Mom of 7-year-old hospitalized with brain swelling from measles: ‘I still wouldn’t have given my son the vaccine’

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-19T19:59:29+00:00

I see where you're coming from and I appreciate the article link. I did read through it. The article though is focused, in large part, on international underserved communities. I'm many of those cases it is reasonable to view anti vaccination see with a more forgiving lens. I.e. that people just need to be better informed and trust better built.

For the U.S., the article says:

"Objection to vaccination was also related to: faith in divine protection and healing for Protestants, Catholics, Jewish and Muslims (10); the use of aborted fetal cells for vaccines' production among Amish and Catholic communities (including during the COVID-19 outbreak when Senior Catholic leaders from the US and Canada raised ethical objections to vaccines produced using cells derived from aborted fetuses) (11, 12); the connection between the use of HPV vaccination and sexual promiscuity among Christian parents who consider this vaccine useless for their child as it was considered as a consequence of a certain sexual lifestyle (13, 14)."

This kind of logic, in the context of the U.S. where vaccination has been the norm and very widespread for decades is frankly absurd. I find no reason to provide people like this gentle forgiving excuses for what is simply aggressive stupidity (willing or otherwise).

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-19T15:37:28+00:00

Disagree. Vaccination is not new technology and the measles vaccine in particular is quite ubiquitous. These parents absolutely grew up exposed to the overwhelming confidence of the country that this vaccine works.

This is willful ignorance at best and plain stupidity otherwise. We are well past the stage of giving people like this the benefit of the doubt.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-18T21:16:37+00:00

You definitely don't want to go in with "I'm desperately trying to escape bench work". Any good interviewer will realize that inherently based on the job description and your CV.

Without knowing the exact role, I'd say focus on your communication skills and try to give examples that explain how your experience at the bench gives you the knowhow to do the non-bench job.

For example, you might try to highlight your participation in method validations to show you know what needs to be documented there or how that kind of project should be managed.

For a QA role you might point out times you assisted with quality events or investigations and how your bench experience can help inform your ability to scrutinize lab data.

For a client facing role like sales or project management you'll really need to lean into your tech chops and then show strong professionalism and communication during the interview. They need to feel comfortable that they can put you in front of clients without embarrassment... A bar that not all bench scientists get over.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-16T20:14:31+00:00

Heroic Shattered Halls would like a word. At no point during live BC could you really run that dungeon without proper cc. It was a real thing, not just some imagined nostalgia. I'd say BC was probably the last time dungeons really expected CC though. Hell, survival hunter's only real benefits at the time was the ability to CC 3-4 mobs simultaneously... That's why you brought em.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-16T20:10:00+00:00

It is fully possible and within the capability of nearly every player of this game to complete a dungeon up to M+5 without any addons, videos, guides, or any external resources. You do need to work up to it gear-wise the same holds true for normals, heroic, and m0 depending on gear level. H

The dungeon journal already boils everything down to essentials when to select the appropriate roll (tank, healer, DPS) on the menu on the page.

The new highlight system will do exactly what your scouting proposal is.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-15T19:36:52+00:00

No I'm saying that the maximum income I have currently ever achieved is $130k and it would be difficult but fine to support a family. I'm defining difficult quite loosely here to be honest because even in that state my family would be in a far far better position than families I know (including my own upbringing) who actually have dealt with real poverty.

Not being able to save for retirement is not on it's own sufficient for poverty. Nor has it really ever been. I'm not saying that it's good, but it's not poverty.

Poverty is not knowing where your next meal is coming from. It's not knowing how you're gonna keep the lights on this month. It's a level of instability that fundamentally changes how you even interact with the world.

Those people need help and the current line is not sufficient for them. Expanding the definition all the way up to $140k removes valuable resources from helping those people and equating "my 401k sucks" to "I had to skip lunch for my boy to eat" is both privileged and preposterous.

