jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

Sounds to me like they may or may not have had lyme disease, probably test negative for it, but still are lethargic and think they're going to cure that by taking antibiotics for the long term.

it sounds like there are people who don't really have Lyme's Disease and test negative for it, but they have chronic fatigue and so they diagnose themselves with "Chronic Lymes" which isn't actually a thing that exists?

― the wheelie king (wk), Tuesday, 6 September 2011 19:12 (25 minutes ago)

Yes, this is curious. CFS almost always begins with some sort of viral/medical episode (which is part why CFS patients are so angered by claims it's "all in their head"), so it seems more likely that they had lyme's disease at some point and now have CFS as a result. Which is why the antibiotic treatments are useless.

Sounds pretty stupid as a trend, but not as malevolent as the whole anti-vaccination thing.

Unless there start to be enough of them that bacteria with broad-spectrum antibiotic resistance start to flourish and spread to the rest of the population

there's a lot to talk about in terms of chronic disease that has a greater or lesser psych component manifesting as physically felt symptoms - I think going w/"so it's in their heads!" is unproductive really, and

So it's about being able to claim you have a disease vs. you're really just lazy/depressed.

well - "depressed" close, "lazy" no I don't think. I think the deal is actually that people are different and there really isn't one model for how to be a healthy person, but society & its expectations are set up on around the concept of a healthy baseline for wakefulness/productivity/energy that doesn't really take into account different individual levels of tolerance for activity/stimulation/pain etc. my own I'm-not-an-MD take on a number of these syndromes is that in some cases people are expressing a need to put a name to the vague feeling that there's something wrong with them - that if they don't live up to an idea of "normal" that they have, then the way they feel every day needs to be pathologized for them to feel "ok," in a weird sense.

^^ very otm, the normal you have at different ages varies, too, and your needs can change accordingly.

I have a family member who has exhibited some of the signs that typify something autoimmune like lupus, but it turns out that for some conditions like that, you have to manifest a certain number of symptoms over years to really qualify for a specific diagnosis. Until then, it's just, "Hey, I guess you have some weird symptoms, maybe we'll figure out what's up with that."

if they don't live up to an idea of "normal" that they have, then the way they feel every day needs to be pathologized for them to feel "ok," in a weird sense.

totally

u&k
jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

my own I'm-not-an-MD take on a number of these syndromes is that in some cases people are expressing a need to put a name to the vague feeling that there's something wrong with them - that if they don't live up to an idea of "normal" that they have, then the way they feel every day needs to be pathologized for them to feel "ok," in a weird sense.

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, September 6, 2011 7:55 PM (1 hour ago)

to put it another way: let's say chronic fatigue isn't a "disease" per se but instead just a permanent downgrade of one's health/ energy level caused by an immune system response to some viral infection/trauma at some point (usually epstein-barr, but I know a person who got it after open-heart surgery). Why not just treat it as a disability? Why does it have to be either mental illness or a physiological disease?

I think you just described a cause, though?

I'm gonna tread lightly here, but since no one has actually elaborated the etiology if CFS to a degree that is widely accepted, it still gets called a "syndrome". This says nothing about the severity/disability of the condition, but the actual cause of CFS is an open question iirc

"of"

this is why it's generally regarded as a diagnosis of exclusion fwiw

EBV as etiological agent has been more or less ruled out iirc

But hey, I'm not saying that certain types of feeling like shit are OK and other types of feeling like shit are less OK. If you feel like shit, that is a problem. But it does not mean you have chronic lyme. You can acknowledge and legitimize the significance of feeling like shit without acknowledging and legitimizing theories like vaccination -->autism, EBV-->CFS, and lyme-->chronic lyme

Interesting that its linked with "chronic lyme" (lol wow) because over here, or with people I know more to the point, the CFS thing is linked to somethign called "fybromyalgia" and I have no idea what that even IS, but it seems to result in these vaguely achy, very tired women (always women?) going to doctors constantly, being told they cant find anything wrong with them, and sinking time and money into a ton of crazy/random treatments, none of which ever seem to work.

