An Anti-Vax Facebook Post Drives Me Crazy–Here Is Why

Those needles look scary but they can save lives.

Damn, it looks scary. The anti-vax Facebook post shows a baby doll with 20 or so needles sticking out of its arms and legs. Listed below the picture are 26 toxins, antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals that are said to be ingredients of the vaccinations your child should receive by the time they are six years old. Wow, those needles must be sharp and the chemicals sound nasty: Formaldehyde and Borax and Sodium Hydroxide and Many More Awful Things. What could possibly tempt you to shoot those into your defenseless child’s body?

Now I’ve got a scarier list for you:

Hepatitis A and B
Rotavirus
Diptheria
Tetanus
Whooping Cough
H. Flu
Pneumococcal Meningits and Pneumonia
Polio
Measles
Mumps
German Measles
Chicken Pox

In case you haven’t figured it out, that’s the list of diseases that all those needles and vaccines protect your kids from. And in doing so, help protect your neighbor’s kids and your kid’s schoolmates. Protect you too…adult chickenpox is not a pretty sight. You do not want to catch it from your unvaccinated kid.

And don’t tell me that even unvaccinated your child would never get any of those diseases. Don’t say that nobody gets measles anymore. That’s like the old Yogi Berra non-sequiter “No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” Kids normally don’t get measles because most kids are vaccinated. When vaccines rates go down, disease rates go up.

Sure. it would be great if we could produce immunity in our kids without injections, or if the injections and the few oral vaccines that are used were 100% chemical-free. But if you have been paying attention lately you know that vaccines are tough to create–and as we will see when a COVID vaccine is available, tough to manufacture and distribute. I’ll suffer a tiny drop of a preservative if it lets me hug my grandkids.

You may hate big pharma. You may admire the brave anti-vax stances of Robert Kennedy Jr, Kristin Cavallari, Robert DeNiro, and other celebrities. And you may think you are doing your child a service by not having them vaccinated. You are not! Now and forever, believe the science. You’ll be doing right by your kids, and doing right by all the rest of us, too.

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If They Open It, Will You Come?

How long will home cooking substitute for our favorite restaurants?

The lockdown is growing longer. We are tired of masks and disinfectants and waving through car windows. We are horrified by stories of massive unemployment, lines at food pantries (they used to call those lines breadlines,) and inadequate government response. We want it all to stop. We all want to get into Doc’s DeLorean, ride to the past, and make sure none of this happens. But that ain’t it.

I understand the cineplex owners, the sports moguls, and the restauranteurs who are saying enough is enough, let’s open our doors and go for it. Their livelihoods and the survival of their employees are at stake, all through no fault of their own. I can understand how overwhelming the situation is when the Tribune reports that even Chicago restaurant titans R. J. Melman and Rick Bayless are worried about paying the rent. I want their Leña Bravas and Di Pescaras to survive. I want the Mexican place down the block and the movie palace in the next town to survive too.

So I get the push to open things up, to assume the curve has flattened, and to think we are all on the verge of being safe. But while I get it, the real question is whether or not I believe it. Will Barb and I be willing to go for a Saturday night date at the AMC, made safer with online ticket purchase, alternate seat placement, and scrubbed down armrests, or will we say “nah, let’s catch that flick when it shows up on HBO in a couple of months.”

Will we be brave and celebrate our next anniversary at one of last year’s 5-star restaurants, keeping our masks on except to sip our Martinis and devour the spicy gulf prawns, or will we feel safer with a romantic dinner at our kitchen table as Alexa serenades us with Billy Joel and Neil Diamond? And how long will it be before I am ready to brave the sweaty fitness center when I can just go to the basement to pound away the extra carbs that are part of my COVID diet?

My decisions won’t all be rational. And you may make different choices. How strange it is that your decisions and mine may be decided by the color of the Kool-Aid you and I drink and which cable station we watch–which way you balance the health vs. economy scales.

But no matter how you tip those scales, the question of the summer is bound to be “if they open it, will you come?”

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Every Dysfunctional Family Is Dysfunctional In Its Own Way. Ozark’s Byrdes vs Offspring’s Proudmans

Asher Keddie of 'Offspring' faces off against Laura Linney and Jason Bateman of 'Ozark'. — Asher Keddie of ‘Offspring’ faces off against Laura Linney and Jason Bateman of ‘Ozark’.

