Climate specialists worry quite a lot about the inexorable loss of glaciers in western Antarctica, but at least everyone knows that colder currents on the other side will protect the much larger east Antarctic ice sheets. So about that…
The largest glacier in East Antarctica, containing ice equivalent to a six-metre (20-foot) rise in global sea levels, is melting due to warm ocean water, Australian scientists said on Monday.
The 120-kilometre (74.4 mile) long Totten Glacier, which is more than 30 kilometres wide, had been thought to be in an area untouched by warmer currents.
But a just-returned voyage to the frozen region found the waters around the glacier were warmer than expected and likely melting the ice from below.
Several prominent researchers declined to comment on the story as they were busy changing their pants. Seems like a nice enough way to cap off 2014, the hottest year in recorded history.
Sorry if that harshed your buzz. Here’s a palate cleanser.
Dee Klocke, whose children attend the Waldorf School in Orange County –where 41% of the kindergartners were unvaccinated when they entered kindergarten this year — dismissed concerns about her children getting sick.
“What if they experience it. So what?” she said, before adding, “Maybe I’m saying that just because it hasn’t happened yet.”
chopper
it’s like one single solitary brain cell fired in protest, just to be quietly snuffed out.
Corner Stone
In before others with an ironic statement about the Blizzard ’15 Apocalypse!
Corner Stone
This site has slowed down to an absolute crawl today. I’m running NoScript as usual but it’s still taking several seconds to fully load.
trollhattan
Buzz=harshed. And a good day to you, sir!
Also, too, Waldorf parents have always been a little…different.
polyorchnid octopunch
Orange County? That’s great! They’re going to thin themselves out of the herd.
Roger Moore
The only good news there is that I live close to 1000 feet above sea level.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Happy Monday to you too.
feebog
Stupid, ignorant people, from both sides of the political spectrum. Measles kill, they can also cause deafness. Jaysus.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Scarring, brain damage, encephalitis, deafness, corneal scarring and pneumonia. Those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I know it can also kill you. Maybe her kids need to experience that as well.
Morzer
Is it wrong of me to hope that a limited outbreak of the Black Death might clean Dee’s Klocke?
TR
If these idiots don’t want to vaccinate their children, they should be banned from the public schools as well as public places like Disneyland.
And don’t even think of bringing them to the hospital when (not if) something goes horribly wrong for them. I’m sure Dr. Jenny McCarthy, M.D. T&A can recommend a good wholesome leeching service that will rid their bodies of Thee Eville Humours.
Gin & Tonic
I watched part of a video presentation yesterday about the very nearly complete eradication of guinea worm disease, which is absolutely remarkable. I’d like to get a few of the people who’ve had to have these things pulled out of their skin (which is incredibly disgusting) go to Orange County and slap some sense into Ms Dee Klocke.
As an aside, the result is due to the efforts of the Carter Center, which are beyond admirable.
BGinCHI
Waldorf, where they only let kids play with toys made out of wood or metal.
Yeah, that is going to make all the difference in the world.
idiots.
Morzer
@BGinCHI:
Wood or metal or smallpox.
It’s just another experience….
D58826
. Is she allowed out on the public strrets without a keeper?
TR
Some days, it just feels like we’re living in the opening crawl of a zombie apocalypse movie.
Dipshit anti-vaxxers + moron teatards crippling the CDC = disaster.
Iowa Old Lady
I don’t even know what to say in response to the fool who won’t vaccinate her children because so what. How is that not child neglect?
srv
Maybe there’s an inverse relationship between the sea level and Hillary:
The tide of Jebmentum is unstoppable.
Peking Man
Five months after Hurricane Juan hit Nova Scotia there was a major blizzard which was dubbed ‘White Juan’.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Juan) White Sandy would be an appropriate name for the storm affecting New York and New England
beltane
When my 9 year old son came down with pneumonia last year, it was one of the most terrifying times of my life. Yes, he was OK after a round of high-powered antibiotics, but I was unable to sleep until his breathing returned to normal. WTF is wrong with these stupid, stupid people?
