Fun Friendly Phobic Fact Friday.

"Science Is Fun and Useful"

by Jo

This is one of the most kickass videos I've ever seen. (1) Because this guy is awesome; (2) because the wisdom he imparts is true and important re: the viruses with the highest-known fatality rates; and (3) because this guy is awesome.

So let's do watch.

(Totally can't get it to embed AARRRRGGGHH)

Let's just start with his opening line, "There's a lot of stuff out there that's trying to kill us, right now, and today, I'm gonna talk about the ones that are the best at it. The Five Deadliest Infectious Diseases in the World."

The 10 minute 23 second video is worth your while; however, if you're all tl;dr? and you don't feel like watching the entire thing? Then let me just summarize, BumBumStyle:

• The Spanish Flu (1917-1918) was a notorious infectious disease, also known as...wait for it...H1N1. It killed more than 30 million people worldwide. ( Now you may recall that in 2009 there was also mass hysteria over a resurgence of the pandemic H1N1, a.k.a. Swine Flu to the point that you could not find face masks or hand sani in any drugstore anywhere.) Anyway, the first outbreak had a case fatality rate of 20%, and apparently, 20% (!!) is so minor in the grand scheme of things that it's not even worth talking about. Bygones. Let's move on, shall we?

• Let's take Nipah, which has an average case fatality rate of about 50% (other online sources claim up to 75%). It seems that around 1999, pig farmers started coming down with respiratory issues, and inflammation of the brain that caused hallucinations, along with seizures (and should you wonder, no, "not the good kind of seizures," according to SciShow). What.

Outbreaks continued in India and Bangladesh, the disease mainly spread by bats, at which point and in which place the death rate became around 100 mother fucking percent. Are you hearing me. 100%. 

And what's worse, you suddenly didn't need a got-damn bat or pig or a batpig or a pigbat to give you Nipah, you get could get it human-to-human. And then you'd fucking die. Dead. Deceased. Of a miserable death.

Pigbat!!

In 2001, in Siliguri, India, there were cases of Nipah where 75% of cases were traced back to people who had merely visited the local hospital. Just by being there. In that building. Just by, say, strolling in to give a loved one some pink carnations and a "Get Well Soon" Mylar balloon. Maybe a Peace Lily or two.

"Get well soon! I hope you recover from your Nipah! As if!"

Perhaps best of all, according to the WHO, there is no treatment or vaccine available for either humans or animals. Which might explain why up to 100% of the people infected die dead.

So that is of little interest to you. After all, you do not live in Siliguri, India. So let's talk about H5N1 (commonly known as Bird Flu). 

• H5N1 didn't used to be easily transmissible to humans, but then scientists went and got all 10-year-old-boy on us and asked, "What would happen if I did this? Let's see if I can do this!! Let me dick around with something! What would happen if I did that? Let's fukkin' blow shit up, man!111@@!"

Apparently, this tinkering made flu transmissible to ferrets, which have (for some reason) the same immune system as humans. Which sucks because this newly and easily transmissible Bird Flu kills at least 54% of people who get it. For fuck's SAKE, ferrets?? Good times. 

There is a government vaccine available for H5N1, but it has apparently been stockpiled and is not available to the public. Good times.

---

And I quote: "Now Hank, you're saying I'm not a Malaysian bat-handler and I've already stocked my pantry with enough Skittles and Diet Sierra Mist to get me through the Bird Flu pandemic."

So in other words, I'm golden, right? Read on, friends, read on.

• In 1967, Germany started testing polio vaccines on monkeys from Uganda. Suddenly the scientists came down with wicked fevers, vomiting, diarrhea, massive internal bleeding, and circulatory failure. Good times.

Corellation: Messing with monkey parts = contracting killer diseases. Quit poking around monkey parts, you zoophile.

After further investifuckingation, they eventually isolated the virus known as Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever.

