You can tweak casein in a lab to produce something that is opiate-like, and the “no milk” people call a “caseomorph.” The theory is that during digestion, casein becomes this medium-chain protein (IIRC, I haven’t read about this theory in a long time), and in certain children with problems with their intestines, this “caseomorph” leaked into the bloodstream, went to the brain, and acted like an opiate.
The theory was proposed in the early 1990s, when I was working with autistic children, and it seemed worth investigating, so it was thoroughly investigated, and turned out not to be true.
If it were true, normal children would act autistic when you gave them opiates, and they don’t-- they may act dopey, but they don’t act autistic, even children on long-term opiate therapy for things like JRA. Mainly, though, there was not enough correlation between children with intestinal problems and autism, and children who didn’t drink milk because of problems like glactosemia, or lactose intolerance, or being raised as vegans, would still sometimes develop autism.
Still, there are parents who will try anything, so lots of autistic children are on dairy-free diets.
That’s the same line anti-vaxxers give when they refuse to participate in herd immunity, not realizing the irony that they are “participating” in it by benefiting from it just by living in a place where most people are vaccinated. They ought to all be forced to go live some place together. A couple of years of rampant measles and polio, toddlers dying from epiglottitis, children destined to spend the rest of what might end up being very long lives on respirators, children born deaf and blind from rubella, I’ll bet they’ll be begging for vaccines.
I’m actually of the opinion that it is our job to protect other people’s kids. I slam on my brakes all the time, because stupid parents let their kids ride their bikes around the parking lot here, without helmets, and any regard for the direction of traffic, or that you can’t just shoot out from between parked cars, no matter how much fun it is to go down that hill-- I swear, some kid is going to have to get hit before parents get a clue. My kid gets teased because he’s the only one who has to wear a helmet (even though it’s the law). I tell him that people who walk funny after head injuries get teased even more, and that’s wrong too, but he’d like it even less.
Not that I have an “issue” or anything.
But yeah, I fully support removing exemptions for “philosophical” and religious objections to vaccinations before children can go to public school, and I do partly for my own kid’s sake, but partly to protect other kids from their wacko parents. Obviously, there would still be exemptions for kids who are allergic, or live with someone who is undergoing chemotherapy. Funny how anti-vaxxers are the first ones to say “But, but, what about those kids-- you can’t remove all exemptions!” You never hear it from the parents of the kids with the egg allergies. They know which side the wacko extremists are on. And if their kid really can’t be vaccinated, they want absolutely everyone else who can to be so.
There are people in our society who are not protected by vaccination through no fault of their own. These include:
Children and adults with medical conditions that rule out some or all vaccinations, such as immunity system disorders.
Children and adults who have been vaccinated normally but who are unaware that the vaccine didn’t fully “take.”
Newborns
I believe that it is morally wrong to voluntarily damage the herd immunity that provides these children and adults with protection from these horrible and easily avoided diseases.
Neither are the small children of anti-vaxxers unvaccinated by choice. Most anti-vaxxers are probably vaccinated themselves-- or were as children. I’ll bet they even go to the ER if they step on a nail, and get the “tetanus shot,” without even processing the fact that it’s a vaccine. Heck, I dare one of them to get bitten by a raccoon and refuse the rabies shot.
But their children are not protected from measles, polio, etc., and it isn’t the children’s fault. I really don’t mind that the fact that my son is vaccinated protects them-- albeit, if I found out that my son was going to a camp, or something, with a below herd immunity vaccine rate, for some reason, I wouldn’t withdraw him. Unvaccinated people in a 99% vaccinated crowd are safer than a vaccinated person in a 60% vaccinated crowd.
Notice that crackpottery occurs in epidemics. Marin, Sonoma and Napa are all adjoining counties and they have among the highest rates. “119 of those affected have been hospitalized and 21 of them have required intensive care, according to the department of public health.”
Makes me glad that when I got my tetanus booster in 2008 the doc used a vaccine that also protected against diphtheria and pertussis, that is, whooping cough. Thanks, doc!
Nope. I had a fever and was placed into an ice bath, so I think that might have had to do with it. I’m also unsure what is meant by “clinically dead” when my mom tells me this. I was 16 months old, so it’s not as if I remember myself. Perhaps that was as long as I wasn’t breathing (I turned blue.) Perhaps I was just considered brain dead but still on life support. Doctors can make mistakes.
The story has been consistent throughout my entire remembered life. It’s always been 45 minutes. So I don’t think it’s grown in the telling. In some way or another, I was dead for 45 minutes.
You couldn’t have been considered “brain dead”, since brain dead means, well, dead. You can have other organs functioning, but you can’t wake-up or be revived from brain death.