anyone here in just the right age group to have been caught up in the late 1980s college measles epidemic? IIRC, there was an ineffective batch of measles vaccine administered in the early 1970s that meant people my age were not immune after all.

  35. 35.

    amygdala

    November 22, 2016 at 7:34 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I missed the epidemic, but was in the cohort that got the crappy measles vaccine. It worked for me, though–I, little Miss Perfect Attendance, was out of school for a week with a temp of 102.

    When I started med school, student health saw when I’d gotten my measles vaccine and tried to get me to take it again. I said not without antibody testing, since I’d gotten so damn sick. My titers were fine, and I didn’t have to get the measles vaccine again.

    To address some of the OP, part of the point of herd immunity is that if enough people in a population are vaccinated, folks who can’t safely get vaccinated due to immunosuppression, like a kid getting treated for leukemia, are protected.

    I have no patience for anti-vaxxers. None.

  36. 36.

    Eric S.

    November 22, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    @Percysowner: this makes me think I need to check with parental units. I had chickenpox. I know I was vaccinated for measles. I don’t know about mumps.

  37. 37.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 22, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    @gene108: News TV and political TV have an audience consisting mostly of old people. Old people, today, are overwhelmingly Republican (this was not always the case; it’s a cohort thing).

    They know their market, which is generational. Consider the way right wingers keep trying to create their own version of The Daily Show or Colbert, and failing (I guess the baby Nazis do have their own thing on Adult Swim, though).

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 22, 2016 at 7:40 pm

    @amygdala: I got pretty sick as a result of a half-dose of DPT vaccine when I was a teenager, so I haven’t gotten it since then. So I’m an unwilling free rider on herd immunity there, and the pertussis outbreaks that happen because of stupid antivaxxers make me very nervous. My child doesn’t have this problem, at least.

  39. 39.

    Eric S.

    November 22, 2016 at 7:42 pm

    @Roger Moore: The University of Iowa required proof of a current measles vaccination my freshman year, 1989-90. I was current but a friend who was deathly afraid of needles was not. It took a group of us to walk him down to the clinic and talk him into the chair for the shot. As stated above, I don’t remember if I had to prove I was current on a mumps vaccine.

  40. 40.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    November 22, 2016 at 7:44 pm

    @opiejeanne: Hey, I noticed your comments over at my Flickr page; yes, that’s the White House(I offered a more detailed reply over there).

  41. 41.

    SFBayAreaGal

    November 22, 2016 at 7:46 pm

    I remember before I could enter high school, my vaccinations had to be up to date. If they weren’t I would not be allowed to attend. This was in the early 70s.

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    November 22, 2016 at 7:47 pm

    My husband says I need to take a break from politics because, (paraphrasing), “I’ve heard you wish grisly death on so many people lately. I don’t doubt that they deserve it — I hope they all die in a fire too! But I’m afraid it might harm you to carry so much hatred in your heart.” I think he has a point.

  43. 43.

    Bailey

    November 22, 2016 at 7:48 pm

    Current college freshmen or perhaps sophomores would theoretically be the first generation of college students to not be vaccinated in the hysteria of the Andrew Wakefield article. Prior to that, how would so many kids have made it through the school system without being vaccinated? Were there really more dissenters to vaccination in that era (it was such a given when I was growing up and public school certainly demanded it) or were that many kids in college attending private schools that maybe weren’t as stringent about vaccines?

  44. 44.

    SFBayAreaGal

    November 22, 2016 at 7:48 pm

    Of course, when I was in basic training in the U.S. Army, all your vaccinations were updated whether you liked it or not.

  45. 45.

    gene108

    November 22, 2016 at 7:49 pm

    I wonder how anti-vaxxers believe smallpox was eradicated? The last cases occurred in the 1970’s, which for the under 35 crowd is ancient history, but still within the lifetime of most people.

    Vaccines ended a deadly disease.

    But hatred of vaccines is not rational, so you cannot reason with them.

  46. 46.

    mkro

    November 22, 2016 at 7:51 pm

    @Corner Stone: Because apparently US Presidents now get to decide who to prosecute and who gets “let of the hook” by our dictator-elect.

