{"id":8992,"date":"2014-01-22T11:17:07","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T19:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=8992"},"modified":"2014-01-22T13:46:40","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T21:46:40","slug":"part-of-the-hurd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=8992","title":{"rendered":"Part of the Herd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-5009\" alt=\"userpic=observations\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/userpicobservations.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"72\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" \/>This lunchtime news-chum post might also have been titled &#8220;It Takes a Village&#8221;, for it looks at the effects of choices you make on the larger community:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The (Non-)Shot Heard Round The World<\/strong>. Jenny McCarthy, along with other folks, have been making the news for eschewing the use of vaccines because of a misguided belief that they create autism or other such problems. The problem with this belief, of course, is that it is wrong, and is hurting society as a whole. Don&#8217;t believe me? David Bell pointed me to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/article\/115551\/jenny-mccarthy-anti-vaccination-movement-blame-whooping-cough\">this article from the New Republic on how the Anti-Vac movement has resulted in more and more adults getting Whooping Cough<\/a>. If you&#8217;re more visual, then look at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/hiltzik\/la-fi-mh-antivaccination-movement-20140120,0,5576371.story#axzz2qyMwriMo\">this LA Times article, that illustrates the toll of non-vac in a single graphic<\/a>. As that article notes: &#8220;The lesson of all this is that vaccination is not an individual choice to be made by a parent for his or her own offspring. It&#8217;s a public health issue, because the diseases contracted by unvaccinated children are a threat to the community. That&#8217;s what public health is all about, and an overly tolerant approach to non-medical exemptions &#8212; and publicity given to anti-vaccination charlatans like Wakefield and McCarthy by heedless promoters like, sadly, Katie Couric, affect us all.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>It&#8217;s Too Darn Hot.<\/strong> Vaccines aren&#8217;t the only health treatment that can affect a community. How about that aspirin or ibuprofen you take? <a href=\"http:\/\/news.sciencemag.org\/health\/2014\/01\/fight-flu-hurt-society\">It turns out that taking a fever-reducing medicine during the flu actually prolongs the flu, and helps you spread the disease<\/a>. Basically, lowering your body temperature may make the virus replicate faster and increase the risk that you transmit it to others. A new study claims that <a href=\"http:\/\/rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/281\/1778\/20132570\">there are at least 700 extra influenza deaths<\/a> in the United States every year because people suppress their fever. As a result, if you have the flu and you&#8217;re taking medication &#8220;it may actually be more important that you stay at home because you could be a greater risk to others&#8221;. In other words: When you&#8217;re sick, stay home!<\/li>\n<li><strong>How We Look<\/strong>. Another example of herd mentality is body image and fashion trends. There are many that argue that society has an unhealthy obsession with body image due to the fashion industry&#8217;s emphasis on presenting unrealistic bodies to us. There have been a few retailers that have attempted to buck that trend, such as Dove and their &#8220;Real Beauty&#8221; campaign. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/01\/17\/aerie-unretouched-ads-photos_n_4618139.html\">The latest one in the news is American Eagle Outfitters, which has stopped retouching the models in their ads<\/a>. That&#8217;s fine by me &#8212; I much prefer looking at real people of all shapes and sizes, with imperfections and flaws. My belief is that there is only one thing needed to make a person beautiful: a smile.\u00a0 A related item also makes me smile: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/style\/article\/Hair-trends-Never-too-young-to-go-gray-5153172.php\">evidently the new hair trend is to not only embrace your grey hair, but to recolor your hair to grey<\/a>. Evidently grey is the hardest color to achieve. As I just turned 54, I&#8217;m starting to deal with grey hair &#8212; but so far it is mostly in my beard, and not on the other hair on my head.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This lunchtime news-chum post might also have been titled &#8220;It Takes a Village&#8221;, for it looks at the effects of choices you make on the larger community: The (Non-)Shot Heard Round The World. Jenny McCarthy, along with other folks, have been making the news for eschewing the use of vaccines because of a misguided belief <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=8992\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-8992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","tag-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8992"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8996,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8992\/revisions\/8996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}