In one year alone, 23% of the scientists exposed died. It shows up everywhere from Africa to the United States, where it kills more than 80%. EIGHTY. PER. CENT. Scientists say that Marburg Hemmorhagic Fever is "the #1 virus you most want to mother fucking got damn avoid," if I may paraphrase. Let's try to do that, people. Start by washing your damn dirty hands and then not messing with monkey parts. But I mean, there is more than one good reason never to mess with monkey parts. For one, that's a hell of a lot of bum-bum germs.

So even if you live in the USA, never handle bats, and have thousands of Snickers and gallons of Orange Crush available in your storm shelter, you are not safe from terrifying diseases.

• A cousin of Marburg Fever is the Zaire Ebola virus (a.k.a. ZEBOV). It is the second most deadly disease in the world and causes everything from vomiting to fever to failure of blood vessels, which causes bleeding under the skin (groce).  ZEBOV has a mortality rate of 83%, and in the early 2000s, it killed more than 90% of the people infected. That's a shit of a lot, people.

• As a sidenote, what do these all viruses (virii?) have in common?

All of these viruses are Zoonotic ("transmitted to humans from animals"). Especially from bats. Fuck you, bats. I hate you in the face.

For these and other reasons, let's just avoid adopting your local neighborhood Battus Vampirus, even though it may be precious and have a cute little snout and you want to name it Edward.

Back to our regularly scheduled program about shit what will kill you.

So, after reading about ZEBOV, you're probably wondering, what disease is deadlier than 90% fatal?? This may surprise you, my peeps.

The deadliest disease in the world is not influenza, is not typhoid, is not dysentery,

...but is rabies, with case fatality rate of, oh, you know, whatever, about 100%. Bygones.

What? Like, Spiffy my sweet little Labradoodle can kill my ass? Or rather, what: like, sweet little Cujo can go from this

to this

and I won't have a chance in heaven once symptoms present?

You're saying that man's best friend can harbor the greatest plague known to humanity? Even though there's a vaccine and shit?

Yes, there is a vaccine, but once you've been diagnosed with the symptoms of the disease, you face almost certain death. There is a case fatality rate of p. much 100%.

According to Science Guy, there have been fewer than 10 recorded cases EVER IN THE HISTORY EVER OF THE ENTIRE WORLD EVER of people who have EVER been diagnosed with rabies and who have EVER lived to tell about it. Ever.

Apparently it's a terrible way to go: Early flu-like symptoms, then it targets your central nervous system, and you become agitated, delirious, and have seizures. Then you will experience paralysis, especially of the throat and jaw, making it difficult to swallow liquids (which is why patients avoid water and which is why rabies is known as hydrophobia). Ma! He's got The Hydrophobe!!

Old Yeller,

Come back Yeller,

Best doggone dog in the West.

With rabies, your pulse and blood pressure will vary wildly, and along with other v. unpleasant symptoms like acute pain and mania, then you will experience coma and heart failure respiratory failure and death. 100% of the time.

And although bats have caused all kinds of other really, really bad shit (see above), they usually get a bad rap when it comes to rabies.  Everyone is all, "OMG OMG IT'S A BAT it's going to get stuck in my hair and bite me and I will get the rabies! OMG BATS!" But actually, about 97% of cases in humans come from dog bites. Out, out damn Spot!

---

This ends your science lesson for the day and your very extensive Fun Friendly Phobic Fact Friday.

Love,
Jo

Pre-K-THXBYE.

So I'm p. much hyperventilating.

Because tomorrow Maya starts at the Cesspool school again. She'll be in Pre-K this year, not just preschool. Kid is grown' up. Sniff.

However. This only means one thing to me: We will all get sick within hours of her playing with blocks, coloring with pens, or sharing books at reading time. We will all come down with horrible cold and flu (and small baby tiny precious blonde blue-eyed God Jesus please help us not catch the dreaded stomach flu or the trots or Captain Trips or Rotavirus). And the best part of knowing that Maya and we will all get sick? Is that this shall continue twice a fortnight until the end of time.

If you recall, Maya went though her first day of school before, last September. I was proud of her, worried for her, and incredibly fucking scared of the germs. Oh and of my child being accosted and tortured. But mostly, I am ashamed to admit, the germs.