Morzer
@srv:
Not to harsh the mellow of el movimiento Jerb, but Zogby is about as unreliable as they come.
Hungry Joe
Translation: “What if your children experience it because they came into contact with my child? So what?”
Gypsy Howell
I went to a Waldorf school many moons ago, but one that (luckily for me) was fairly low on the woo factor. I missed out on Eurythmy, for example, but biodynamics was definitely a thing. And of course there was Parsifal and Michaelmas and whaling songs and knitting and stuff.
On the other hand, the school was situated on an organic farm and environmental awareness was hugely important in the curriculum, which was pretty advanced thinking for a mainstream school in the early 70s. We had compost duty after lunch, we learned about organic farming and were instructed on the dangers of pesticides and nuclear power waste, etc.
I just happened to be looking at the school website a few days ago, and the woo factor has increased exponentially. Now its all Eurythmy and Anthroposophy, plus a new thing called Spacial Dynamics which enables one to “experience of the healthy, harmonious continuum between the body and surrounding space… [to become] skilled at recreating dynamics that reconnect, regenerate, and reintegrate, thus replacing dis-ease with ease.”
I’d be surprised if ANY of the kids there are vaccinated now.
beltane
@Iowa Old Lady: The worst thing about these narcissistic parents is that they would blame GMO’s and high fructose corn syrup in the water supply for their childrens’ deaths before they blamed themselves. This country has turned into a grotesque collection of prima donnas and assholes.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
Because the anti-vaxxers are politically connected enough to get exceptions put in the rules for their benefit.
Morzer
@Hungry Joe:
Lycus:
Is it contagious?
Pseudolus:
Have you ever seen a plague that wasn’t?
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: I’m also glad to hear about the advancement against guinea worm disease. But as there is no vaccination available I’m not sure what good it would do to have a survivor smack this woman around?
Other than the smacking part, that is.
VFX Lurker
@beltane:
They and their peers were probably vaccinated as children and never experienced nor witnessed the horrors of preventable diseases.
So, they can’t comprehend what could happen in a 41%-unvaccinated scenario.
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
Guinea worms refuse to infect Dee Klocke, claim that this would represent cruel and unusual punishment for them.
catclub
@Gypsy Howell:
How about anthropophagy?
We love our children… delicious.
@beltane:
no, they just get more coverage. Probably always there.
SiubhanDuinne
Perhaps I’m very naïve, but I thought schools required all students to have basic vaccinations except under severe medical conditions which would contraindicate certain vaccines. Somehow I doubt that 41% of those kids have an immune disease. Have the rules changed?
Grumpy Code Monkey
Re: Antarctic ice sheets, a relevant Ars Technica article. Adding hydrofracturing to ice sheet models allows scientist to match past swings in sea levels without requiring super-high temperatures.
Scariest part of the model is that ice sheets could let go completely on a scale of decades rather than centuries.
Corner Stone
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Just means more ice floes for the GOP to push grandma out onto.
Bobby B.
On a related note, my local Oregon ski resort has shut down due to lack of snow (warmth and drought) for the second year in a row. “The science isn’t settled.”, hoo hah!
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
She can pull herself up by her surfboard straps.
Roger Moore
@VFX Lurker:
“Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn in no other.” Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1743 edition
Corner Stone
@TR:
I agree that public schools should have some sort of recourse, but how would you go about getting public businesses like Disneyland to determine which kids were vaccinated? Some sort of brightly colored letter or symbol or something?
shortstop
@SiubhanDuinne: Private school.
? Martin
The public schools here in OC are starting to crack down. Kids aren’t required to get the shots, but they are required to provide accurate vaccination records. (This is important to us as my son has a full-on needle phobia, so getting a shot takes as many as 10 attempts and as long as a year to complete. We get the vaccines covered, but not necessarily on the recommended schedule.)
