Quickies

Quickies: From misogyny to feminism, polio vaccine switch, and the myth of Black Confederates

  • I was a Men’s Rights Activist – One man’s journey from misogyny to feminism. From Amy.
  • The campaign to eradicate polio takes a giant step forward – “Mathematical modeling suggests there will likely be at least one outbreak caused by Type 2 vaccine viruses after the switch, Dr. Stephen Cochi, a polio expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters in a briefing last week.” From Buzz Parsec.
  • The secret history of the photo behind the Black Confederate myth – “A 160-year-old tintype depicting Andrew Chandler and his slave Silas, both in Confederate uniform, has long been used as evidence that slaves willingly fought against the army that aimed to free them. Following the national backlash against Confederate iconography, Silas’s descendants seek to debunk this once and for all.” From Criticaldragon1177.
  • My inability to make eye contact does not need to be “fixed” – “But what if it’s difficult for a person to maintain eye contact? Should that person be judged as insincere, untrustworthy, or socially flawed? For those with autism who struggle to hold someone’s gaze, these assumptions are often made. And, as someone who’s suffered as a result of these assumptions, I want people to understand why they’re so damaging.”
  • Featured image

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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5 Comments

  1. The eye contact story is interesting. I have the opposite problem. If I don’t pay attention to what I’m doing, I’ll just stare at the people I’m talking to with a blank expression making them uncomfortable. It’s really good for first impressions! :P At least it allows me to figure out who’s insecure. I combat this I have a 5 second rule of staring.
    For the record, I believe I’m neurotypical, and know that I’m a white man.

  2. Just for my own interest, I keep a spreadsheet of polio case counts, updated weekly from http://www.polioeradication.org.

    Cases reported so far this year: 13 (10 wild polio, 3 vaccine derived polio)
    Cases reported at this time last year: 22 (22 wild, 0 vaccine derived)
    Cases in all of 2015: 106 (74 wild, 32 vaccine derived) (The article above says 74 and 37 – maybe they have more accurate data.)
    Cases in all of 2014: 415 (359 wild, 56 vaccine derived)

    So 2015 was a huge drop from 2014, and so far 2016 is better than 2015, but not by such a large percentage as 2014 to 2015.

    However it hasn’t all been downhill – the wild polio numbers in recent years:
    2005: 1979
    2006: 1997
    2007: 1315
    2008: 1651
    2009: 1604
    2010: 1352
    2011: 650
    2012: 223
    2013: 416
    2014: 359
    2015: 74

    It would have been reasonable at the end of 2012 to expect eradication of wild polio by 2014 or 2015, but the numbers went up.

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