And then if you also remember, as expected, Maya promptly got sick like the dog in my entry entitled "Threat Level: Midnight."

It had been a new beginning, a new adventure, something for her to look forward to: Look, back then, at my kid all excited to be a groweds-up!! Going to gee-dee SCHOOL!!

BUT. See, Maya has been on what I like to call a "hiatus," taking a sabbatical if you will (pursuing her Ph.D in Play-Doh 101 and her masters in Dirt-Sculpture-Making for the Under Five Crowd, and learning in depth the philosophy behind how to play XBox's Harry Potter and Spelunky.

She was taken out of school, as of last Christmas because (1) she wasn't loving and appreciating school (a gentler way of phrasing her frothing split-pea-spewing beard-rending sackcloth-tearing fits whenever we woke her up at 7:30 am to go to school); (2) it was very pricey and we wanted to save money, especially on a school my kid didn't love; and (3) MOTHERFUCKING COLDS IN OUR MOTHERFUCKING NOSES EVERY MOTHERFUCKING WEEK.

It was just unreal. I couldn't take another second of it. The baby, who was only 4-5 months old at the time, was sick constantly, once for six weeks straight. And she was so new and so fragile and did not handle colds well, getting so congested that I literally thought she'd choke and die in the middle of the night. Silently. Once, on our way to a restaurant to enjoy a little family time, we skipped our plans for a meal and made a quick, last-miunte detour to the local ER because she was struggling so hard to breathe and it sounded like she was fighting to get any air in and was going to suffocate any minute. I was panicking every second of that 10-minute drive. Fuck. I don't know how many people get this, but the common cold can be scary shit.

And might I interject, that since removing Maya from school before Christmas, we have not caught one single solitary cold or flu. Not even a sniffle. Not even a throat tickle. Not one. Nothing. So it's all those filthy little bastards who do not know to wash their hand after the use the potty and who do not sneeze into their sleeve and who dig for gold up they got-damn noses and and then offer my child a bite of their Bunny-Grahams.

---

I like to think now at almost a year and a half years of age, the baby Naomi is stronger and heartier (God knows this child is build like a truck (or built like my one true love, Edgar Martinez)).

Thighs like what. what. what.

And Naomi is so strong and determined and hearty and wily and mischievous and just a ball of fire than I think she can fight off colds more easily, or deal with them more easily as them come. Well, part of me logically thinks so and the other part of me is screaming, "We will have a nicely lovely playdate with some favorite neighbors and enjoy some apple juice and Goldfish and then Naomi will chew on her playmate's Sophie the Giraffe and then catch a cold and will fill head to toe with mucous and die. Dead. Dead of rhinopharyngitis."

Sorry, you played with a kids' favorite rubber toy and now you shall die of dystentery. Fuck you, Sophie.

Or that Maya will have come home from a lovely day at school fingerpainting and baking cookies and playing telephone and cooking in the play kitchen and making macaroni art, and the she will breathe in the vicinity of the baby who will instantly perish.

Because every other time that Naomi has caught one of Maya's (trillions of) colds, she got incredibly sick and churned out snot the way the Amish churn out butter and caught horrible double ear infections and sinus infections like it was her job. Every time. So yeah. Who knows if the baby is stronger now or not. Time will tell.

But still. Maya is off hiatus, is beginning Pre-K tomorrow, and will be bringing home God only knows what kinds of diseases. I can't say I'm prepared for the Onslaught of Sick, but I know it's coming. I know it's coming. I'm trying to steel myself for the inevitable, but that doesn't mean I don't feel like taking two handfuls of Xanax, 27 Klonopin, and two bottles of our very best $3 red wine to try to soothe my worries.

Light a candle for me, child.

Jo, 1. Hygiene Hypothesis, 0. Dar, 2 sick kiddos. :(

So by now you're probably familiar with the back-and-forth  Blog War!!11  I'm having with my friend Darlena. (Well, it was supposed to be a war, but we love each other too much for it to be. Not to mention I'm too right for it to be. Snort.)

Anyway, so I started off the whole she-bang, she-bang.