Kids without measles vaccinations weren’t allowed to attend classes in some districts starting last week. My daughters best friend is one such (her grandmother is an RN and the source of the anti-vax, so we have been wholly unsuccessful battling that mindset) but now that she is a teenager, we made sure my daughter reminded her that she can use her medical freedom to get vaccinated without parental consent. We have a family owned clinic/pharmacy walking distance from us, and we know the owners. They’ve made it well known in the community that if anyone needs emergency contraception or any such services that they will be happy to take care of it (and there’s a group of parents that have offered to cover any bills no questions asked). My daughter knows that they can go over and get the vaccinations and it’ll get taken care of. Tuesday after school they have arranged to meet to ‘study for a big math test’. What’s interesting is that my daughter’s friend is less worried about herself but she has a little brother now who just turned one and she’s afraid of catching something at school and then infecting him. She’s not worried about developing autism at 13, though apparently mom still is.
The outbreak hasn’t caused as much panic as it ought to have, but it is opening some significant rifts in the community. Anti-vax parents were pretty well tolerated, but that’s going away quickly. The PTA meetings have suddenly gotten a bit less boring.
? Martin
FYWP moderation!
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
A) It’s generally public schools that require this. Private schools can have their own rules, and ones that attracts believers in anti-scientific crap tend to do so.
B) Even for public schools, many states have religious exemptions for vaccination, and some- including California- have personal belief exemptions that effectively allow parents to opt out because they don’t feel like it.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: The smacking would be important. But they could also discuss infectious disease vectors and the importance of keeping potentially infectious people out of the communal water supply, as it were.
geg6
I was vaccinated against measles as a child but, apparently the version I got was not as effective as today’s immunizations. I got the measles in second grade and got a hella case of pneumonia as a result. There’s a week or two that I wasn’t conscious of and the antibiotics were super strong and almost as bad as the illness. And I was lucky. Fuck these stupid assholes filled with nothing but privilege and selfishness. Fuck them sideways. They are murdering psychopaths.
Origuy
@SiubhanDuinne: California has a personal belief exemption, although the legislature tightened it up recently. I don’t know if there are penalties if schools don’t enforce it and it sounds like these Waldorf schools may not.
California Vaccination Requirements
CarolDuhart2
My rant. There is a cemetery nearby where when you go to the old section, there are adult stones surrounded by smaller stones of the children that died way to early due to the diseases that we now can vaccinate against, and the improved treatments and sanitation for the rest. That’s one thing about this stuff. The heartbreak and the sorrow, the lost lives and the broken others.
“Experience” my ass!. Has she ever had to spend days in the hospital? Gee, that’s fun.
Those stones are missing from the newer side. In fact, where you see the double husband and wife stones, the husband died in the 60-70’s-the wife may still be living somewhere. The difference? Not only modern medicine, but vaccination that means older and sicker people don’t come down with measles and other ailments that impact older people more severely.
Josie
When I was in the third grade (back in the dark ages), my best friend Susan died from measles after they went to her brain. I was devastated and still remember exactly what she looked like and how much fun we had together. I hope this stupid woman does not have to face a loss like that.
rikyrah
that school statistic would horrify me.
Violet
Have any of the rich, precious, unvaccinated Orange County children come down with measles yet? Because after that happens a couple of times, things might change. Especially if the kids end up blind or something. Or school age kid gives it to infant, who dies.
That kind of thing is going to have to happen a couple of times before the anti-vaxxers decide maybe they should reconsider.
Origuy
Sad news: John Scalzi’s family lost their cat Ghlaghghee yesterday.
For those not followers, Ghlaghghee is pronounced “Fluffy”. She made internet fame as the cat Scalzi taped bacon to.
Peale
@srv: Hillary hasn’t been in the news. The dipshits have been. If the Dems can’t figure out how to get people to keep their god damn social security, I can’t really help them.