  47. 47.

    mkro

    November 22, 2016 at 7:51 pm

    Trump is already an anti-vaxxer http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-vaccines-autism-2016-11

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    November 22, 2016 at 7:53 pm

    Two of the colleges/universities currently experiencing a mumps outbreak are in Maine. We’ve also had whooping cough outbreaks. Our stupid state has a religious exemption for vaccinations which only enables the stupid.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 7:54 pm

    All of Tweety’s counter arguments to Sam Stein were Presidential pardons. None of them were a president deciding who should be prosecuted. Only who was accepting a measure of guilt to move beyond any criminal prosecution.
    Tweety has pushed the idea of a Trump pardon for HRC at least 3 times in this one show. He is propagating the idea she is guilty and needs a ripcord to pull and get away with it.

  50. 50.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 7:55 pm

    I wish a motherfucker would prosecute HRC. Put her on trial.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    November 22, 2016 at 7:56 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They know their market, which is generational. Consider the way right wingers keep trying to create their own version of The Daily Show or Colbert, and failing (I guess the baby Nazis do have their own thing on Adult Swim, though).

    What Adult Film shows cater to Nazis? Been a while since I watched Adult Swim shows.

  52. 52.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    November 22, 2016 at 7:57 pm

    @opiejeanne:

    I caught it from the man I’m married to.

    He can always say, “Don’t say I didn’t give you anything”.

  53. 53.

    Major Major Major Major

    November 22, 2016 at 8:02 pm

    @Corner Stone: @Corner Stone: I could see Trump pardoning her. Then she would say fuck you, bring on a grand jury. Can you turn down a pardon?

  54. 54.

    Botsplainer

    November 22, 2016 at 8:05 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Attitudes seem to be shifting.

    One lovely lawyer in my office is Bosnian Muslim – she and her husband (a physician) lived in Sarajevo but had lucked out and happened to be in the US visiting extended family when everything went to shit. She told me today that she is resigned to what she thinks is coming and will hunker down here in the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Louisville for numbers and safety. I said “I got guns, have lived a full life, traveled the world and eaten really awesome steaks – plus, my kids are raised. Everything goes to shit, I got a list of soft targets who won’t see it coming”.

    As she is finishing talking to me, another lawyer stomps in, pissed over alt right assholes and talking about how he’s ready to put on a hurt. He then lamented that labor no longer puts on strikes where scabs get beaten, anti-strike injunctions get ignored and manager houses get firebombed. I brought up that non violence and passive resistance have failed – gains aren’t resilient without fear, and pointed that it took violence to solidify the gains of entities like the ANC in South Africa, the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Chinese Communist Party, and the occupation of Germany and Japan.

    I actually achieved agreement from several.

    Some heads are about to get broke….

  55. 55.

    Major Major Major Major

    November 22, 2016 at 8:13 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    it took violence to solidify the gains of entities like the ANC in South Africa, the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Chinese Communist Party, and the occupation of Germany and Japan.

    That’s, uh, a bit of a mixed list.

  56. 56.

    Jay Noble

    November 22, 2016 at 8:13 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I got caught up in that. I somehow had measles twice as a kid. The second time in 7th grade (@73) I got used as a visual aid because so many nurses had never actually seen a case. When the 80’s epidemic hit, you had to have the medical records to prove you’d had it or the vaccine or you had to get stabbed. I got stabbed.

    I got my mumps shot before I my year as an Exchange student in Finland. Not required but was highly recommended. The nurse felt bad stabbing me because they had been out and had me go get the vaccine from another dr.’s office. Kinda like supplying your own bullets to a firing squad. :-)

  57. 57.

    Felanius Kootea

    November 22, 2016 at 8:13 pm

    @gene108: A colleague put it to me this way today: “I know the Democrats are on my side but they never fight tooth and nail for anything, the way the Republicans do even when they know they are wrong. They’re such wimps and it drives me crazy.”

    That, according to him, is why people feel free to dump on Dems and hesitate to do the same with Republicans.

  58. 58.

