A pox on the anti-vaxxers

Welcome to this week's Reno News & Review.

What a weird winter. I'm quite appreciative of the warmer weather that has accompanied this damnable drought.

But what's strange about that is since it's warmer, I'd kind of expect there would be fewer colds and flus going around, but I've had the flu more than I've ever had it, that I can recall, anyway. I mean, it's been years since I had a major flu episode but this year, I've had it twice. And I did get my flu shot. That speaks more to the fallibility of the people who are putting the fewest strains in the shot to keep costs down than it does to the efficacy of vaccines. Let's just say, I hope it won't be long until there's a universal flu shot.

I've mentioned it in here before, but I'm a big believer in vaccines. In fact, I think these anti-vaxxers are the modern day equivalents to the flat Earthers. Personally, I think parents who choose not to vaccinate their children should be held civilly responsible when their disease-ridden carriers infect a child too young to get the vaccines. The civil litigation would allow the people whose religions forbid use of modern medicine to practice their faith, but would allow the rest of us some respite from the superstitious and ignorant anti-vaxxers who brought the killing blights of measles and whooping cough back among us more reality-based people.

The inevitable person will be right there to say, “Reality-based? Don't you know colds and flus are caused by viruses, not the temperature?” Au contraire, mon frere, the newest science suggests there are many factors to be considered, and that bit that your mom always told you, “Wear a hat,” has turned out to be true, as a lower temperature, around 91.4 Fahrenheit, in your nasal cavities is the trigger to get the virus—which lives in there at all times—to start reproducing. That, to me, also validates some of the seemingly irrational behaviors that other cultures do to prevent illness, like sweat lodges and swimming in hot springs when the snow is flying.

Don't take my word. Since it's on the internet, http://huff.to/1xOQAv5, it must be true.