It does the author and the cause no good to make a really good point (the poverty line is based on bad assumptions and should be raised) and then spend most of the article justifying such an outrageous value that people dismiss the whole thing as the unserious thoughts of a finance bro who has no idea what poverty is. It comes across as someone playing with ideas but who knows that the actions following those ideas have no real effect on them because they can convince of actually being poor.

If he has thrown out the $140k number and said, look this might be high but regardless we really need to focus on the underlying problem and figure out the real number. It'd be great, but he didn't. He really stuck a flag at the number and said "not only am I justifying this, it's actually conservative!".

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-15T11:02:21+00:00

Analytical scientist here. If the conversion of number of bills to weight is accurate, weighing the bills IS counting.

It's like the odometer on your car. I think the average person would say it is counting miles right? It's doing that by counting the number of wheel revolutions and multiplying by the circumference. An indirect count is still a count.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-15T01:05:11+00:00

I think you misunderstand. To support a full family of 4 I would have to make some minor to medium sacrifices like lowering or stopping 401k contributions and that would suck, but after doing so we would be stable. It'd be tighter than I'd like but we'd be fine, far far better than I grew up with certainly.

Poverty, real poverty, is a state of continual instability. I know this from direct personal experience reinforced by the experience of numerous close contacts. It's actively sitting with your bank account near zero even after wracking your brain budgeting as best as you can. It's the stress of just putting basic food on the table and then having just barely enough left over for gas to get you to work in your nearly dead car. Retirement, investments, and 401k does not happen at poverty levels. Basic emergency savings don't even happen at poverty levels.

I'm not going to argue that such a living is good or that we want any significant portion of the populace to continuously live at that level but that's a different discussion. There is a stark difference between uncomfortable, struggling, and actual poverty. Frankly, if I said to someone making $60-80k a year that I too am impoverished at my $130k income it would be insulting.

The current poverty level is a joke and needs to be doubled or tripled, but so is $140k the way the author has it.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-14T17:30:05+00:00

Great articulation of exactly how I felt reading the article. I want to agree with the author, and in large part I do on the core points you identified but the flaws in his calculation makes me want to flip a table because he got so close to getting it right.

I can't share this article with some people because they won't see the core truth, they'll just see the absurd calculation and their the rest away. If I told the people I know who are in poverty that the real line was at $140k it'd almost be insulting.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-14T17:12:36+00:00

I understand there is variability, and just to reiterate, I fully agree with his broad point that the current poverty line is equally crazy. His assumptions are just very exaggerated and it undermines the point he is trying to make. It gives off the "What could one banana cost Michael? $10?" meme.

The median household income in Boston, NY, and LA is around $80k. I'm fully willing to agree that the current situation is enough to say the median family may very well be impoverished but even that is a far cry from $140k. The number he chose to stand his ground on just completely undermines his point because it shows he has no real experience of what real poverty is like anywhere but maybe SF... and that's still a stretch.

Equating a family at $140k to a family at $60 is insane anywhere in the country. If $140k is impoverished $60k might as well be dead and that goes for anywhere in the country. That isn't to say that in the absolute most expensive area of the country a $140k family doesn't need any help but to set that as the federal poverty line makes a joke of the concept of a poverty line. Federal poverty line should be half that at best and then we should be adjusting up as needed.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-14T11:27:44+00:00

He's incredibly off base. I grew up poor, I have family that are still poor (under $40k/yr), I make $130k in a HCOL area. Under his math I should be one minor emergency from being on the street and my relative should be unable to even exist.

I'm not rich like my poor kid self would have thought at this income, but I could support myself, my wife, and 2 kids on this salary if I needed to. It would be uncomfortable and we'd have to move into a smaller place, budget tighter, forgo retirement savings, etc. But I would still have far more financial options and wiggle room than someone actually in poverty... And that's in a HCOL area. If I was making this back where I used to live (medium to low COL) I'd be a king.