    Schlemazel

    November 22, 2016 at 8:15 pm

    @Baud:
    I was thinking of the last thread. They are just coming in too fast! PULL UP PULL UP!!!

  59. 59.

    JPL

    November 22, 2016 at 8:17 pm

    @Corner Stone: I feel the same way. I wish Hillary would realize a statement saying that Donald’s words are meaningless, since I did nothing wrong. Signing it fk you would be icing on the cake though.

  60. 60.

    Major Major Major Major

    November 22, 2016 at 8:20 pm

    @Schlemazel: the posts are coming from inside the blog

  61. 61.

    Baud

    November 22, 2016 at 8:21 pm

    @Felanius Kootea:

    A colleague put it to me this way today: “I know the Democrats are on my side but they never fight tooth and nail for anything, the way the Republicans do even when they know they are wrong. They’re such wimps and it drives me crazy.”

    Guy should look in the mirror.

  62. 62.

    Poopyman

    November 22, 2016 at 8:22 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Some heads are about to get broke….

    Both sides!

    @Betty Cracker:

    But I’m afraid it might harm you to carry so much hatred in your heart.” I think he has a point.

    Yes he does. But frankly, it’s the Republicans that have taught me to hate so well. We’ll see how well all that teaching turned out.

  63. 63.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 8:22 pm

    @JPL: She can’t really just let this keep going, can she? I mean, precedent, decorum, peaceful transfer, BS and etc. This is like giving her a golden shower every day for the next four years.
    I am sure she’s in a lot of pain, but can’t this be a rallying cry? She grabs KellyAnne Conway by the throat and tosses her into a fucking volcano.

  64. 64.

    HS

    November 22, 2016 at 8:22 pm

    How do we stop Trump from breaking liberal norms?

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    November 22, 2016 at 8:27 pm

    Say what you will, but I fucking hate looking at Trump and his stupid fucking suit jackets being 10inches too long. His ties being tied 3 inches too long. His fat, disgusting body not even being hidden by a decent fucking tailor. What kind of lifelong rich person looks like such a fucking bum? I would not buy auto insurance from this piece of shit.

  66. 66.

    Kathleen

    November 22, 2016 at 8:28 pm

    My apologies for forgetting who requested confirmation of this in another thread, but here is a link to a piece about an “edited” Richard Cohen column part of which was deleted in publication:

    http://oliverwillis.com/report-washington-post-edits-trump-criticism-column/

    ETA: Quote in Question: The column originally quoted Trump speaking about his then-13-year-old daughter Ivanka: “Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?”

  67. 67.

    BBA

    November 22, 2016 at 8:28 pm

    @Corner Stone: He kinda does. Or at least he can fire the people who do and replace them with more compliant toadies, like Nixon and Bush did. It’s OK if you’re a Republican.

  68. 68.

    hovercraft

    November 22, 2016 at 8:29 pm

    Re-posting from previous thread.
    It’s depressing that it takes Shepard Smith to take a stand against the Shitgibbon freezing out the media. He’s better than almost everyone on msnbc except the prime time 3.
    LINK

    Fox News’ Shepard Smith said Tuesday that he would not play a YouTube video of President-elect Donald Trump laying out his agenda on air, saying Fox News had a policy against showing such statements where journalists hadn’t been been allowed to ask questions.

    Smith first focused on a “Morning Joe” report that Trump would not seek to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. That was a reversal from his pledge during the presidential campaign to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton. Then, Smith continued, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted that Trump said in a meeting with the paper that he would not take the possibility of an investigation “off the table.”

    “Anything you want to happen to Secretary Clinton on any of those matters is now available to you, almost officially, almost from the now President-elect’s mouth. But we have all of them. So whichever one you like, you may have it,” he said.

    The same applies to climate change, he continued: Trump had previously said that it was a hoax. But Haberman tweeted that Trump told Times brass “there is some connectivity” between human beings and climate change.

    “Which could make it not a hoax, so if that’s what you prefer, that is also now available to you,” he said……

    “All of those positions are now available,” Smith said.

    Trump’s YouTube video, Smith implied, followed a similar pattern: It made no mention of marquee campaign trail promises like building a wall on the Mexican border or repealing Obamacare, but it did highlight more middle-of-the-road proposals like “creating jobs and cutting regulation.”