FlyingToaster
@SiubhanDuinne: Waldorf is a private school methodology; like Montressori used to be (and often still is).
Most states have religious or personal-belief exemptions; some public school systems require you to get a form from your child’s pediatrician certifying that you’ve been informed of the risks.
Fortunately for me, my daughter’s private school is NOT Waldorf; her school only allows medical exemptions to vaccines.
Waldorf is particularly woo-ey these days.
The Tragically Flip
It truly is only the safety created by mass vaccinations that one can maintain the deliberate ignorance needed to sustain the belief that your child getting one of these diseases is nothing big to concern yourself with, because you’ve never seen polio or rubella or whatever.
It’s really not so different from the blithe ignorance of libertarians about the consequences of their quest to repeal all social programs and redistributive spending.
Mass vaccinations are becomming a victim of their own success.
gvg
Lots of countries including the US won’t let visitors in without the right vacinations and I think it goes on their passport?? So if the US makes that required, a passport will let Disney determine those quickly. Most people plan Disney vacations in advance so getting a card from a doctor say before ticket purchase is doable. Its only us Floridians that do impulse trips to Disney and speaking for my self and my family, Doctors card is quite doable. In fact since its the usual choice of the 7 year old for good report cards I imagine we would all get a card once a year or whatever just on the assumption we’d have a couple of visits at least a year.
Its actually the places that aren’t as big a deal as Disney that would have to decide how to handle it so they don’t lose business. They would have staffing problems with checking too.
I’d like some sort of standard doctor office issued card that listed vacinations so far.
I used to think that due to religious freedom we couldn’t make it an absolute rule for public schools. Now the % overall has gotten to iffy in places and I have changed my mind. Make it required unless a demonstrated immune problem is proven. The abusers of the system have spoiled it for all.
Calouste
@Iowa Old Lady: The same way that leaving a loaded gun within reach of a toddler is not child neglect. I.e. it is child neglect for everyone except the people where ideology overrules common sense.
Peale
On a good note, my mother had polio when she was 11 and managed to miss many months of school. Of course the pain and exhaustion she gets sometimes out of the blue has only been with her for 60 years. Yeah, its worth it.
CarolDuhart2
@The Tragically Flip: And it was the mass vaccination programs of the 1950’s that ended it. Not only school vaccinations, but army vaccinations as well. Herd immunity is especially important when you have to be in a herd.
My point is that the unlucky ones who got these diseases and survived just before the cutoff points are getting pretty old now. Even older are the parents who cared for them. So we no longer have relevant personal testimony to reinforce the message. I hope some of these people go on the record before they pass.
Lurker
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Never mind that unvaccinated children are a public health menace to those who get in contact with them. How selfish!
The Tragically Flip
@CarolDuhart2:
Yeah, exactly – the previous support for mass vaccination was largely premised on enough lived experience with the horrors of these diseases to know that the risks of the vaccines were very small in comparison.
Now almost no one in a position to decide to vaccinate a given child has those experiences, and we’re relying on people’s intellectual and scientific literacy, combined with a desire to do the right thing for social collective good and both are sadly much weaker forces than “my elder sibling had polio and it really sucked, no way that is happening to my child!”
I don’t know how we reproduce that incentive without actually going through a full relapse on some of these diseases ever 40 years or so.
At least we eradicated smallpox so barring it being let out deliberately by one of the governments squirreling away samples, no amount of parent stupity alone will be enough to put us through that one again.
K488
@Gypsy Howell: Parsifal?!? I was not inoculated against Parsifal when I was a kid (despite living with Boston Brahmsians), and came down with a severe case (all three acts! One sitting!) in my twenties. Never fully recovered, although I’ve dosed it with Pelleas (think Parsival/methadone) and plenty of Schreker, so I’m living a more stable life. But seriously, Parsifal in K-12? I wouldn’t even brush my teeth to it!