I set out to say that the Hygiene Hypothesis is a bunch of bunk. P. Much.

Dar countered by expressing that it's all about moderation--she's not too worried if her kids touch notoriously germy things like shopping cart handles, etc. She explained that to her, mental health is as important as physical health, and she just can't go on worrying about germs constantly. But, it was of note that her NON-Bubble-Kids did get sick their first day of preschool.

I followed up with a bunch of scientific hurble burble. People in another blog I write threw me to the dogs, saying that my OCD is not smarter than real scientists, saying that basically I'm not entitled to a dissenting opinion because OCD clouds my mind or some shit. Which I thought was a little harsh. But see, even certain scientists don't agree with the Hygiene Hypothesis, which I used as my "rebuttal."

After that, I added a blog about the emotional response that Dar's post had inspired.

And that's p. much where it ended, until today.

Until today when a new convert was born. And all the world Jo rejoiced!!

Well. I don't rejoice that her babies are slinging this virus back and forth like a snot-covered Frisbee. But you know.

So now I think Dar gets that it's a load of hooey. And as for the rest of you?

And Now I Bring You, OUR First Day at the Cesspool!

That is to say, Preschool.

So yes. Today was Maya's first day at preschool. A day I have been dreading for months.

We took a tour of the place back in early spring, and we liked everything we saw and heard, except of course for our tour-guide saying, "Yeah, your kid's gonna be sick p. much constantly." (OMG SEE RECENT ENTRIES OMG.)

We had previously asked our friends for school recommendations, then we visited the school, asked a million questions, walked about, investigated, saw Maya play and interact, asked a million more questions, and, of course, took advantage of their sign-up-now-receive-one-free-month-later deal.

We filled out a zillion forms, one of which asked us what our main areas of concern are. The options were things like:

[] Reading
[] Socialization
[] Safety
[] Creativity
[] Hygiene

And so you know what I did. I don't even have to tell you what I did. I not only checked:

[x] Hygiene

but I put about five exclamation points after it. !!!!!111@

...And then, feeling guilty, I also added a halfhearted, pathetic exclamation mark or two next to: 

[x] Safety. !! 

Because what mother is more concerned about germs than about strangers stealing their offspring?

The headmistress amusedly said, "It seems you are concerned about germs." I felt sheepish.

---

Anyway, Maya started school this morning. We were up around 7 am, a departure from the kids' usual 9:15 am wake-up.

(The baby was all, you woke me up for this shit?)

And with us we took all paperwork, her required items (change of clothes, "comfort items," food, etc.), and we were off.

Maya and her saweeeet backpack and matching lunchbox, that she picked out herself:

We drove to school...

We walked her in...

She watched, waited, hesitant, observing...

We gave her words of encouragement ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, 

and doggone it, people LIKE me!")...

And then we said goodbye.

And inside my heart, I was still all,

...but like everything I do as a mother with intense OCD, I just did it. 

I said a quick prayer to the Patron Saint of Cesspools, and I said goodbye to my firstborn.

...But, I mean, then I went home and took a nap with the baby and before I knew it, it was time to pick Maya up. 

Whatevz.

Anyway, first day: SURVIVED. I am doing remarkably well. :)  A friend of mine recently commented, "You can't know for sure that Maya is going to be one of the kids who gets a lot of colds."

To which I replied, "Too true. And I'm hoping she's not, if only just to prove that my Bubble Kid doesn't catch every germ that blows her way."

The Hygiene Hypothesis, P. Much Take Three

So Darlena over at ParenTwin wrote up her rebuttal to my post. My original post, "P. Much," was here, and Dar wrote up a fine fine piece entitled The Hygiene Hypothesis, Take Two (Take Two--OMG--twins--pun intended??).

And now that I've spent two days finger-babbling and belaboring unrelated points, alas I realized that none of what I was writing was the rebuttal-of-a-rebuttal like I had intended. For two reasons, I think: (1) that Darlena didn't really disagree, per se, with the gist of my post and my points on hygiene and why the hypothesis stinks--rather, she just explained that there are certain risks that she's willing to take, whereas I am not; and (2) that it turned into more of an introspection on my part, because of some of Dar's statements.