Like most of you, our Netflix account has been getting a workout. After our home-cooked dinner is enjoyed, after our dishes are put away and the kitchen is gleaming, and after our Sudoku-Crossword hour has come and gone, it is binge time. Our usual pattern is to watch a pair of shows, something dramatic followed by something a little lighter to get us relaxed for bed. And lately, both of our shows have been sagas about families on the edge–but oh how different those families are!

Lots of you watch ‘Ozark’. The Byrde family starts out innocent, or at least innocent enough. Marty is a Chicago financial manager, a real numbers whiz. Wendy uses her public relations skills for various politicians. But through the passage of 3 seasons, Marty and Wendy descend into the pit of Middle America hell, dragging daughter Charlotte and son Jonah down with them. Money laundering? Got it. Drug cartels and murders-for-hire? Lots of those. FBI agents with secrets of their own? Of course.

And if you think being someone’s husband or someone’s brother is enough to save you down in the Ozarks, as Tony Soprano once said, “Fuggedaboutit.” Jersey mobsters have nothing on this batch of criminal masterminds and family f*ck-ups. And just for the fun of it the cinematography, especially on Season 2, is so dark that half of the time you can’t tell what is going–you just have to guess that it is something nasty.

In contrast, I bet none of you watch ‘Offspring.” You probably have never heard of it…I’m not even sure how we discovered it, but we are in the middle of season 2. It’s an Australian dramedy, also streaming on Netflix. Once again we meet a family, the Proudmans, a family with issues. Our protagonist is Nina a perky, thirty-something obstetrician who is as romantically incompetent as she is professionally efficient. Recently out of a literally explosive marriage she struggles with casual sex, love-hate relationships, and off-the-wall fantasies. And about her family…

Mom Geraldine and Dad Darcy have been on the verge of divorce for ages. They care deeply for each other but can’t survive together. Sister Billie has a dark past, but we love her so much we want to see her have a brighter future with partner Mick. Younger brother Jimmy falls for every flaky girl he meets, pedaling through the Melbourne streets as the Proudman’s gofer. Assorted hangers-on and baby mamas fill out the episodes. It gets so laughingly traumatic that our dear Nina flees from Melbourne to Baltimore for a few months. You really have to want to get away from it all to do that!

No one gets shot, no one gets poisoned, and the bombs explode harmlessly while paths get tangled and hearts get broken. And through it all, I know I would feel safer with the wacky Melburinians than the wicked Missourians. Nina, you can always bring your hips to me.

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Paper Memories of the Week Before COVID-19

This weekend I opened my wallet to hand a $10 bill to Barb and discovered a few folded-up receipts–receipts I had jammed into the wallet as I left each of the last 3 restaurants we had dined in. Each brought back memories of the life that was just beginning to change.

The oldest receipt, dated March 6th, was from Once Upon a Grill, a local deli-grill, where we had a headed for some Friday night chicken soup to ease Barb’s post-strep sore throat. The parking lot was devoid of its usual kamikaze drivers; the older patrons who made every visit to the undersized parking lot a challenge had started staying home.

Next was a March 10th receipt from Cooper’s Hawk. The parking lot was only half-filled and the usual crowd of singles at the winebar was notably thinner than usual as people missed out on an almost-last-chance to connect.

The last reminder was a March 14th receipt from Wildfire, our favorite go-to restaurant. That night we had no trouble getting last-minute reservations for a spur-of-the-moment night out with neighbors. The restaurant, rather than being packed Saturday night solid, was at least 2/3 empty. Barb shuddered when a passing waitress coughed into her hand and didn’t disagree when I predicted that this would be our last meal sitting in a restaurant for a long, long, time.

It is now seven weeks since I savored my last Wildfire Barrel-Aged Old Fashioned. We all know how Chicago, how America, how the world, has turned upside down since then. In comparison, Barb and I have been pretty much spared. None of our family or close friends have been afflicted with COVID-19. The losses I hear about are second or third hand or read about in the digital newspapers I subscribe to.

My medical group and my lab continue to function, and new challenges arrive to keep my mind occupied. Barb may be an Occupational Therapist without a current occupation, but the house has never been cleaner. And we are fortunate to have both kids and their families close enough for both drive-by and driveway visits. Birthday parties and Seders may have been reduced to Zooming, but we have all been healthy as we sing Happy Birthday or Let My People Go.

