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

Stats can be manipulated, and 'studies' always contradict themselves, so our trust must be placed in these rogue wizards, regardless of 'science'

How courageous to fly in the face of accepted medical wisdom. I hear all they do in medical school is have sex and abort things.

to be honest, i think this outbreak will see a major decline in the number of parents unwilling to vaccinate their children

silver linings etc.

I think the data is showing that might already be the case, from what Ive read. Which is good!

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/2/7963837/obama-vaccine-autism

i missed this at the time

"We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it."

--Barack Obama, Pennsylvania Rally, April 21, 2008.

"It's indisputable that (autism) is on the rise among children, the question is what's causing it. And we go back and forth and there's strong evidence that indicates it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

--John McCain, Texas town hall meeting, February 29, 2008.

assuming cynicism, what's the upside politically to pandering to these whackaloons? did they really seem that powerful? water under the bridge i guess...

getting them to give you money

All the money they've saved on vaccines for their kids is yours for the taking.

http://www.motherjones.com/files/mickeymeasles.jpg

So Chris Christie, who was willing to be a complete asshole and unnecessarily quarantine medical workers who had traveled to countries with Ebola outbreaks, is willing to pander to people who are willing to forego a harmless vaccine that prevents a disease with 90% communicability.

OK then.

i've read a couple quotes from that Wolfson creep the past couple of days, including one where he placed the blame on kids getting sick (and one getting leukemia!!) on them being vaccinated, and boasted that his children were 'pure'.

2008 Bam quote is jawdropping; no wonder Bill Maher gave him a million

here's some contemporaneous blog posts that suggest O's vax angle was a little less pandery than the anti-vaxers wanted

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/04/22/hillary-clinton-and-barack-obama-descend/
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/09/09/barack-obama-provaccine/

i seriously have no memory of any of this

And pretty much the opposite of what he's saying now:

"I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations," Obama said in a pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC's Savannah Guthrie on Sunday. "The science is, you know, pretty indisputable. We’ve looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren’t reasons to not."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/01/barack-obama-kids-vaccinated-measles_n_6591452.html

So Chris Christie, who was willing to be a complete asshole and unnecessarily quarantine medical workers who had traveled to countries with Ebola outbreaks, is willing to pander to people who are willing to forego a harmless vaccine that prevents a disease with 90% communicability.

^^^this

dude's willingness to use health threats to score political points is so gross

i posted this link, http://www.voicesforvaccines.org/growing-up-unvaccinated/, and my friend instantly liked it and shared it to her own fb wall - which i thought was interesting, since i remember her being incredibly anti-vax years ago. i wondered if maybe she didn't bother reading it, and totally misjudged the title... yep, she's deleted the link from her fb wall today.

i think anti-vaxxers are starting to double down on their opposition but it seems like they're quietly moving away from the autism link and are going in a more general but equally specious 'don't pump my kids full of chemicals' direction.

would the same people deny their kids such things as: chemotherapy, anaesthetic, fluoride, acne cream, tylenol, etc. etc. etc.?

don't answer that, maybe...

i get chills when i think about this shit

lol at Flouride.

btw someone on FB yesterday posted "If my kid can't bring peanut butter to school, yours shouldn't be able to bring measles" or somesuch.

REALLY, schools are banning peanut butter bcz some kids are allergic? Strikes me as a li'l bit fascistic...

that has been a thing for a while iirc

balloons too.

or green playdough

balloons full of peanut butter still ok.

Nut allergies have gotten a lot more common than when we were kids, but it's pretty crazy because for severe reactions PEOPLE REALLY HAVE TO INGEST THE NUTS!

They are crispy fried chicken wings.

But Jenny McCarthy seemed intent upon only pretending to eat the high cholesterol snack as she attended McDonald's Mighty Wing launch party in New York, on Sunday.

Despite the 40-year-old's apparent refusal to ingest the treat, she was clearly having fun teasing herself with the greasy poultry as she dangled it seductively in front of her full lips.

And she seemed to get some pleasure out of frustrating herself with the white meat as she posed for the cameras.

Positioning the wing mere inches from her mouth, Jenny made goo goo eyes while salivating over the forbidden flesh, which was encased in fried dough.

Wearing her light tresses in a smooth pile over her shoulders, the chat show host opted for a simple navy blue dress.

The frock showcased her lean and toned legs as it barely covered her sun-kissed thighs.

Completing her getup was a pair of tan platform wedges as she smiled throughout the fast food centred event.

Nut allergies have gotten a lot more common than when we were kids, but it's pretty crazy because for severe reactions PEOPLE REALLY HAVE TO INGEST THE NUTS!

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Monday, February 2, 2015 5:30 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the idea is that kids are too stupid not to eat stuff when it's at school and they aren't under direct immediate supervision

really glad i grew up in the 1980s

i hope chris christie's head caves in on him btw, fuck that guy

also: rand paul

really glad i grew up in the 1880s

well, today's kids might as well, right?

"i think the idea is that kids are too stupid not to eat stuff when it's at school and they aren't under direct immediate supervision"

And okay for pre-school kids that's fair because 3-4 yo are kinda like OH SHIT IT MIGHT BE EDIBLE and stuff all sorts of crap in their mouth. But anything older than that seriously kid probably needs a near death experience.

lol at Flouride.

believe it or not, this is a really problem in Portland, OR. time and time again we've had measure proposed to allow flouride added to the water supply (we're the only city in the country that doesn't do this) and every time it gets shot down by the public. god knows how many anti-vaxxers walk the streets around here.

