My theory is that the humidity of Queensland drove this lady to madness first and then book writing second. Uh huh - a tragic condition alright, and we should all feel sympathy for this person. That she managed to use actual words to write a book at all in her condition is amazing, and should be applauded.
A vaccine that prevents this horrible disease should be our top priority!
I have an older friend in a wheelchair because of polio.
To me this is all as nuts as Christian Scientists refusing basic medical treatment.
I actually had an anti-vaxxer try to argue that the measles isn’t such a bad disease, because look at The Brady Bunch episode where all the kids had it, and they just stayed home from school, and played games, while their parents spoiled them. :smack:
I meant she was at an advanced age to have a febrile seizure. That’s why the parentheses. Not an advanced age to have strep. I had strep last year, when I was 47.
If you want a weapon against the anti-vaxers on Measles;
“In 2013, there were 145,700 measles deaths globally – about 400 deaths every day or 16 deaths every hour.” (I added the comma in the number for our American sensibilities.)
So yeah, only 140,000+ people DIE from it each year. Harmless as they come. :rolleyes:
Well gosh, don’t you know those deaths are really caused by poverty and malnutrition? How come we aren’t eliminating those factors instead of injecting those little babies’ bodies with CHEMICAL TOXINS!*
In other news, there’s been a major nutbag eruption over the media’s cruel, cruel treatment of Rand Paul due to his antivaccine remarks. Well-known conspiracy loon Alex Jones (on whose show Rand Paul appeared in 2009, comparing mandatory vaccination to “martial law”) experienced unfortunate side effects to a broadcast on CNBC:
"Alex Jones defended ally and “listener” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) from media attacks over his controversial vaccination remarks by lashing out at a CNBC anchor who challenged Paul. Jones, who helped Paul get elected to the Senate in 2010, called CNBC’s Kelly Evans a “whore” and “pimp” for “signing on to a system of murder, you little piece of trash, tramp, filth, scum woman!”
Let’s hope Alex doesn’t get wind of what LavenderBlue and Kolga are up to.
*sorry, channeling antivaxers, it happens when I least expect it. 
Sometimes you even get to stay home from school for the rest of your life !
Alex Jones is a complete coward so he would do nothing more than froth and spit. Who loses against people with even 1/2 brain’s worth of knowledge on the facts and he is the guy who thinks he is winning because someone walks away from his tauts rather than start trouble. (see his behavior at Ground Zero for examples).
They’ll just point to their deceptive, loathesome graphs and claim that measles was going away on its own.
It ridiculous. The anti-vaxxers are presently trying to claim that vaccine ‘shedding’ is what caused the outbreak.
Funny thing is - the link that vivalostwages posted - shows some of these nutballs think that page supports their position:
And there is a link to the same page you linked to. What WHO actually says is:
I’m not sure how one can gloss over all the bad things on that page to think that Vitamin A can prevent measles. Next thing you’ll hear is the saying their kids don’t have AIDs - so they are safe.
While it certainly is nice that vitamin A can cut death rates by 50% - if only there was another way - scientists should come up a shot that can prevent deaths in 95% plus cases after one shot and almost all after two.
The saddest thing I’ve heard recently (on freakonomics podcast) - I don’t have a cite - is that when presented with scientific evidence about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines - antivaxers become even more hardened in their beliefs and are even less likely to vaccinate afterwards.
What hope do we have?
You don’t try to convince the anti-vaxxers. They are essentially emotionally invested to the point where they have made decisions about it - decisions which could have put their child (and other children) at risk so they try to justify it by all means.
Just make sure that the ones sitting on the fence see who has all the facts and who is just batshit crazy.