Marvelous Measles

December 14, 2011 By 30 Comments

Alright, this is going too far, even for an anti-vaxxer:

From Reasonable Hank, who explains that Stephanie Messenger is an anti-vaccination activist in Queensland, and part of the Australian Vaccination Network.

Filed Under: Medicine, Pictures 30 Comments
  • Mogg

    Yes, unfortunately we have nutjobs here, too. Then again, Queensland is a bit… special.

    • UrsaMinor

      We have states like that, too.

  • FO

    Just when I thought “Hey let’s mode to Melbourne!”
    Is it so bad down there?

    • FO

      *move

      • Mogg

        Melbourne is the best :-) It’s also about 2000km south of Queensland, a place we tend to visit only when we want to get sunshine in winter. If you come to Melbourne, can you teach me to dance?

  • Noelle

    I have family in middle of nowhere Australia, and they say parts of the country have 3rd and developing world conditions and diseases. This would not be the place to forego any vaccine. Measles can have a high mortality rate in the developing world. Maybe it should be called, how Melanie killed the outback. Or, who wants encephalitis? Really now, aren’t the huge poisonous spiders enough?

    Is marvelous spelled different in Oz?

    • Mogg

      No doubt Melanie lives in the suburbs somewhere, rather than out in the middle of nowhere. And yes, marvellous has two l’s here. That’s one British spelling that is still the ‘correct’ version here, although there are quite a few words where either the British or American variant is acceptable.

    • Mogg

      Oh, yeah, there are poisonous spiders, too. And snakes. Even in the suburbs. In fact, I was looking at my woodpile yesterday and thinking that the spider webs look nastily like the work of a redback. I should do something about that.

      • UrsaMinor

        Snakes, spiders, jellyfish…I’ve heard that it’s safest for tourists to assume that everything down there is lethally venomous and avoid all contact with nature.

        • Mogg

          Bull sharks. Paralysis ticks. Crocodiles. You don’t need to avoid all contact with nature, but it’s a good idea to go into nature with someone who is familiar with it. That includes the beach – unfortunately we get lots of tourists who drown because they don’t know about lifeguards, are not good swimmers and can’t identify dangerous conditions.

          Fortunately, down south we don’t get paralysis ticks, and crocodiles and poisonous jellyfish are things way up north. We do still have snakes, though. Lets just say I avoid walking my dog by the local creek during summer.

        • wintermute

          As Terry Pratchett points out, the only non-venomous animals are “some of the sheep”.

          • Mogg

            Love that scene :-) Love that book, in fact.

        • Yoav

          Killer spiders, jellyfish, crocodiles , drop bears and you can’t even trust the damn plants not to kill you.

      • T

        My best friend is half-Australian. She said there were loads of car accidents that happened because huntsman (sp?) spiders would crawl up behind the sun visor and fall into the driver’s lap when they lowered the visor. When I went to visit, I just wore my sunnies and didn’t lower my visor once!

        • Mogg

          Yep. If you see a car veer across three lanes of freeway traffic into the emergency lane and all four doors explode open like a grenade went off, there’s probably a huntsman involved. They’re not poisonous, but they are big. I think they’re quite handsome, my cats unfortunately think they are quite tasty.

  • Anne Peck

    I know several people who have had measels, they didnt think it was so marvelous.

    • UrsaMinor

      Yes, but your sample is biased. You only talked to people who survived it. Who knows how the fatalities felt about it?

      I have similar opinions about influenza. It didn’t kill me, but I’m not recommending the experience to anyone. Go, people! Get your vaccinations! All of them! Yes, I’m talking to you!

      • Custador

        Bloody right – I didn’t die from flu, but for a while there I really, really hoped I would. I’ve not missed a flu vaccination since.

      • Anne Peck

        One of my friends was left infertile from measles. My ex-husband had it, and mumps, you bet our kids got their MMR.

  • Rob Jase

    Is there a sequel? ‘Melanie’s Marvelous Death from Complications” maybe?

    • Mogg

      I knew someone who died of complications of chickenpox. I was extremely sick with it and have scars to this day despite months of treatment post-illness with acid skin cream to minimise them.

  • Custador

    I am raging with the force of one thousand suns right now…

  • zach

    Thank you, stupid people, for targeting children with your ignorance always.

    • UrsaMinor

      On the other hand, it saves us atheists the trouble of having to eat all those babies in order to defuse the population bomb.

      • T

        Whew! Thank goodness. More room for chocolate!!!

  • Schaden Freud

    Trying to infect children with stupidity is a low blow, even for the anti-vax nutjobs.

    • Mogg

      “Train up a child in the way (you think) he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”. It’s a technique which has been favoured for its success for thousands of years.

      • UrsaMinor

        Yup. And it works most of the time, too, if your training methods don’t kill your child.

      • Schaden Freud

        Yes, it’s logical when you put it that way.

    • Len

      Can you vaccinate children against stupid?