Samuel Knight
BTW – on the Hillary Poll – It’s Zogby which means it’s about as useful as Dick Morris.
Second I wouldn’t be so quick to count Rand Paul out, the rest of the GOP field are equally crazy with skeletons rattling around in their closets. And Reagan, Bush poppy and son all said horrible, stupid, racist things, and they all got elected. Heretofore they can pretty much rely upon the fact the Dems just won’t attack, so they just keep moving forward.
Gypsy Howell
@K488:
Sorry, should have spelled that Parzival, as in Wolfram Von Eschenbach. Doesn’t make it any better though.
Origuy
@gvg: I don’t think they put vaccinations on a passport. You may have to put them on a visa application, but I doubt that the visa in the passport shows that. The US doesn’t require a visa for many European countries.
K488
@efgoldman: You better believe Reger! Actually, I love Parsifal; I was just joking. And if kids get hooked, good for them. I was bit by the Schoenberg violin concerto at age 15, and have loved it ever since, which is closing in on half a century.
K488
@Gypsy Howell: Har!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Origuy: Correct.
If it’s needed to get into/out of the country, it’s on the visa.
trollhattan
@Josie:
Oh god, that’s horrible. At that age the last thing a kid needs to be confronted with is their own mortality and that of their friends. Damn you, civilization, for trying to shield us from such experiences!
I had both kinds of measles without any of the possible complications (other than pre-losing my adult decision-making abilities) and still wouldn’t wish it on anybody. IIRC the big worry at the time was rubella and pregnancy, which can cause horrid birth defects. You know, just like vaccines “do.”
Quaker in a Basement
A 20-foot rise in ocean levels? So what? Al Gore is heeeyuuuuuuge!
polyorchnid octopunch
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I’ve always thought this; one need only look at how ice behaves in the real world to realise that the idea that they’re going to slowly and politely drip away over centuries is bollocks.
Probably helps that I live in a winter country, though.
K488
@efgoldman: Oh, you gotta love Reger! By me, some of the finest organ music this side of Bach, both fun to play and fun to hear, and the chamber music!
Another Holocene Human
Waldorf: a century long test of the notion that the way to teach kids creativity and to become thoughtful ethical adults is to hold off on the science and go for hardcore paranormal bullshit.
The test has been run on the children of the elite and, well, look where the country is now.
PIGL
@D58826: Her children should simply be apprehended and placed in foster care. This needs to start happening systematically.
Another Holocene Human
Oh, and no surprise except to Waldorf true believers but there have been child rape scandals at Waldorf schools, hidden for years and years and years.
Another Holocene Human
@efgoldman: My wife did Ring Cycle as a kindergarten project. Kindergarten’d down. Of course, her parents were music people and she was very precocious.
I’ll be honest, I shared her love of Carmen as a child (thanks to PBS “Great Performances”) but Wagner would have put my happy butt right to sleep.
Morzer
@Another Holocene Human:
Alberich stole our wooden building blocks!
Another Holocene Human
@The Tragically Flip: About that scientific literacy. The scientific and mathematical principles behind vaccines and herd immunity could be taught by
agegrade 6 [eta, sorry about that]. Why aren’t they?Oh, I do recall what we were doing in my school. Wasting three months on English-Metric conversions.
English units need to be banished from school. If you need them for a recipe, fine, here’s Youtube. If you want to do English recipes you’ll need to buy a metric scale anyway, so have fun. Oh, you want to be a carpenter? Well, good thing we did fractions and times tables, right? 16, 17, 18 you should have passed your state math exam so you can totally handle this shit. No need to waste everyone else’s time. Mechanics? Machinists? Half that shit’s metric now. Engineering construction often uses decimal English. Remember that calculator you said would get rid of your need to learn arithmetic, buddy? Learn to love it. Road chainage, curves? Listen, it’s time to hire the crop circle people to lay out road curves in the US because this circular curve derp is actually killing people and the inertia on this topic is ridiculous. Americans are not too stupid for parabolic curves, they’re too selfish. #truth
You know the US spent millions of dollars on a space probe only to have it blow up because of a units conversion? A units conversion that wasn’t fucking necessary if they would have just used SI which is the official measurement system for the US government? Talk about waste, fraud, and abuse.
