I would like to object to the “Courier as sarcasm font” proposal because then how will I read MS Paint Adventures, which uses Courier as part of its aesthetics?
Linux firefox doesn’t show the papyrus… The courier & comic sans people are using do though.
I thought ALL CAPS was the accepted ‘font’ for demonstrating the crazy with?
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Huh. I guess I just don’t have the font on my system. A shame?
And a couple I used before (Wingdings, Cursive) don’t appear to show up in Opera.
Yes, of course, it’s just that it’s one more booster to remember to get.
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ZOMG!!!11111 MEASLES ON THE BART!!!
“Symptoms are similar to those of a cold, plus a rash”
HEAD FOR THE HILLS!!! PILLORY MCCARTHY!!! INVADE SYRIA!!!
There are whole industries that have been constructed to take advantage of new-parent caution. In your zeal to be a good parent, you will expose yourself to other, unanticipated risks.
Recognizing this up front will increase the changes of successfully navigating the minefield for you and your little one.
When I was a kid, Dr. Spock was the author of the baby book that parents used to figure out things like “Is this rash/fever/etc. the kind that needs a doctor visit now, or is it the kind that can wait or use over-the-counter meds for?” (He also had advice about “permissiveness” that upset the right-wingers of the day, but my Mom’s comment was she could get lots of advice about how to raise your kid, she used Spock’s book for the actual medical stuff.)
I don’t know what Dr. Spock had to say about measles; I got them when I was 5.
No, not every rational person has been inoculated for measles. I got my immunity the old-fashioned way, by getting sick. The vaccine didn’t come out until some years later; you can look at the dates for various generations of measles vaccine and MMR in Wikipedia. (Also, there are some people who are allergic to various vaccines, particularly the egg-cultured ones, or have compromised immune systems or other reasons not to get some vaccinations. Protecting them and the kids who are too young for vaccines is an important reason to vaccinate anyone who can get it.)
If I’d had kids, you bet they’d have had their vaccines on schedule. I don’t remember much about having had measles (I was 5, and I do remember than my sister and I had bright red rashes.) But chicken pox, which was a birthday present from my brother when I was 10? Yeah, you really don’t want to get that, and there’s a vaccine for it. And I do remember standing in line for a polio sugar cube some time when I was a little kid, and there was a somewhat older kid across the street who had polio.
Probably the only well informed post in this thread sofar.
The Chicken Pox vaccine was developed to protect adults who hadn’t developed natural immunity through childhood exposure. While relatively benign in children, it had greater potential to cause complications in adults.
Really, it was a sensible best-of-both worlds arrangement - Until the manufacturers came up with all sorts of great reasons to increase scope and give it to children, which had consequence of preventing them from developing lifelong immunity.
One of those great reasons given was to prevent lost workplace productivity due to parents having to take time off to take care of sick kids.
Of course, it’s much easier to pillory straw men like Mccarthy and Wakefield than it is to consider that there may be more to the vaccine narrative than meets the eye.
Nothing to see here. Move on.
Oh, for that sort of thing we like If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay, which was written by an ER doc sick of seeing kids in there at 3 am because there was a pea in their nose. I first heard about it here: http://boingboing.net/2009/09/01/if-your-kid-eats-thi.html
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Measles is much more serious in adults, causing brain damage, deafness, and death. However, the vaccine is also somewhat more dangerous in adults, causing an autoimmune reaction that destroys the brain over a period of weeks.
Relatively benign indeed. I got the chickenpox when I was 5 or 6. I still have scars on my face, neck and back from them, and am at risk for getting shingles in my 40s which can cause permanent nerve damage. If the vaccine were popular when I was a kid 20 years ago my face wouldn’t look like the surface of the moon, and I’d have basically no chance of shingles.
Here, I’ll spill the beans:
http://bbs.boingboing.net/raw/23323/25
http://bbs.boingboing.net/raw/23323/38
http://bbs.boingboing.net/raw/23323/55
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You are basically wrong. Becoming immune by having an injection as a child is a lot safer than catching a disease, spreading it around, hoping you don’t die, and hoping you are immune for life.
Sure, not all vaccinations are perfect, and not all vaccinations are permanent, but really… vaccinations are not a big-pharma-liberal-takeovertheoworld plot. And yes, tar and feather Mccarthy and wakefield, and prosecute them if possible for the harm they have brought to the health of humanity.
From Mosby’s “[measles] is dangerous in the first trimester of pregnancy, because it can cause fetal injuries that lead to deafness, mental retardation, cataracts, and heart defects” AND “Measles has a 10- to 12- day incubation period It is usually contracted from respiratory droplets. measles is contagious from the fifth day of incubation through the first few days of the rash” AND “[the patients] most commonly have an elevated temperature (102.2 F (39 to 40C)).”
So having people wandering around on your train or your church or your school infecting others while not knowing they are sick is actually pretty dangerous, especially if you are the unsuspecting pregnant woman whose immunity is imperfect despite getting vaccinated.
Before spewing anti-vaccination nonsense, please actuallly read the research and understand the process, the risks, the totally rare troubles, and the idea of herd immunity. And please, if your children are not vaccinated, quarrantine them from the population of people who are vaccinated, bc the unvaccinated can be a serious danger to others.
Sad that your brother who is immune suppressed died bc you accidentally gave him varicella or measles from your carrier child, eh? Or pityt the woman who is in early pregnancy that sits down at a church dinner next to your measles infected but in prodrome child, and catches measles and loses her baby. BC that’s the type of stuff that happens from the unvaccinated mixing with the general population.
the Fiat RN
Denver, CO
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Most modern tetanus boosters are actually dpt boosters — diptheria, pertussis and tetanus, so if you had a “tetanus” shot back then it also updated your pertussis vaccine. And you can get an MMR titre to check your level of immunity, and a booster for that if needed. Many healthcare jobs require such testing at hire, or periodically.
The FiatRN
Denver, CO
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A “straw man,” unlike McCarthy or Wakefield, is not a real person who actively popularizes arguments in the media. A “straw man” is a scarecrow created by its opponents to advance poorly-reasoned false arguments. Said opponents then use it as a punching bag instead of having to debate a real person on actual arguments.
There are reasons why the UK does not routinely vaccinate against chickenpox.
Ah hah! I got a tetanus shot before going on a round-the-world vacation (2 years before my son was born). So yeah, that would explain why I didn’t get my pertussis booster 
Thanks!
You might want to look up the definition of straw man. Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield do not even remotely fall into that category. They are both DIRECTLY responsible for a large proportion of the population refusing to vaccinate their children, despite the overwhelming lack of scientific evidence to back up their claims.
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Sorry, but having chicken pox as a kid does not give you lifetime immunity. Shingles is the expression of the same virus in the middle to later adult years. There’s a vaccine for it, it’s a good idea to get it if you had chicken pox. My older relatives all suffered with shingles and I’m glad that I won’t have to thanks to modern pharma.
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