on the upside: i am experiencing a wholesome old-fashioned tearing-up emotional ‘omg look what we humans did holy fuck we’re not all bad’ reaction to photographs of the Actual Vaccine. trucks pulling out! crates being opened! planes being loaded! vials steaming gently as the lid is lifted! first shot going into first ICU nurse arm! 😭😭😭😍😍😍✨💪💗 i fucking love science, etc., etc.
Tags:
#they started vaccinating people in Waterloo Region today!! #vaccines #proud citizen of The Future #covid19 #needle tw #illness tw
(hat-tip to @slatestarscratchpad‘s link post, though I’d been hearing off-hand mentions of this for a while and had been meaning to look into it)
“The pathogen stress theory is also hard to swallow in a way that evolutionary psychology arguments often are—especially for those who fancy the idea that we are in control of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.”
I don’t know, I don’t really feel upset by “the reason you don’t grok liberal mindsets is because you’re a germophobe”. It sounds a little weird, sure, but not upsetting. I think I just file it under “interesting if true”.
(It’s not like it’s going to cause germophobia to become low-status: it’s already low-status, as I am reminded every time sick people act like [me wanting to arrange things so we don’t touch the same objects] is an unreasonable burden on them.)
Mind you, I mostly don’t feel subjectively in control of my political beliefs, so perhaps that makes it easier to swallow.
Tags:
#my brother and father had a cold recently so the unreasonable-burden thing is fresh in my mind #why no I do *not* want to play Go Fish with you #especially not during a dinner to be eaten with one’s hands #this post technically qualifies as #oh look an original post #but is closer to the spirit of #reply via reblog #illness tw #(and for link picture) #needle tw #bugs #oh and one more category tag seems relevant #our roads may be golden or broken or lost
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.
But something else happened.
Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half.
“So it’s really been a mystery — why do children stop dying at such high rates from all these different infections following introduction of the measles vaccine,” says Michael Mina, a postdoc in biology at Princeton University and a medical student at Emory University.
Like many viruses, measles is known to suppress the immune system for a few weeks after an infection. But previous studies in monkeys have suggested that measles takes this suppression to a whole new level: It erases immune protection to other diseases, Mina says.
Tags:
#illness tw #needle tw #biology #the more you know
Brinens and Things 