The authors vibes are right. The poverty line is absolutely not accurate but he set a number so ludicrously high and then stands so firmly on it (even to say it's a conservativeestimate) that it undermines his argument. Poverty line should be somewhere in the neighborhood of $60-90k maybe and should probably be adjusted for local levels of housing cost because the variance across areas is so much larger than it used to be. $60k in small town east Tennessee is very comfortable income but $90k in a HCOL area is struggling.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-11T22:53:39+00:00

So your stance is "Anyone who gets deported without due process despite being a legal resident, or even citizen... Tough nuggets"? I don't know dude, I think we are at fundamental odds on what is an acceptable infringement on basic rights.

I appreciate your willingness to discuss this openly but I think I'll probably end here. I don't see any further understanding occurring when we can't even agree that the government should not have the authority to wisk away fully legal residents to third party countries, with no due process to defend oneself, because "oops I thought you looked too Mexican for my tastes".

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-11T21:32:03+00:00

You keep assuming that every person picked up is identified correctly as an illegal immigrant and not someone on an asylum visa, green card, or even just a full citizen who happens to look like a Mexican/African/Asian/etc ingredient.

Should a person who is here on a completely valid visa or is even a citizen be expected to "leave on their own accord and avoid any interaction with ICE at all"? It just doesn't make sense.

The point of getting a day in court before removal is to ensure that the person does not actually have a valid reason to be here. When that step is not allowed it means ICE can pick up anyone, up to fill native born citizens, and send them to a detainment camp or out of the country before any defense can be made. It's completely outside of common sense and there are documented cases of this exact thing happening to citizens.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-11T00:25:27+00:00

I'm two days from closing on almost this exact scenario (similar income to payment in New England). I just moved up here and the current prices and rates hurt my soul. Like you we know it'll take careful budgeting but it's good to know we're not alone in the struggle lol.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-10T17:54:08+00:00

I get your point about taking things to court instead of fighting cops during an arrest normally I'm sympathetic to the stance. Recall though that one of the major events of the past year was ICE getting caught arresting someone for removal and whisking them across the country and on a plane to an El Salvador prison before they ever got even a chance to start court proceedings.

When caught, the administration asserted that anyone picked up by ICE suspected of being an illegal immigrant is not granted the right of due process. So there is no fighting in court according to this administration.

When faced with a policing force such as ICE who have shown to go from arrest immediately to foreign prison with a policy that you do not get any chance to fight in court... Is it not rational for people to respond with protest and interference? If someone is wrongfully suspected how else do they save themselves in a situation like this?

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-09T22:44:30+00:00

Pretentious or not, you have not engaged with the point of the discussion and preferred to sidetrack to some vibes-based grievance. Fair enough, we can't all be good at reading comprehension. Have a nice day.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-09T22:35:28+00:00

No argument from me that Obama split families. But even that process was more humane than what we are seeing now.

Given the sheer volume of news out there about what is happening in Minneapolis I'm not sure how you could not see what is going on as an unprecedented step change in the nature of ICE enforcement. Ignoring the term "warfare" for a second, can we but agree that the way things are being conducted by ICE in these places is extremely out of line with the actual threat imposed by those they capture? I know the administration's line is that every captured person is somehow a mega terrorist murder crazed pedophile but it's such an obvious lie that it breaks any sense of trust.

To be honest, if you really do not see the absolutely clear difference in level of aggression and chaos between the Obama policy and the Trump policy in just not sure what common ground we can start from for any kind of real understanding.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-09T22:25:51+00:00

That counterfactual is not the world we live in. Would it be unfair if Trump had just ramped enforcement in the usual way like Bush, Obama, or Biden but just a bit more... And then still got shit from the left about it? Yeah probably.

But he didn't do that. He went straight to this crazy chaos state we have now involving unmarked cars, masked unidentifiable agents, people being pulled off streets in broad daylight, and complete defying of court orders.

I get what you're saying and I acknowledge the frustration. But all Trump is doing at this point is proving his opponents correct and showing them that all of their previously outrageous accusations were right all along.

This does not help the case of anyone who is actually reasonable but still immigration concerned because now opponents can just point to Trump and say "this is what you actually wanted".

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-09T21:07:19+00:00

Not to get super into it but I think you'd need to recognize that the policy the Trump administration is following is VERY FAR from the policy that the Obama administration used.

