Bumps, Mumps, and the Plague
I've have somewhat been keeping up on the mumps issue in the news. Apparently this is a pretty hot issue. When I mean keeping up with I mean that I read the headlines and maybe catch the first paragraph of an article or two. Okay. . .so that's borderline 'keeping up' but it's about all I can offer with my schedule. I guess my main concern with this outbreak is why. I haven't really found anything that has clearly stated why all these people that should have had mandatory vaccinations when they were kids are now contracting the mumps. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough for the answer. My concern is Geneivie. She is exposed to tons of kids all day long and then, lucky us, she is kind enough to come home and share all of those wonderful little germs with us. Have you seen kids in day-care lately. Snotty noses, dirty hands, sticky fingers, and most of them in their mouth. It's really gross. From what I read on CNN.com the real threat has been to college students living in close quarters. . . ie . . the dorms. So you can probably see my concern here. Being around a bunch of dorm living students daily and then coming home to a germ-infested 3 yr old is just breeding ground for trouble . . . or I guess something like the mumps. I just read on CNN.com that this mumps outbreak is the worst in 20 years and if you haven't heard it's in spreading rapidly in Iowa . . . oh the joys of the state just to the immediate North of us. (I actually found that picture when I image googled 'mumps,' haha)
So the other concern I have is that the bubonic plague was discovered in someone in LA. Okay now I'm not exactly up on my diseases but I really thought that was some ancient disease from way back
when. And, people contracted it from fleas because they had lots of rats in the street and lived like pigs (actually . . . little know fact. . . pigs are actually very clean). So you can imagine my surprise to find that it was in some woman in LA. As I read further I discovered that this is really not that uncommon, that in fact there are about 10-20 people that contract the plague each year, mainly living in rural areas. So the decision. . . die of smog or die of bubonic plague? (actually the bubonic plague is not lethal but if left untreated can become pneumonic plague with can be lethal) Either way I'm not found of either idea. I think I'll just live under a rock for the rest of my life. Although I'm sure that in the next 20 yrs they will be telling me that living under a rock causes cancer. So, either way I'm screwed!
posted by amanda @ 7:17 PM
1 Comments:
i think an issue too is that many people are 'skipping' over there shots now a days...
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