The restaurant dinners have been primarily replaced by home-prepared meals (we still grocery shop in person) though we have been treating ourselves to carry-out once a week. Lou Malnati’s Pizza is till the best, even in a pandemic. A drive downtown, picking dinner up from a Michelin-starred restaurant, makes a nice weekend outing. And we donate and offer assistance where we can.

Now states are beginning to loosen restrictions. Old medications and historic vaccines are being investigated as a potential bridge to a new generation of therapeutics and immunizations. Curves are being bent, if not fully flattened. In the midst of fear, there is hope. And I hope that the day will come soon when I sit in my favorite booth at Wildfire and raise my Old Fashioned in a toast to each of you who have made it with me through to the other side, and remembering those who have not.

And to the day when I am happy to see my wallet filled with more receipts and joyous memories.

For more COVID thoughts click here. Or here.

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G Rated Limericks for an X-Rated COVID-19 Time.

These limericks are all pure. It is the topic that is unfortunately obscene!

Dr. Fauci and Pritzker suggesting
That my lab should be doing some testing
But we can’t get machines
By any old means
I’m just worn out from all my requesting!

The virtual meetings are endless
While on transportation we spend less
Please use Facetime or Zoom
To dispel all your gloom
Or else you might end up as friendless.

It’s legal now to smoke chronic
The best stuff is grown hydroponic
But since COVID requires
I control my desires
I’ll stick to a cold Gin & Tonic.

Campaigning is tough for Joe Biden
But there’s something he’s got to decide in
He must choose his VP
A she, not a he
The White House someday she’ll preside in.

The downtown streets are all empty
But getting there just doesn’t tempt me
The rats are emerging
In big waves they’re converging
Don’t want them to all rub against me.

The swans on our pond are reposing
How many eggs in their nest not disclosing
They really can’t care less
About our COVID 19 mess
For them, it’s the geese they’re opposing.

We spend lots of time doing puzzles
While coffee and tea we both guzzle
The crosswords are tough
And Sudoku’s enough
To exercise every brain muscle.

If it’s in our house we have cleaned it
We have dusted and polished and sheened it
But to our great dismay
From March up till May
There is no one around who has seen it.

If you’re on the front lines we extoll you
Don’t want anything bad to control you
In your jobs please be safe
Though those face masks do chafe
You don’t need a virus to mole through.

Or if you prefer haiku. And as always, be safe out there!

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Swan photograph credit: Barbara Raff

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President Trump Disinfects America

Dear President Trump,

My name is Mary Louise Venter and I want to thank you for being the President of the United States in this terrible time. I have loved you ever since the first year of The Apprentice and I said to my husband Edgar then and there that you should be President. I was right,

You have made America great by telling everyone who real Americans are and doing everything you can to help them. You and your family have even solved tough world problems like Korea and Israel. And killing Bin-Laden.

And then the China government and those damn Chinese “scientists” had to do this to us, to our beautiful country. First, they pretended all those people were getting sick in Hu-Ha and then they scared our fake-news into panicking America. Closing all the stores over something no worse than the flu. I have never gotten a flu shot and I ain’t died from the flu yet!

I watch your very important and serious news show every night. You bring me so much joy and admiration. I turn the TV off when those other folks come on. They don’t know how to talk to real people like me and Edgar. Do they think we all want to do statistics?

When a few people were getting sick you told people all about the wonderful malaria drug that could cure them. Me and the hubby tried to get some, so we wouldn’t even get sick, but the pharmacist, someone from one of the historically black universities if you get my drift, told us we needed a prescription. I tell you, it is so much easier to get Oxy for my sore back. I read in the paper that some of the sick people who did get it lived, almost as many as who died. I knew you were right.

So I was thrilled when you told us about a new cure yesterday. We’ve got disinfectants! I went right to the cleaning closet to find them all. I checked the Purell, but that has ethyl alcohol in it. Edgar and me are tea-drinking Evangelicals, so that was no good. But then I found this bottle called Kindly that the preacher had passed out at Easter. It has a bunch of stuff I haven’t heard of but no alcohol. So Edgar just drank a bottle.

