Vaccination and Stupidity and Mommy Friends

Oh, good heavens.  The delay-vaccination-because-of-some-quack-book mom?  I thought her child had finally gotten his MMR.  But he hasn't.

Cue RAGE.

Although we haven't (yet) had measles in our county,  I have to wonder if her stupidity is endangering my baby- who is too young to be vaccinated for MMR.  Because, make no mistake about it, this is nothing but stupidity.  It's not based in fact, or research, or even the most tenuous understanding of epidemiology. It's based on the idea that a quack who wrote a book is apparently more informed than 40 years of data and CDC research.  You know, the CDC, that dangerously inexperienced batch of undereducated epidemiologists.  (Do you know how hard it is to get a job at the CDC?)

I think that the morons  people who think vaccines are dangerous suffer from one or more of several patently wrong misconceptions:

But Are You Sure?

I recently told my mom a true story: a friend's sister-in-law found out she was pregnant... at 37 weeks. With her third child.

"She went to all these doctors," I said, "and they asked 'Is there any chance you could be pregnant?' and she said 'No.' And not one of them did a test! Not ONE!"

"Once I saw a woman," my mom said, "and I asked her, is there any chance you could be pregnant? She said no. So I asked, well, have you had a hysterectomy, or are you using any birth control? She said no. Then how can you be sure? I asked."

"'I'm a nun,' the woman said."

So there you have it. The only two ways to be really, truly sure you're not pregnant.

One More State To Cross Off The List:

FLORIDA.

Of course, my home state tried to make it a criminal offense to not report your miscarriage.

The South. Lord love 'em.

In related news, my dear spouse has been trying to decide whether to apply for academic jobs this year, or not. He called me yesterday from work. (Yes, he works every Sunday until I go back to work full-time. Why yes, it does suck.)

"Guess who wants a junior faculty member in [the exact thing I do] studying [the exact thing I study]?" he said.

And apparently the universe said YES, because it's a gorgeous, small, teaching school that one of my best friends from high school attended, exactly 30 minutes from my parents' house. Hell yes, he's applying for academic jobs.