I know it's a real problem. I was LOL because obv same people not vaccinating their kids are flouride haters.

yeah, it definitely comes from the same place psychologically.

the logical endpoint of that logic is just avoiding modern medicine altogether, which is.. not a good idea.

Nut allergies have gotten a lot more common than when we were kids, but it's pretty crazy because for severe reactions PEOPLE REALLY HAVE TO INGEST THE NUTS!

In this case it's because it's really easy to confuse certain foods with allergens (cookies, say) with allergen-free foods. To be honest, the trend is to put the kibosh on any home made goods, period, which allows people to better distinguish the threats from the safe stuff. Also, vital to keep in mind that as much of a PIA it often is, there are kids who, if they accidentally or purposely or whatever ingest certain foods, they may die. Flat out. And these numbers are going up. If anything, people who insist on sending, say, peanut butter products to schools are the allergen equivalent of the anti-vaxers.

Kids who are allergic to nuts should be learning not to accidentally eat nuts, right? The whole rest of the world isn't going to stop making foods with nuts.

If I want to make my son a peanut butter sandwich for lunch then I am equivalent to an Jenny M?!?

.
(we're the only city in the country that doesn't do this)

San Diego also is notably anti-fluoride.

Oh wait, they started a few years ago.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/news-ticker/2013/mar/20/debate-over-fluoride-in-water-resurfaces-in-san-di/#

Rand Paul continues to handle his antivax coverage just great (fallout from WaPo article, linked in this):

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/rand-paul-scolds-cnbc-anchor-201999.html

oh heavens, how did we ever fucking survive letting kids court death by being around kids eating other stuff

MoronWorld

xpost Hey, I get it. I think it's a pain in the ass. But I do have multiple friends whose kids carry epipens, not because the parents are paranoid, but because if exposed to certain things their kids at least swell up, at worst could die. For tree nuts, for peanuts, one for mushrooms (that's easy to avoid at school). It's a totally different world than the one I grew up with, where bee stings were the thing to look out for. For whatever reasons, severe allergies are on the rise and very real, not some figment of overactive helicopter parent imagination. It's really, really easy to avoid sending products containing peanuts to school, even easier than getting your kid a shot. And that's my comparison: saying it's someone else's problem to avoid nuts is not that different from saying let someone else get the stupid vaccine. Of course kids need to learn how to take care of themselves and how to be careful, but avoidable shit happens. Think of not sending nuts as a form of allergen herd immunity. The bonus being at home you can chow down on as much PB as you want.

And it should be clear, most restrictions are related to the classrooms themselves, not the lunchroom. If you have an allergy, you get your own table at lunch. But my understanding is that more and more schools are going totally nut-free, because in the case of (say) our school, with 640 kids grades K-5, moving from class to class all day, interacting with each other, sharing food and sneaking snacks, it gets harder and harder to keep track of everyone.

, but it's pretty crazy because for severe reactions PEOPLE REALLY HAVE TO INGEST THE NUTS

Not always true--I have a severe nut allergy (when I saw an allergist a few years ago I was kind of proud to be told I had the biggest reaction to peanuts they'd ever seen), and if someone eats peanut butter near me the smell makes my throat start to close up. it wouldn't kill me, but it would bring on asthma, nausea, heart palpitations, etc. I am a delicate little flower, obviously.

It's weird seeing the world turn all protect-kids-from-nuts, though--when I was a kid (born 1976) I had trouble even convincing people my allergy was a real thing, since nobody had ever heard of it. trendsetter!

Yeah it was after my time as a kid too, but by 1980, I was seeing friends' kids with big reactions to *something*---and then the parents would take them to the doctor, and come back with lists, charts, even: strawberries, nuts, dairy products...

To clarify re: the peanut butter/nut allergy - rarely but not never it happens that a child's allergy is so severe that they can have a reaction to touching the nut/nut butter. Even more rarely reactions have occurred when there is an area where the nut butter *was* - it was cleaned up - but a child touched that area and had an anaphylactic reaction. So sometimes yes, it is protecting that one child in a class. The schools where I sub as a nurse don't ban the foods (as far as I can tell) but the child's individual classroom may not allow particular foods for that year. There are Epi-Pens available in the classroom and the nurse's office (including ones for general use as well as for individual children's allergies).

I subbed a couple of weeks ago and a very allergic girl came in and she had gotten milk spilled on her - that was one of her allergies. We carefully washed it off and I monitored her skin (looked ok) and asked if her tongue was swelling or if she felt itchy or if she felt like she couldn't breathe, etc. She said no... and then I made her sit there for a couple more minutes. She got bored and excused herself to her classroom (probably thinking, "omg what is WITH that lady") but since I was given to understand her food allergies could be life-threatening, I felt obligated to be a nag.

Did anyone else see Larry Wilmore's show taking on the vaccine controversy last week?

I wanted to reach in and strangle the anti-vaxx lady he had on. "You never want to harm your child." Duh, of course you don't. But you also do the risk/benefit calculation, right? (I guess not but AAAARGH).

And that's my comparison: saying it's someone else's problem to avoid nuts is not that different from saying let someone else get the stupid vaccine.

Peanut allergies are someone else's problem! It's a problem presumably they will have to live with their entire life. They should start. Everyone should get the stupid vaccine because it only works really well if everyone gets it.