I think I’ve gotta go now. Edgar just got awful pale white. His tongue turning blue and I think a little blood is coming out from his nose. He face is red, white and blue. I think he’s dyin’ but we love you President Trump.

Sincerely,

(The Late) Mrs. Edgar Venter

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We Need Good COVID Tests and Testing. A Pathologist’s View.

Lucks is working on a new Covid test. — Julius Lucks of Northwestern University. Picture courtesy of Chicago Tribune.

As a long-time practicing pathologist certified by the American Board of Pathology in Clinical and Anatomic Pathology and the current Medical Director of a large physician’s office laboratory, I have been intimately involved in introducing a variety of testing to patients throughout Chicagoland for the last 40 years. Usually, it is a slow, meticulous project. Decisions need to be made on proper instrumentation and proper chemical reagents. Adequate lab space needs to be set-up with appropriate temperature and humidity control. For the newest tests we are introducing, even the air pressure needs to be monitored. Proper training for our technicians and technologists includes verification of competency for each new test we introduce.

And tests must be validated. We must show that test results are reproducible and precise–testing a specimen multiple times must yield the same result. We need to ensure that for the population of patients that we are testing, the test is sensitive–those with the condition we are testing for should have a positive result, and specific–those without the conditions should test negative. Our lab should get the same results as other labs doing the same test on the same specimen with the same instrument. In short, we don’t just flip a switch and hope for the best. And this is all AFTER the FDA has already approved the test.

That’s is what worries me about some of the products that are on the market for COVID-19 testing. We lack a gold standard for the “best” test and we don’t really know what the best specimen type (nasal swab, sputum, saliva) will turn out to be. And because of the (necessary) rush to market, some manufacturers and the FDA are short-cutting approval processes. When there is talk of having the thousands of small commercial labs around the country getting involved in using these unregulated tests, I shudder.

For example, this week I was contacted by the owner of one of those small labs, a businessman who didn’t seem to have any knowledge of good laboratory practice. He needed a Medical Director of his lab so that the lab could run a cheap, non-FDA approved test for COVID-19 antibodies. I made my pitch for good laboratory practice, detailing lots of things he had never heard of or considered. It became clear by the end of our 15-minute conversation that I was not the pathologist for him.

But not all is dire. There are many excellent labs, large and small, around the country. And I have hope that the brilliant minds around the country will be developing the tests we need. I particularly noticed an article about Northwestern (Go Cats!) University professor Julius Lucks at the Center for Synthetic Biology who, with his colleagues and the assistance of a National Science Foundation rapid research grant, is working on a new methodology for identifying the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I wish Lucks and his team success in developing the test, and I hope that it can be properly vetted and utilized.

Our testing needs to be better than flipping a coin. I’ve made a career out of that belief.

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More Covid-19 Haiku For Today

As we struggle in our second month, the syllable count is not quite as precise as in the first edition. Just as life will never again be as smooth.

SPRING

Though April is the cruelest month.
We mustn’t become a wasteland
Of hollow city streets.

VACCINES

Hope for tiny pinpricks
To keep the viral bits at bay
And pray that no other comes.

LEADERS
I am not a student
Of our presidential history
But some would have done better.

STREAMING

Now the greatest challenge
For homebound’s brain to decipher
Watch Hulu, Netflix, or Prime?

MASKING

Our eyes peer out bravely
Over narrow strips of cloth and paper
Looking for friendly smiles.

DISTANCE

We walk a looping road
Measuring a mile each time we circuit
Six feet is so far apart.

ANTIBODIES

At U of I Med we were taught
About the immunoglobulins M and G.
Now the whole world is learning.

EXPERTS

When EF Hutton talked
People listened to their good advice
But Dr. Fauci’s is better.

SANITIZERS

Hand washing can chafe
While alcoholic disinfectants
Leave an irritating tang.

FUTURE

We don’t forfeit our hope
We use it all up and then we remember
Hope is a renewable energy

Make life better for someone. Click here.

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Get Some Value From Your Coins. Here is How.*

See that shiny round thing at the top of the heap? That is a coin. A dime, to be precise. I accidentally came across one in my dresser drawer this morning, reaching around in the dark for my earbuds. It was the first coin I have touched since COVID-19. Heck, it is the first coin I have touched since New Years’. And maybe the New Years before that.