K488
@Morzer: At age 5, my daughter drew illustrations for Lulu. The grin on Lulu’s face at the end of Act II (“Isn’t this the sofa your father bled to death on?”) was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen.
Morzer
@K488:
When life gives you Lululemons….
Hungry Joe
We require the use of seat belts, and car seats for children young (and small) enough; why not vaccines? True, the seat-belt analogy is imperfect, as it applies only to individual families: It’s no skin off my nose, or any other part of my body, if we collide and you and your kids aren’t belted in. But the precedent is there.
My family and I have had all the shots, including this year’s flu vaccine, and we shouldn’t have to be exposed to the lowered, but still very real threat of infection from unvaccinated people. I maintain that our right not to be exposed is greater than their right not to be vaccinated … or at least, their right not to be vaccinated and mingle with the general public.
Another Holocene Human
@The Tragically Flip: A good analogy is Enron.
After years of regulated monopoly that provided electricity at a fair rate to every home, some greedheads convinced history-ignorant politicians to deregulate a basic service with, well, horrifying results. Prices out of control, electricity cut offs … that shit is why our Progressive ancestors regulated: water, electricity, public transit, railroads, and telephone in the first place. They reasoned that everyone should be hooked up and it would be wasteful to duplicate services. So in a public-private partnership they granted a monopoly franchise to a private concern in return for tight oversight and regulation–certain service standards had to be met, prices were under control, but the monopoly was allowed a standard, annual profit.
But after the 80s the greedheads weren’t happy with 15 or 20% profits. They wanted 200% annual returns.
Airlines were regulated for the same reasons and then deregulated because some theorized that in that case regulation went too far (I mean, planes can fly anywhere, right? Why grant route franchises?). We all know how that turned out. They certainly met the need of lowering prices on some routes, so there’s that…
Another Holocene Human
@Hungry Joe: The harm, apart from the horror, is financial.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
I’m not making this up, you know!
Another Holocene Human
@Morzer:
Lol! Since she was Jewish and aware that Hagen was Jewish, in her mind Siegfried was the bad guy and Fafnir was framed.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6: Yeah, this is why they went to the two measles shots for young kids.
I think maybe the Sears and other doctors telling parents to not worry about vaccinations may have just been telling parents what they wanted to hear when their young children screamed and cried about needles. Of course Sears and his son came up with this notion of spreading immunizations out which makes perfect sense if a) you’re a parent who can only take one needle stick at a time, so this sounds good to you and b) you’re a doctor who makes more money churning your rich, but dumb clients through the door repeatedly with healthy children, especially if you have low wage 2-year nurses or 18-month medical assistants doing the needle sticks and lollipop shtick. Since there certainly is no profit on the vaccine dose itself.
eta: of course they go further, convince parents not to get the trivalents because argle bargle, nevermind that results in MOAR NEEDULLS.
The insidious part is the parent gets hooked because they’re either a woo who thinks that injecting stuff in your body is some sort of Communist (Monsanto) plot, or they’re very sensitive to their child’s pain and will take any credible excuse to avoid it. While the Sears are in it for the Benjamins and don’t give a fuck.
And this is besides all the nonsense with “autism moms” who need to diaf. They deliberately dehumanise people with autism to soften you up for them speaking for all people with autism and shouting down the voices of adults, teenagers, and children with autism. “Autism Speaks”. How much more Orwellian can you get?
Grumpy Code Monkey
@FlyingToaster:
That is an awesome typo. “For the love of God, Montressori!”
