The only rationale I can come up with is that he was immuno-compromised due to the kidney failure and cancer returning. House took off his mask and everyone let down their guard when the dad showed those black spots on his back which confirmed Rickettsialpox. They don’t really explain it and the urgency they take in treating the daughter makes me guess that the writers took creative license and made Rickettsialpox a fatal illness.
as an infectious disease doc specializing in viral diseases the most obvious flaw is that House is old enough to have been vaccinated against smallpox! geez. or is he younger than I think? I expect him to be 50 yro and US citizen. Plus being an MD infectious disease doc he should have been vaccinated.
what a huge plot hole…
another glitch on the writers part. but if one is immunocompromised a vaccinia vaccination could lead to problems. we went through this in the 80’s when the military wanted to vaccinate everyone. it caused a big stink because of the possibility that gays in the military could be compromised. remember this was the beginning of the aids epidemic.
But the immunization is not as effective after a span of years. It’s still a big risk.
I thought this was an excellent episode, what I saw of it. (power outage :mad:). What happened with Cuddy at the end, is she still mad from last week or are things good between her and House?
She’s mad.
She was warm to him when she thought he might be dying in the isolation chamber, but cranky later with good reason since she had found out about the lying re: the lab test done under someone else’s name in a previous ep.
There is T cell memory with this vaccine, so risk is minimal to non-existent.
Finally saw this one last night. The soles of the feet thing was never answered - and now I’m going nuts because my son asked me what eschars are-- turns out that, in rickettsialpox, they are basically the scab left over after the victim is bitten! By some kind of mite! I can’t wrap my brain around how mites could survive a couple hundred years in a jar of scabs.
Well, would a theoretical case of small pox on a Dutch slave ship in the Bahamas a few hundred years ago be the same strain that was being vaccinated against in the USA in the mid 1900s?
I just watched this last night and the scene that made me stop and rewind to see if I was losing my mind was House crawling onto the bed to give CPR to the dying/dead man. His hands are taped to the sleeves but he’s wearing his own running shoes and the pant legs of his “protective” suit are wide open.
I saw that too. I couldn’t believe nobody caught that.