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from the have-you-ever-seen-a-single-mump? dept.
Kami Altenberg Schaal has been a professional nurse for 22 years. She is pro-vaccine. She gets the flu shot every year as a requirement for her employment, and she vaccinates her family.
[...] Her entire family has been vaccinated with the MMR vaccine, and yet 4 out of 5 members of her family came down with the mumps. Her daughter is a freshman in college, and got the mumps from school.
[...] She isolated her daughter for 5 days ("I know how to isolate a patient, I'm a nurse"), and reported her case to the department of health.
All the members of her family also got booster shots of the MMR vaccine.
17 days after her daughter's exposure, her husband and son woke up with mumps.
After notifying the health department, Kami notified her son's school district as well.
What happened next was apparently something she had not anticipated. Even though her family was fully vaccinated and she followed all the proper medical protocols for dealing with the mumps, many people in her community began to blame her, including some of her medical colleagues, for not vaccinating their children (even though she had!)
[...] Finally, Kami herself woke up with the mumps. She had been tested and was supposedly immune. She had taken the booster. But she ended up getting the mumps anyway.
[...] The department of health nurse was required to send out another letter to the school district, so Kami asked the nurse if she could "put the truth" in the letter to the school district that her son was vaccinated, because she feared being blamed in error, once again, for not vaccinating her children.
The nurse allegedly replied "no."
They will not put that in a letter, because it could give the anti-vaxx movement some fodder.
So they would not protect my family by saying we did the right things, so I had to protect my family. I'm the one who has to defend my family.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 30 2019, @12:20PM (5 children)
The "spanish flu" was so deadly because doctors were giving doses of aspirin to people that would get them sent to jail for malpractice today. Aspirin overdose has symptoms similar to the flu.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 30 2019, @03:47PM (4 children)
This doesn't make any sense considering most nations just didn't have enough doctors and drugs of any kind while the high fatalities were relatively universal.
The Wikipedia entry even says as much if you read past the first paragraph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Aspirin_poisoning [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 30 2019, @04:13PM (3 children)
Just because someone "questions" some detail does not mean you can dismiss an idea. In fact, if you read it you can see they have no data, just wild speculation. The little data that does exist indicates that aspirin was used in India as far as was possible:
https://doi.org/10.1086%2F651473 [doi.org]
And acting like you expect a clean dose response when other factors like poverty, etc obviously can have huge influence on mortality rate is totally disingenuous. They compare apples to oranges.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 30 2019, @07:07PM (2 children)
I already read the reply before posting and wasn't impressed as it only accounted for the specific nations and regions that had manufacturing capabilities or the resources to import from overseas. There were hundreds of dirt poor countries and regions that just didn't have access to any of it. Even nowadays there are countries and people without the means that depend on the UN's relief programs for basic inoculations and treatments.
And to give a counter example, there's Nigeria. Between the fields having to be planted with alternative crops that take less manpower and the start of a local pharma industry based on the traditional Alabukun powder as well as the flow of people into the cities, it's pretty clear the villages didn't have any access to Aspirin and were still dropping like flies despite the presence of the brits: https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/influenza_pandemic_africa#cite_ref-ftn16_16-0 [1914-1918-online.net] https://qz.com/africa/1461436/alabukuns-untold-story-of-a-successful-nigerian-business/ [qz.com]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 30 2019, @07:14PM (1 child)
When I read this I think it sounds like the white man came and started dousing people with aspirin and giving out random injections that were killing people.
That sounds scary as hell. I would run away too, then the man-slaughterers would no doubt call me "superstitious".
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 30 2019, @08:32PM
The objective of the authorities -medical or otherwise- is to maintain law and order -that is, their place at the table- first, prevent further spread of the infection -i.e., from getting to them- second, and help the sick -aka their labor force- third. So, most of the time they'll deliver food and drugs (real or otherwise) to at least keep the locals from running away as best they can.
Of course, like any wolf guarding sheep, things get rather ugly occasionally... I believe it's called police brutality around this here parts. In the rest of the world it's called outliving your usefulness to the best armed gang in the neighborhood.
Regardless, sure. Running away is usually the best course of action in time of crisis. So, good for them I guess.
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