Another Holocene Human
My mother was convinced there was “something” wrong with administering so many vaccines at once. Huh. I guess kids never have two infections at the same time and colostrum doesn’t contain multiple immune agents and babies never suck hundreds of bacterial specimens off their fists, and food doesn’t contain hundreds of distinct proteins that could trigger allergies and the fucking immune cells that make antibodies don’t operate semi-autonomously but actually all have to talk to Norman first and Norman is easily sent into an infinite loop by starship captains.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Yeah. I live in Central Texas; we get snow about once a decade, which almost never hangs around for more than 24 hours. We’ll get freezing rain a little more often than that, but again, it’s just enough to make driving hazardous and bring down a couple of power lines.
We have no grasp of how ice behaves in large quantities.
Origuy
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
My Russian visa covers a full page in my passport. Although I had to show proof of travel insurance and tell them where I was planning to stay (I lied and stayed at a private home), none of that is on the visa. Nor is the photo I had to submit, which annoyed me since I went to some trouble to get it.
JustPeachyAndYou
And if it’s not self-righteous, martyrdom-loving anti-vaxxer morons claiming religious or spiritual or whatever-the-f*ck freedom to be selfish pricks, then it’s idiots like a guy I had to work with last year, who claimed the ‘flu shot program was a pharma-backed plot on the part of the CDC to give people the illusion of health and line the pockets of the pharma companies. Herd immunity, he asserted, only worked for children, old folks, and the immune-compromised, and since he was perfectly healthy at 55, he didn’t need to get a ‘flu shot.
trollhattan
Y’all had me poking around the local Waldorf school’s website and I looked at the medical release form to see whether vaccines are mentioned, and they’re not beyond tetanus. But, at the bottom are two questions:
WTF is that? Asks I. Waldorf answers:
Thanks for clearing that up. Thanks also, too for the Tylenol. It wasn’t generic, was it?
Woo, indeed.
FlyingToaster
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Sorry about that, I guess.
@Another Holocene Human: We do space out certain vaccines based upon when they were given together — the DPT and MMR were both given at 12 mo and a pretty horrible painful week ensued. So at 4 WarriorGirl got the DPT and at 5 she got the MMR.
Doctors will work with parents if they’re worried about a specific vaccine or combination. They’ll test for allergies (as we did with WarriorGirl and eggs before having a flu shot; one first cousin with an egg allergy was the warning sign); they’ll look at previous reactions and reschedule boosters, and they take your temperature and reschedule the vaccine if you’re running a fever.
We need to find a state we can ship these anti-vax lunatics to and let them all die of preventable diseases. I nominate Kansas.
boatboy_srq
@CarolDuhart2: All that sort of thing was in my school textbooks when I was young: Salk and Sabin had whole sections in social studies and life sciences textbooks, because polio had been that big a thing. Likewise Jenner and the smallpox vaccine (though naturally never mentioned there that Jenner was improving on an Eastern (Ottoman/Chinese) medical practice). The eradication of smallpox, announced in ’79, was big news. Naturally, though, too many anti-vaxxer idjits are too young to remember all of this and likely too poorly educated in what horrors “childhood diseases” used to be. I’m not sure whether what we’re seeing from anti-vaxxers is willful ignorance, failure of imagination, or more proof of The Great Decline of Ahmurrrrrcan Eddycayshun™.
Gypsy Howell
@trollhattan:
Ha. I actually attended a Waldorf school, and I never could figure out what the fuck “anthroposophy” was.
I do want to say that I loved the school in my time there, and at one point I wanted my daughter to attend. That’s when I found out how far off the deep end they’ve gone into woo since my time. Shame really, Some of it was cool.
JR in WV
@trollhattan:
anthroposophical remedies???
What the FUCK are anthroposophical remedies???
I got a polio shot the day they became available, not the second day, the first day. Then when the oral vaccine was released, they were available in every school in the county. So we got them too!