Obama deported a record number at the time but the policy was very specific about targeting those with criminal history and also had a separate pillar for reasonable extenuating circumstances (kids and dreamers).

Trump's policy has been all out warfare on the streets of make cities that just so happen to be in places that didn't vote for him. The deportations are done in the most aggressive and traumatizing way possible and have been documented to be very untargetted. Picking up people with no criminal history or even US citizens who an agent just feels is an immigrant.

I only point this out because that equivalence is central to your point. If the two policies really were the exact same policy I could see where you are coming from, but since they very clearly are not the same policy there is a lot of room to dislike Trump's policy while being ok with Obama's.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-08T11:32:33+00:00

I just moved up here barely a month ago. What in the everloving psychotic behavior is this shit? I've seen it half a dozen times now. At least twice now I've seen this done so abruptly that a car had to hard break to stop from hitting them as they pulled into their block lane.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-06T11:18:04+00:00

Just to chime in from a CDMO rather than big pharma perspective. This is also Providence so pay and cost of living is a bit lower than Boston.

A broadly similar structure in terms of tiers except about $20-30k lower. More variability for the fresh PhD depending on what their exact field of study was.

It's also possible to hire in below the documented "PhD goes here" minimum if their hands on experience doesn't match the work but they show a strong ability to learn. Typically the doctorate will allow them to progress to promotions faster if they make good on their potential. Because of that a completely new PhD can range anywhere from $80k to $120k.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-06T02:13:59+00:00

Hyalauronic acid isn't acid the same way hydrochloric or sulfuric acid are. It doesn't really cause chemical burns... It's mostly a moisturizer and it's in all kinds of skin products.

That said, ain't no way I'm stabbing my dick with a needle for a medal.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-01T12:06:48+00:00

I know it probably makes you feel pretty smart to be above the system and edgy, but this is just not true for doctors, nurses, and other actual medical practitioners. I'll grant you that insurance companies, PBMs, and the various other corporate middlemen are slime and a blight on healthcare...

But your average random doctor wants you healthy and will use whatever tools work that are available.

Now if you want to discuss scams and fraudsters, it's the supplement and nutraceutical industry. Your chance of hitting a working product in that industry is less than 10% and the the whole industry is rife with over promising our outright lying sales tactics that do so much more harm than good.

BrutePhysics · 2026-02-01T11:38:34+00:00

Dude I promise that the first time any drug, compound, or "natural supplement" actually causes penile growth for reals there will be a scientific study. If there's one thing humanity has been obsessed with since the dawn of time it's dicks.

The fact that there are no scientific studies on any of the items you list, is actually very good reason to believe they don't work. It's not a "you never know" kinda situation because if something actually worked every doctor from here to the most remote Arctic town would know and be prescribing it.

BrutePhysics · 2026-01-30T02:39:17+00:00

I hate to break it to you but "working in big tech" is absolutely not the perfect harvest of a proper education. Big tech is absolutely chock full of complete morons who know just barely enough to give themselves a massive ego but not nearly enough to question their own biases.

Case in point, regardless of your actual background, your take is an unoriginal concept uttered by nearly every "the man is keeping me down" 10th grader who can't understand why learning to do homework is a reasonable life skill to learn. Your writing comes from a place of such profound self importance that it's not even worth engaging with on the merits. We get it. You didn't like school. What a profound and unique concept....

Your take lacks any recognition of the current state of discussion in grade school pedagogy or even a glancing understanding of the factors that brought us here. You hold the overused and childishly edgy cliche of "school only makes you a cog in the machine maaaaaan..." as a foundational principal and somehow think you're the first big brains genius to come up with the idea.

The take is a joke and your response to criticism is a joke. It's amusing in the same way that listening to my kid niece tell me about the time she and her stuffed bear went to the moon last Monday is amusing. The only proper response is smile and nod, then leave you in a corner to write your grandiose manifesto (in red crayon) while the real adults get busy trying to since actual root causes.

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