The Hazards of Belief

More than 200 mass graves containing thousands of bodies have been found in areas of Iraq that were once controlled by the Islamic State (IS) group, a UN investigation has found.
The graves were found in the north and western governorates of Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salahuddin and Anbar.
They could contain as many as 12,000 victims, the UN report said.

(my bold)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46108248

seamus wrote: »

A American missionary has been killed by arrows after illegally landing on an island inhabited by a protected and famously hostile indigenous population;

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/1121/1012318-andaman-islands/

What fvcking moron. I wonder did he think Jesus was going to protect him and help "convert the savages" or some other arrogant bull****.

where does it say he was a missionary? it says he was a tourist

Anti-vaccine community behind North Carolina chickenpox outbreak

A North Carolina school with a large anti-vaccine community is at the heart of the state's largest chickenpox outbreak in decades, officials say.

On Friday 36 students at Asheville Waldorf School were diagnosed with the disease, the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper reported.

The school has one of the state's highest rates of religious exemption, allowing students to skip vaccination.

US health officials say vaccinating is far safer than getting chickenpox.

"This is the biggest chickenpox outbreak state health officials are aware of since the vaccine became available," a North Carolina Department of Health spokesman told the BBC in an emailed statement.

Out of the Waldorf School's 152 students, 110 have not received the vaccine for the varicella virus, known to most as chickenpox, the Citizen-Times found.

And 67.9% of the school's kindergarten students had religious immunisation exemptions on file in the 2017-2018 school year, according to state data.

It's now 40 years since the Jonestown massacre.

If you're so inclined, you can listen to Jones's final ramblings here or via the Wikipedia page. Listener discretion is advised, as they say.

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Do people normally get chicken pox vaccine? I never did and it is not part of the usual suite of vaccines given to kids afair

when my kids got it doctors were not overly concerned other than the prospect of scarring

Chicken pox vaccination is not a routine childhood vaccination in Ireland, but it is in a number of countries, notably the United States.

In Ireland, people normally get vaccinated the natural way, by contracting the disease in childhood. In children it's not a threatening disease, and one infection typically confers lifelong immunity. Some parents make a point of exposing their children to chicken pox so that they will develop immunity.

(Immunity doesn't mean that you can't get, or carry, the infection; just that you won't suffer any symptoms. So you can be immune, and still serve as a vector of infection for others.)

In adulthood it's a much more serious disease. It can be lethal, and even if not itself lethal can lead to pneumonia, meningitis or encephalitis, each of which can itself be lethal. Infection in pregnant women can produce severe deformities in the infant.

So, yeah, introducing it to a population with zero natural immunity (and, of course, zero immunisation) could be catastrophic.

I feel we're a little behind the times on this. We consider chickenpox to be "just another thing kids get". 50 years ago they said that about the mumps and measles.

To the typical/average sufferer, chickenpox generally poses little threat beyond a couple of days of discomfort.

It's the non-typical categories of people to whom it presents a greater threat - infants, pregnant women, immunocompromised people, people with lung diseases (such as CF), older people, etc.

Chickenpox is also effectively a lifelong illness, like herpes. The varicella zoster virus sits dormant in the body and can be reactivated at any time, resulting in shingles. Shingles too, can spread chickenpox to people who have not had it.

We downplay it, but there is no good argument for favouring infection above vaccination other than, "Ah sure, be grand".

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

It went up a bit more than that when the "Jeesus will save me" guy climbed into a lion enclosure a while back.

A while back being 13 years ago. See post number 1 of this thread

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Well, it's probable the average planetary IQ went up ever so slightly.

It went up a bit more than that when the "Jeesus will save me" guy climbed into a lion enclosure a while back.

Gotta love those fundie xtians, making the planet smarter just by removing themselves from the gene pool

Brilliant, you say it with such glee!!!