I get this weird back/shoulder pain occasionally that I can't figure out why - it's probably muscular, but I was looking online to see if I could find what is causing it, and 'fibromyalgia' kept popping up. I'd never heard of it but it sounds so vague I don't think it was anything to do with my problem, but I guess a 'diagnosis of exclusion' is always going to seem like an answer.

speaking of vaccines, the NEJM has an interesting thing on the progress being made in the world of HIV vaccines....p cool

link?

ha yeah duh, sorry. on iPhone, will post

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1107621

this is kind of a booming post imo:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1107189

friend of mine doing work in Africa put up an interesting post on his blog the other day, too (posted in the Africa brb thread) that mentions how HIV/AIDS is really a chronic disease now for many ppl, which is sort of mirrored way of looking at that NEJM piece.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2011/sep/14/michele-bachmann-republicans-hpv-vaccine

the ny-er blog rebuttal of bachmann's claim was excellent & concise

some of the comments over at NRO were excellent and concise, too! while i doubt this single issue will sink her, i think that her stance on the HPV vaccine is going to make a lot of conservatives sit up and go "wait what"

HPV vaccine promotes promiscuous sex and that's bad and if you get cervical cancer then your church and community will chip in money to pay for your treatment because insurance is bad.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/9/13/1315879870968/Michele-Bachmann-speaks-d-007.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/9lddv4.jpg

An example of right wing blogs melting down. (Not so much the otherwise batshit author, who here is essentially sane on the point and the relevant issues, but check the comments.)

We had some of the same issues in the UK, but the government listened to scientists rather than crazies. Of course if the crazies are the government...

Interesting to see the Bachmann hate there

She hasn't made any public statement since the debate and post-debate comments, right? Looking forward to the spin from someone who really can't blame the media on this one.

I was looking online to see if I could find what is causing it, and 'fibromyalgia' kept popping up. I'd never heard of it but it sounds so vague I don't think it was anything to do with my problem, but I guess a 'diagnosis of exclusion' is always going to seem like an answer.

It is vague (and also called myositis). "I have a chronic, non-localized pain, and doctors haven't been able to determine why." Leading theory is that it's due to overactive nerves (akin to an autoimmune d/o, but w/nerves), but lots of doctors/scientists don't think it's an actual disease.

...myositis just means "inflamed muscle tissue". it refers to a histological state, not a specific disease, per se. cf gastritis, meningitis, etc

right but a person could go to one doctor w/these symptoms and be told it's fibromyalgia, go to another and be told it's myositis. like GERD=gastritis.

MYOSITIS is inflammation of muscle tissues. FIBROSITIS is inflammation of the fibrous connective tis-sue of muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, and other connective tissues. MYOFIBROSITIS is a combination of muscle and connective tissue inflammation. FIBROMYALGIA indicates pain in fibrous tissues, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and other sites.

^all "you've got non-specific pain, and we've excluded RA etc"

sort of...thing is, there are lab tests for myositis (eg elevated creatinine) that could confirm the diagnosis, which could then point the doc to the underlying cause (eg yr on statins).

the whole dx of exclusion thing with fibromyalgia lies in that it's what you turn to when you've exhausted all the other possibilities. I think some ppl mistake it for being a pejorative term or something, like why would a doctor consider it last, least important/likely, and do all this other testing first??? when really it's simply because tests actually exist for other, treatable things so may as well make sure it isn't any of those. it isn't because docs have necessarily relegated fibromyalgia to some non-disease status, and they will only diagnose it if they ~have~ to, grudgingly, it's because there's no objective markers for it (afaik) and the clinical presentation is so non-specific that it would be irresponsible to not exhaust the other possibilities

xp obv

also, wrt those defs you posted, I ~think~ the reason fibromyalgia gets it's name is not just because it's painful, but, crucially, because it's pain in the absence of obvious inflammation.

but isn't there an ongoing debate amongst doctors about whether it truly is a disease? or is it that there are some shitty docs who are using it as a catch-all "i don't know what your pain is" dx?

ah, then the lack of obv infammation gives rise to the overactive nervous system theory?

presumably? and fwiw if yr doc says I don't know but I've exhausted all diagnostic modalities then I'm not sure he or she is shitty. chances are they're frustrated like the pt

yeah i'm prob projecting my own experiences with my MD there ("oh you have recurrent stomach pains huh...must be IBS, here's some pills")

Wow, that Ace of Spades argument is still going on, several hundred posts later

An adult friend of ours just contracted whooping cough. All I could do was curse the thoughtless, selfish assholes who made that possible.

Unfortunately, there has yet to be crafted a pistol upon whose barrel you can inscribe "herd immunity, fuckhead!" with which you can use to whip those deserving.

this weekend i visited my friend who works for the public health service in seattle. these days a large portion of his job involves responding to cases of pertussis/whooping cough due to jenny mccarthy. smdh

Ugh, that is awful. Just goes to show how many willfully ignorant people are out there.

We had the same problem in Colorado.

Curious: did your friend say (or given confidentiality, maybe just implied) if the parents had any second thoughts about it all?

he said the parents tend to be unrepentant and found it frustrating that ppl hold the advice of their yoga instructors in higher esteem than that of medical professionals