The Off Topic Topic

[Barrister]

Lol thank you all.


I was just thinking reading a terrible summary of adult hand foot mouth disease that if I ever had the child version of this myself like my son is having it, it was 40 years and over a thousand miles away, so my immunity is probably zero

So I, too, absolutely went through the phase where my kids were in daycare and brought home every communicable disease known to man.

The flip-side though is - and no doubt this is in part from my kids living through Covid - is my now-14 year old son insists on washing his hands like 20,000 times per day, going through soap like they're going to stop making the stuff, and having his hands completely cracked and bleeding all the time.

But at least he doesn't bring home any germs.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Training the immune system is a good thing though, and let's be grateful that most of the really nasty shit is not really an issue in our neck of the woods. It used to be different, and if we aren't careful it will be different againt

[Barrister]

Training the immune system is a good thing though, and let's be grateful that most of the really nasty shit is not really an issue in our neck of the woods. It used to be different, and if we aren't careful it will be different againt

I get so God-damn angry at anti-vaxxers.

I remember my grandfather when I was a kid.  He was a polio survivor back from the 50s.  He survived, but his one leg was permanently paralyzed.  He was lucky - lots of people didn't survive.  He died in the 1980s from a heart attack.  It may well have been just because men of his era didn't have the best diets - but an excellent chance it was also from post-polio syndrome.

But the thing is nobody gets polio anymore because of vaccines.  Except of course it hasn't been completely eradicated, still surviving in the wild in Pakistan, and may well make a comeback if people keep refusing vaccines.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Indeed. Same goes for overuseage of antibiotics. That's creating nightmares of diseases, things we may not be able cure at all.

[PJL]

Anti-vaxxers are the worst of the worst. I can at least understand the motives / arguments of gun owners, death penalty advocates and anti-abortionists even if I disagree with it. But the anti-vaxxers are just pure evil. Of course there is a lot of overlap between them and the others.

[Josquius]

To be fair as with most shitty groups I think anti vaxers are a coalition of a small number of very evil arse holes leading a large number of morons (many with cuntish tendencies).

I get how for instance fitness nut anti vaxers come to their conclusions. They don't understand science. Their body is a temple and they don't want any "chemicals" inside it. Stupid as shit. But not necessarily evil.

[crazy canuck]

It is important to remember that the anti vaccination movement took off because of fabricated data in a published article that took too long to detect and correct.

It has become almost important impossible now to undo the resulting misinformation that now circulates.

[Sheilbh]

Published in the Lancet, no less (not the first or last controversy about some dodgy articles there...). And the Editor in Chief is still in post and took twelve years to formally retract that article.

In part I think because it was here that side of it has very very much been discredited. Wakefield was struck off and is not believed etc, even though it's had subsequent second lives in other countries and communities.

Of which, there's been a really interesting example of that lie making a come back. I've mentioned before that despite all the reading the US in the UK about "anti-vaxers" so thinking the people not getting vaccinated are old, right-wingers in MAGA hats. That's not true. In the UK the people least likely to get vaccinated are young people and minorities.

So recently we had a really serious outbreak of measles in London (not a Brexity/Tory-ish city generally), overwhelmingly within the Somali community. Which is where the autism lie comes back. Because around the world Somalis have a higher incidence of autism than average (it's observed in the UK, US, Canada, Scandinavia etc) - and no-one knows why. Within the community you have lots of voice notes all over on WhatsApps between Somali mums and dads, and mosque groups etc about vaccinations causing autism. So it's not even politics but a bunch of normal people dealing with a common medical issue in their community reaching for a plausible explanation, with lots of anecdotes - "x got vaccinated and then got the autism diagnosis". But it's totally wrong and has hugely negative results, as you say, started by a lying doctor.

[Josquius]

I've mentioned before my cousin really got on board with the covid anti vax crap. She's a fitness nut, 40ish years old.
But yes. Has a habit of swallowing populist crap, probably votes fasc.

Curious on the Somalis and autism thing. I wonder why.

[Sheilbh]

Totally separate but can't think of a good costume for Halloween

There's normally some film or something that gets me, but can't think of anything this year. (Obviously different for women who have The Substance to draw upon )

[Admiral Yi]

Totally separate but can't think of a good costume for Halloween

There's normally some film or something that gets me, but can't think of anything this year. (Obviously different for women who have The Substance to draw upon )

Harry Styles in his harlequin jump suit.

[Grey Fox]

A Joker from a Musical.

[Josquius]

King Aegon after the burning.

[celedhring]

I'd totally go as Willem Dafoe from Bettlejuice x2 if I could get a ladyfriend to constantly hand me a cup of coffee.

[Grey Fox]

There was a Borderlands movie this year too.