I had fellow students whose bones bent like tree branches in the forest – they had to learn special ways to hold a pencil or pen to write, because their hands weren’t oriented like hands usually are.
My wife, when she was a child, once had dinner with a neighbor over, a man whose wife was out of town. So they wanted him to have a good meal. He didn’t finish dinner, so wife asked if she could finish his whatever… sure.
The next day he dropped dead of polio, lying in his bed and suffocated because he couldn’t breathe any more.
She was given plasma that was thought to contain antibodies, maybe that worked, maybe she just didn’t get exposed enough to develop the disease.
I had that horrendous line up of vaccinations you get in boot camp – the only part of boot camp I was greatful for. I figure I’m at least a little immune to lots of exotic diseases from that experience.
And if you didn’t feel so good after, they had us running obstacle courses til we puked anyways, so who could tell the diff from the shots!
People who don’t get their kids fully immunized, they should be injected with Guinea Worm eggs, TB and some other loathsome diseases and left ot die in a ditch, while their kids are put in a home that will protect them from illnesses that are completely controlled.
OK, maybe I’m a little over the top here. Just a little bit. But their kids should be immunized, regardless of how much pain it will cause their parents, because their parents don’t have the right to keep their kids vulnerable to diseases we have beaten!!
Ruckus
I’m old enough to have had measles, mumps, chicken pox and who knows what else because it was pre-vaccine. And I had encephalitis, probably from the measles. The Dr seemed to think it was not really an abnormal thing to see. And I’ve had shingles from having chicken pox. Also knew several people with polio, including a class mate. These people are assholes who are playing with their children’s lives and futures, as well as the lives and futures of others. It should be considered child abuse and a public health hazard to not vaccinate your kids. They want to act like they are better than the rest of us, the rest of us should be able to completely quarantine their asses. Fucking assholes.
Xenos
@Origuy: Most European countries have automatic financial payments for all children. In many cases the only way to get disqualified from them is to fail to immunize your children.
Interrobang
My sister is is naturally susceptible to chickenpox. She’s had the disease twice and been vaccinated twice, and still can’t make enough antibodies. Chickenpox is one of those lovely diseases that’s much more severe in adults than children, and she’s thirty now. People and their unvaxxed little monster disease vectors are putting her, other people like her — and everyone else — at risk.
Personally, I’ve noticed that since they started routinely vaxxing kids for Hemophilius influenzae B, I’ve stopped having the kind of sinus infections that come on like a freight train, cause green stuff to come out of multiple bodily orifices, and spread to my ears and lungs in no time flat. Last time I had one of those nasty bastards I was damn near deaf for two weeks and got pneumonia.
So there are knock-on effects even if you personally don’t qualify or need to get vaxxed for any particular thing.
Steve Finlay
Waldorf schools are very bad news. You have to be very lucky to be in a good one, because that good one has to ignore its masters in order to be any good. Anthroposophy is the name of the bizarre religious cult which owns and runs all Waldorf schools. The cult was invented by a 19th century Austrian con man named Rudolf Steiner, and was based on another infamous con job called Theosophy. Yes, that’s the Madame Blavatsky philosophy.
My ex-wife’s closest friend was an anthroposophist. She (the friend) got a relatively non-aggressive form of breast cancer, of a type which has a pretty good survival rate if treated properly. Because of her anthroposophical dogma, she refused surgery until after it had metastasized, and then delayed chemotherapy for a year or more. She died.
Tehanu
@Ruckus:
Everything you said. I’m old enough that I had measles FOUR TIMES before I was 11 years old — mercifully, no horrible complications or anything, but I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. The itching alone was godawful, but it’s (a) the risk of horrible complications, brain damage, death and (b) the risk to everybody else — well, all I can say is, I hope that woman gets the measles and has it ten times worse than I did. Not her unfortunate kids, they’re cursed enough with her for a mother.