Exposing the woo conspiracy: Viera Scheibner, micropaleontologist

This video has apparently already been reposted all round the Internet. I make no apologies for also posting it here. It features Viera Scheibner, who isn’t a medical doctor or immunologist but has a PhD in a specialised branch of paleontology. She has nothing good to say about vaccines, despite being about as qualified in the field as the rocks she once studied. She thinks that all vaccines are dangerous and infectious diseases in childhood are good. The body wants to catch infectious diseases, and you don’t die of them, you die of the vaccines you had earlier. I kid you not. Hear this woman – who sounds like a female Dr Strangelove, but don’t imagine all loonies are this easy to spot – propound dangerous nonsense as absolute truth, rooted in incontrovertible fact from her wide research (which we don’t seem to get to see, oddly enough).

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PathogenPosse Profile: Chickenpox

One of the recurrent myths associated with a number of illnesses generally contracted during childhood is that they are relatively benign, and it’s better to get them over with while you’re young as when you’re older it would be so much worse.

Did you know that there’s at least one “childhood” illness where you can have your cake and eat it? Get it “over with” while you’re young (although at best you’ll almost certainly have at least one scar for life) and have it so much worse when you’re older?

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to proudly present: Varicella Zoster, aka chickenpox/shingles, or Type 3 Herpes. Yep, it’s one of the Big 8 (a term that was used to describe the multinational accountancy firms when I was a student, and as an accountant I find this strangely appropriate).

One very widespread popular misconception is that chickenpox is a benign disease. It can in fact entail some nasty complications, especially in people who are immunodeficient or exposed to smoke. With luck, if the unbearably itchy spots don’t get infected after scratching, any remaining scars will be in places not usually exposed to public view. If it’s on your face, well, sucks to be you. It’s there for life (I still have my scar, but no-one gets to see it unless they’re very, very nice to me. Lucky me). Current wisdom is that the disease is usually less severe in children than in adults; however, please note that “usually” is not the same as “always”.

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