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    November 22, 2016 at 8:32 pm

    @amygdala:

    To address some of the OP, part of the point of herd immunity is that if enough people in a population are vaccinated, folks who can’t safely get vaccinated due to immunosuppression, like a kid getting treated for leukemia, are protected.

    Also, too, you need a safety margin built into your immunization rates. You might theoretically get herd immunity if, say, 80% of the population is immune, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe to let 20% of the population skip their shots. The immunization is never 100% effective even when you don’t get a bad batch of vaccine, so the rate of people getting their shots should be as high as possible to provide that safety margin.

  70. 70.

    Major Major Major Major

    November 22, 2016 at 8:35 pm

    @Corner Stone: yeah his clothes really are disgusting. I saw an interview with a tailor explaining exactly what’s going wrong, why, and how everybody involved should be fired.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 22, 2016 at 8:40 pm

    @gene108: I don’t care to find out if it’s still on, but this is it.

  72. 72.

    Quinerly

    November 22, 2016 at 8:41 pm

    @Kathleen:
    I have been carrying on about this all day. No one is covering it. Has Cohen said anything?

  73. 73.

    J R in WV

    November 22, 2016 at 8:50 pm

    @opiejeanne:

    You must be about my age, I was a frosh in 1968, but in 1969 my lottery number was 27. Or 72, didn’t matter, they took up to about 200… Into the military draft.

    So my college career was disrupted, I graduated in 1984. But I did a lot better job as an adult than I was doing as a youngster.

  74. 74.

    Ksmiami

    November 22, 2016 at 8:53 pm

    I’m cool with dems getting their fight and their hate on. Bullies only respond to fear because they are prissy pants cowards

  75. 75.

    J R in WV

    November 22, 2016 at 8:55 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Tetanus has no “herd immunity”! it’s around you all the time, a small nick or cut can expose you to an agonizingly fatal illness. Talk to a Dr about your immune status, and get a tetanus vaccination right away.

    Really! I live on a farm, and get them whenever I get a bad cut, every few years. I think you can get a shot just for tetanus, I recall getting an alternate dose in an ER years ago after a kayaking accident involving barbed wire in the river.

  76. 76.

    Kathleen

    November 22, 2016 at 8:56 pm

    @Quinerly: Not that I’m aware of. That’s the only link I really looked at because I trust Olive Wills (who works for Media Matters). I had never heard that quotation before. That is just vile. And he got elected. Sigh.

    ETA Found link on Twitter, which I believe you said you don’t use.

  77. 77.

    Quinerly

    November 22, 2016 at 9:04 pm

    @Kathleen:
    I first saw the story on Buzzfeed this AM and several other outlets picked it up. Hiatt’s statement was a non answer. I think Malkin went on a Twitter rampage pushing back. When you compare it to Cohen’s actual printed piece, it’s odd. If he did have that statement in there and it got scrubbed, he dropped it in an odd place in his story. The way I read it, it seemed like a little tidbit he had been sitting on for awhile. Obviously if Trump said it to someone that Cohen knows, it was said 20 years ago. I’m not on Twitter and I have wondered if Cohen has said anything since the Buzzfeed story broke.

  78. 78.

    Kathleen

    November 22, 2016 at 9:08 pm

    @Quinerly: I’m checking Twitter to see if I can find any tweets from Cohen about it.

  79. 79.

    Miss Bianca

    November 22, 2016 at 9:17 pm

    @Barbara: You don’t even have to be an adult for mumps to have terrible consequences. My ex-husband was rendered sterile – completely sterile – by contracting mumps when he was ten years old. It always struck me as terribly ironic that I spent my entire twenties terrified of getting pregnant, and then my entire thirties wanting to get pregnant, and being unable to. I wonder how many of these anti-vaxxers realize that they are running the risk of their kids never being able to have kids?

    Perhaps it’s wrong of me, but I’ve always harbored something of a grudge against my friends who are parents who are anti-vax (mercifully few of them, but these were always rather smug. One of them even tried to tell me that it was all right for ME to advocate for vaccines, because I didn’t have kids and would never have to face those choices. I am afraid we will both remember the bleeding strip I tore off her for that one.).