Crapsicle!! So much for the big war we had planned!

Anyway, I will say this, so I can at least post something to do with the Hygiene Hypothesis: What I hate most about it (and about people's uninformed spouting off about it) is that people take it too far. People wildly misinterpret it. And while I think that even at its true core, the Hygiene Hypothesis is lamesauce and ridicballs, all it basically says is that early exposure to allergens and infectious agents causes fewer incidences of asthma, eczema, and allergies in general. It doesn't say that by catching tons and tons of colds and flu as kids makes you less likely to be sick from them later. Getting a lot of colds in preschool doesn't mean you're not going to be allergic to peanuts, doesn't mean you won't get eczema, and doesn't mean you will get fewer colds later, goddammit.

Not to mention, there are so, so many other issues to take into consideration. Some people think that the increase in childhood asthma could be related to swimming pools, for baby Jesus' sake. Then you have to consider possible over-exposure to certain allergens, and the way children are fed, and where they're from, and endless other contributing factors:

"There are many other hypotheses which aim to explain the increase in allergies in developed nations, many of which are also related to the other. A few other major areas of focus in the literature include infant feeding, over-exposure to certain allergens and exposure to certain pollutants. Infant feeding covers a range of topics which include whether babies are breast fed or not and for how long, when they are introduced to solid foods and the type of these foods, whether they are given cow's milk and even the types of processing that the milk undergoes."

So, you see, there are dozens of hypotheses that aim to figure out why certain conditions like asthma are on the rise. But for some reason, people latched on to Mr. Strachan's Hygiene Hypothesis with an iron grip and refuse to let go, claiming that illness is somehow healthy, people who also refuse to use their noodles and inject a little common sense here and there.

Not to mention, there are studies that come to a completely different conclusion and argue against the Hygiene Hypothesis:

"The 'hygiene hypothesis' postulates that reduced exposure of children to microorganisms and parasites increases the probability that they will develop immunologic disorders including allergic diseases.  It has been used to explain the increased incidence of such diseases and the increase in asthma in developed countries compared to underdeveloped countries.  There is some experimental evidence supporting this hypothesis.  However, the epidemiological data are not uniformly consistent with this hypothesis.  A recent Australian study (Ponsonby et al, International Journal of Epidemiology, 2008, 37, 559–569) showed a reduction in the prevalence of asthma and hay fever without evidence for a decrease in hygiene. Asthma prevalence has also been dropping in other developed countries.  In addition, asthma is more prevalent in poor inner city neighborhoods in the US and these areas are unlikely to be more hygienic than the more affluent areas.  In addition, improved hygiene is not the only environmental difference between developed and underdeveloped more rural countries.  For example, in more developed countries people tend to live in tight buildings which are fabricated from and contain artificial materials which emit chemicals that could possibly facilitate the development of allergies. [Further,] It is in fact well established that poor sanitation practices contribute to high infant and child mortality rates in underdeveloped countries."

Another study also found evidence arguing against the Hygiene Hypothesis:

"The study by Dutch investigators at the Erasmus University found although children in day care got more colds and other infections, they were just as likely as other children to go on to develop asthma or another allergy by the age of eight. The children who went to nursery and who had older siblings had more than quadruple the risk of frequent chest infections and double the risk of wheezing in early life, with no obvious pay off in terms of later protection from allergy."

So which is it? Which hypothesis to believe? Why did those hypotheses never catch on? Why are people so quick to say, "It's OK, she's puking up last night's fish & chips now, but she's boosting her immune system with every heave!" Well, while you're trying to make up your mind, just consider this quick and simple question: Dirty hands or clean hands? Which is healthier? I remind you, we learned this in kindergarten. So mankind, quit telling me that my child will be healthier after poking the dog's butthole and then eating a bowl of popcorn.

(Or you may just want to pick up a box or two of dog bum-bum covers.)

Next up: The introspective blog that Dar's post also inspired.