Once upon a time, stretching through a couple of thousand years of history, coins had a purpose. You could collect them in little blue folders. You could use them in vending machines, in arcade games, to pay your tolls. You could even use them to buy things in a store. That was all back in the day. The last time I can recall looking for a couple of quarters was to turn on the air pump at the gas station down the road, the station too low-rent to have a credit card reader installed on the air supply.

Barb still uses coins for one thing. She carries a change purse loaded with quarters for mahjong. That is, she did until we were Covid’d. Now the mahj crowd is all on-line. Paid for electronically, of course.

Stores don’t want your coins anymore. Most of them don’t even want your cash. That doesn’t bother me at all. Instead of twenty-dollar bills from an ATM, my wallet bulges with plastic. I have the credit card that gets me points for travel (ok, not a real valuable reward right now.) I have the card that gets me free checked bags on United Airlines (also a current non-starter.) There is the one that gets me a chance to buy premium concert seats a week before everyone else (tell me quick, what is a concert?) and I have the only credit card that will let you buy toilet paper at my favorite aircraft carrier-sized grocery store, as long as the card reader is at least 6 feet from the cashier. I have a PayPal account too, but never think to use it for any of my online purchases or restaurant deliveries. Venmo and Zelle are still just at the fringe of my consciousness, things to investigate on a future day when I have more time on my hands. Hah!

If you read about coins on your favorite online newspaper, you are probably browsing an article about Bitcoin. I have no understanding of how cryptocurrency operates, but despite the name, I doubt it consists of discs inscribed with “E Pluribus Unum” or “In God We Trust.” At the moment one Bitcoin is worth $7012. That would be a pretty big stack of pennies.

With the demise of the coin, I fear we will also lose some of our treasured adages. Gone will be:

A penny for your thoughts.
Not worth a plugged nickel.
Your dime, your dance floor. (Probably already gone. We miss you, Chet Coppock.)

*So what to do with the coins still rumbling around in my drawer, and probably in yours too? I have a suggestion. Count your coins. For each coin send a dollar to one of your favorite charities. (Today I am going to choose Northern Illinois Food Bank.) Send a little less if it is all you can afford. But send something. Make those coins make a difference.

Have you read COVID Haiku?

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Was My Last Blog Too Authentic? I Hope the FBI Doesn’t Think So!

When I was a straight-laced Board of Education President I would hear the Superintendant and Department Chairs talk at our monthly meetings about “authentic learning.” Everyone in the room seemed to get it, so I would put on a smile and nod my head and wonder what they were talking about. What makes something “authentic”? I finally figured it out with my previous blog.

That blog, if you missed it, dealt with pedophilia in music. Yuck, right? I admit that although I began with a disclaimer, the column was written in a tone that may have seemed too light-hearted for the topic, and I apologize for that. But I needed a change of venue; there are only so many times I can commiserate about COVID-19, tell my family story, or rip President Trump a new @#$%^&*. And part of the point of the posting, the most authentic part, was pulling back the curtain on how my blog ideas are born and nurtured. As I pointed out in the blog, much of it was lifted from an email thread with friends that arose from a comment about an earlier blog. I excerpted and paraphrased, added an introduction and a closing, and voilà, a 500-word posting appeared. It was as natural and authentic as I can get.

Not everyone gave plaudits to the blog. Some were displeased with the topic. Others were worried that I would either attract pedophiles (not so far) or wind up on an FBI watchlist (maybe I have) or both.

One interesting message to me was that I shouldn’t have characterized this as a phenomenon in music since movies such as Pretty Baby deal with similar situations, and often in a more lurid manner. I concede that older men chasing girls is present in all the arts–that’s why my illustration for the blog was a movie poster from Lolita, the novel and film whose title character has become synonymous with the old man/young girl scenario. But music is always first on my mind.

I did, at one Facebook page owner’s request, delete the posting from one page where my blog usually runs. No problem with that, it is their site and only by their courtesy that I am allowed to post there. And no, that isn’t censorship. I have plenty of other places to post.

I guess I wrote an authentic post and got some authentic replies. If the blog offended you, I hope you give us a few more tries. If you liked the post, rest assured that I will still sometimes push the envelope. I’m not that straight-laced anymore!

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photo credit: Vicki’s Nature windmill over the fishing hole via photopin (license)

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