  80. 80.

    Quinerly

    November 22, 2016 at 9:17 pm

    @Kathleen:
    Cohen doesn’t seem to be on Twitter. It’s just a strange story…how it has come out. Someone had to give the info about the changes to Buzzfeed and it looks that Cohen has been quiet all day. I first saw it side by side with his published piece on that memorandum site, which is quite good. They still have it up with the tab indicating where else it is mentioned, including Political Wire site.

  81. 81.

    Older

    November 22, 2016 at 9:18 pm

    I’m really a lot older. When I was young there were vaccines for only a few diseases, most notably for smallpox. We went to “parties” when the first child in the neighborhood contracted one of the kiddie diseases, because it was the next thing to a death sentence if you didn’t get them while you were still tiny. When my first couple of kids were toddlers, there were a few more vaccines, so called, but “measles parties” and “mumps parties” were still being held. The kids got every vaccine as soon s it became available, and went to all the parties. Then when I had several kids, the polio vaccines became available. At one point, there were three different kinds. My kids got them all.

    When smallpox was declared (prematurely) “under control” I panicked, because I had two who had not yet gotten the vaccine. We were told that the vaccination would no longer be allowed because of the danger of developing the disease. But this was a lie. The vaccine was made from a different disease, cowpox, also known as vaccinia. (Hence the name.) Vaccinia was a very mild disease, and no threat to anyone’s health. Often people didn’t even know they had had it.

    But for some reason, the vaccination was no longer allowed. I was not so trusting. I read a contemporary story of a smallpox outbreak to my family, so they would understand why I was so insistent that we find a way to gt the little boys vaccinated.

    It was terrible. The minute the disease was confirmed in a home, the property was posted; no one could go in or out. If a family member was at work or at school, he or she could not come home, and would have to find somewhere else to stay. No one could go out for any reason. Food from the store had to be thrown into the yard by the purchaser. This quarantine lasted until the sick person or persons had either died or recovered — several weeks to a month or even more.

    I managed to get the vaccinations, finally, because we were planning a trip overseas, to Northern Africa as it happened, and smallpox was not “controlled” there. It turned out a few years later that there were some other places where it was not controlled, and also that it could in fact be transmitted by artifacts (which had been said to be impossible). A tourist brought home a book from one of the places where smallpox was not controlled, and just like that! it was reintroduced into a small European country. There followed the exciting event of an entire country being vaccinated. Essentially, an international effort sent thousands of volunteer nurses and medical technicians with vaccination guns (new at the time) and a human chain crossed the entire country and vaccinated every person they came to. Wonderful, and after that amazing effort, the survival of smallpox was taken more seriously.

    For many years now there have been only two live specimens of smallpox in two widely separated viral “zoos”. There is a current controversy as to whether the samples should be destroyed. Should there be a reservoir of live virus anywhere, there might be another outbreak, and we might need to be very quick to produce a vaccine to prevent a disastrous epidemic. But the technology now exists to build it from scratch, to use an unfortunately apt metaphor. But we need to be prepared lest some ill-advised terrorist should make use of that technology to catch us off balance. And so on.

    Just remember, if the vaccine ever becomes available again, it will be because disaster is right there. Get the vaccination.

  82. 82.

    Miss Bianca

    November 22, 2016 at 9:24 pm

    @Kathleen: short answer: yes. Yes, it is.

  83. 83.

    Catherine D.

    November 22, 2016 at 9:29 pm

    @Older:

    Smallpox from artifacts? See blankets, American Indians.

  84. 84.

    Quinerly

    November 22, 2016 at 9:40 pm

    @efgoldman:
    Well, as we were discussing in the thread, he seems to know someone who participated in a conversation with Trump 20 years ago where Trump wanted to know if it was wrong to be more sexually attracted to his own 13 year old daughter, than to his wife. Normally, can’t stand Cohen but it does seem like that little tidbit got edited out of Cohen’s column today. I’ve been wondering all day if he’s talking. Twitter seemed like a place to look.

