An entry on autism and the Amish...

Interesting. I have a bit of snide commentary towards certain people's lack of reasoning skills (not the person I'm linking to, if you're curious), but I'm too tired to make it come out right.

Ugh. I shouldn't've read this....

More than I needed to know about tapeworms

And then, of course, this sets off a set of dying important questions - what's a tapeworm's lifespan? If you get infected (is that the word?) by a tapeworm, does it ever go away sans treatment? Why do people get so squicked out by parasites? We don't believe that getting a cold is a sign that our deity hates us or that we're unclean, so why do we think that people'll judge us if our kid gets lice or (apparently) worms?

Most patients don't experience any of these symptoms. You probably wouldn't know you had an infection unless you found stray worm segments—called "proglottids"—swimming in your stool.

What?

So does this mean that if you're not showing symptoms, it's probably harmless because it's not harming you? Does this mean that I could be infected (and uninsured) right now?

Oh dear.

And all the time, I'm remembering an article I read a while back about how a lack of benign parasites seems to be correlated with an increase in autoimmune disorders. So I have that to think about at the dentist. Joy.

*looks up information on tapeworms*

Well, I don't eat raw meat and never have, so it's unlikely I have a tapeworm in me from raw meat. Which is good, those suckers can live decades, apparently.

And I doubt I accidentally ingested shit as a child (though, who knows...), but even if I did, Hymenolepis nana is usually self-cleared by adolescence. That means it goes away by itself, right?

And I'm pretty certain I haven't seen anything crawling around after I poo, though now I'm going to actually be paranoid about that, aren't I?

So this is unlikely. Right?

Now, it was pork tapeworm that I was told was featured on House, right? Because that stays in the brain (ew!) and it doesn't trigger an immune response until the tapeworm dies. So at least people who make troubling comments can be ignored.

I need to get out and about and think of something *other* than my imminent demise from (hopefully) imaginary tapeworms.

Let's just invade Canada, why don't we?

Rudmin got interested in these war plans in the 1980s when he was living in Kingston, Ontario, just across the St. Lawrence River from Fort Drum, the huge Army base in Upstate New York. Why would the Americans put an Army base in such a wretched, frigid wilderness? he wondered. Could it be there to . . . fight Canada?

The quotes in this piece are just wonderful. It *says* it was written up in December last year... but one can't be too certain it's not just an April Fool's Joke, I suppose.