  85. 85.

    DivF

    November 22, 2016 at 9:52 pm

    @Kathleen: Trump is as creepy as Noah Cross in Chinatown, but without the brains.

  86. 86.

    Quinerly

    November 22, 2016 at 9:57 pm

    @efgoldman:
    It came out in other forms…*yes”…but not as blunt as Cohen’s piece was written originally, if the Buzzfeed article is to be believed. A couple of us had wondered if Cohen had commented, etc… Hence, checking Twitter. Personally, I don’t care how old he is. Normally, don’t read him. His piece today is newsworthy…especially if it is essentially being censored. Yes, Trump has “joked” about dating his daughter…but I haven’t read anything as blunt as him saying to someone that he was sexually attracted to her when she was 13 and questioning whether that was wrong….that he preferred his daughter over his wife at the time.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    November 22, 2016 at 10:35 pm

    @Older:

    I was born in 1969 and I have a scar from the smallpox vaccine — when did they stop vaccinating?

  88. 88.

    J R in WV

    November 22, 2016 at 10:40 pm

    @Older:

    I’m old enough to remember the first Salk polio shots, in your arm. I also got a smallpox vaccination, still have the scar on my arm. Scary, though.

    We kept a dairy cow for some years. Milked her every day. One day, she had these painful looking spots on her nose! I called a vet to talk about it (hard to take a 1500 lb animal to the vet at the drop of a hat!) and they said it sounded like cowpox, a harmless bug that would go away soon.

    And don’t stop milking her, just throw the milk away until the spots go away. Then I got a itchy sore cowpox spot on my arm. Which means that the smallpox vaccination had worn off over the 20 or 30 odd years since I had it.

    So we better be hoping hard that no one releases smallpox into the world again. And polio eradication, that’s being fought tooth-and-nail by fundamentalists in rural Africa, and the ‘stans of southern Asia. People are told it’s a plot by the west to sterilize everyone, and win the jihad by stopping babies! How evil is that?

  89. 89.

    amygdala

    November 22, 2016 at 10:47 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Routine vaccination of infants stopped in the US in the early 70s.

    The smallpox vaccine had a lot of side effects, but the eradication of the disease is truly one of humanity’s great achievements. Knock wood, we’re getting close with polio, too, despite some recent setbacks.

  90. 90.

    sloan

    November 22, 2016 at 10:56 pm

    I don’t get the anti-vax people. I used to think they were just dumb since they listened to Jim Carey and Jenny McCarthy for medical advice.

    But we just moved to a fairly well off part of Seattle full of Microsoft and Boeing engineers etc. And in the most expensive preschool we toured we were told point blank by the tour guide that many of the kids were not vaccinated. And this is like a $25000 a year PRESCHOOL.

    What the hell?

    These are highly educated people. Who refuse to protect their children. I do not understand this.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    November 22, 2016 at 11:26 pm

    @sloan:

    I honestly think it’s become a weird class thing for upper-class people. Their precious little snowflakes will never come into contact with the unwashed masses, so they have no need of vaccinations. Those are for the plebes.

    Then they take their precious little measles-infected snowflake to Disneyland and manage to infect close to 100 people because it turns out that viruses don’t give a shit about your class identity.

  92. 92.

    John Weiss

    November 22, 2016 at 11:56 pm

    If I hear (or read) the term ‘special snowflake’ again I might act in an anti-social manner.

    Gods. What bullshit.

    jw

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 23, 2016 at 8:27 am

    @J R in WV: I know! The problem is, the doctors I’ve talked to about it don’t want to risk the possibility of the tetanus shot itself giving me a fatal reaction.

  94. 94.

    JAFD

    November 23, 2016 at 9:51 am

    Am old enuf to have gotten mumps and measels and German measels as kid, but was around for first mass polio vaccinations – about 6 or 7, iirc. Can remember sensing my parents’ ‘weight off shoulders’ feeling as we left the school gym…

    Skipped flu shot a couple years back (unemployed, didn’t have the $27 drugstore charged to spare). Spent Thanksgiving week in intensive care with pneumonia. Never again.

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