I read a news story about a guy who died from rabies after receiving a kidney transplant. Although nobody was aware when he died, the donor of the kidney had contracted rabies after being scratched by a skunk several weeks before he died and his organs were harvested.

I got curious about how the donor got scratched by the skunk, but instead only found this article from August, which informed me that the U.S. has a rabies outbreak, and has more deaths from rabies in the last year than several previous years…

Not sure if people were already talking about this outbreak, and I just missed it? It’s been a bit of a weird year, and there’s been a lot of crazy shit to keep up with.

Anyway, this is also how I ended up reading the sentence informing me some people are worried dogs are getting autism from vaccines.

Outbreaks of rabies seem to be rising across the U.S., CDC surveillance shows

    • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      I had a hairdresser once that told me about her young daughter getting scratched by a raccoon. I asked if she took her to get the shots and she said “no, she’s fine”. We’re all doomed.

    • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      We humans are victims of our own success. Vaccines work so good at eradicating diseases that people haven’t been exposed to the horrors that we used to. My family has a story about someone loosely related who contracted rabies and was chained to a tree until they died a few weeks later. This was no more than a generation before me!

      People really aren’t scared enough of diseases.

      • ngdev@lemmy.zip
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        24 hours ago

        im calling bullshit on whoever told you that. im pretty sure ive heard that same story. also, rabies causes fear of water so theyd likely die of dehydration way sooner

        • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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          22 hours ago

          Checking back in.

          Rabies sufferers die from encephalopathic hemorrhaging way before dehydration. So I guess I’m not remembering the timeline accurately.

        • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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          23 hours ago

          Eh, maybe. But it served its purpose and scared the shit out of me. I’m curious if rabies sufferers will dehydrate themselves to the point of death. Another wiki hole, here I come!

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      People are far more scared of inconvenience than death.

      Most people would rather put their pet down than have to care for them in some new way that requires money and attention, and this is what people who don’t understand autism think it is, like they will have to strap their dogs into a special chair and spoon-feed them.

      Same with people. Most ignorant anti-vaxxers are far more terrified of being locked into caring for a disabled child than having a child die from a “natural” disease. And while they don’t consciously think this way, some layer of their brain has indeed weighed this out and formed their opinions.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        15 hours ago

        I do genuinely wonder if some amount of vaccine skepticism comes from a place of just not wanting to get a shot.

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      Rabies is in my top three fears, maybe even number one. Just an absolutely awful way to go, scared, in pain, can’t drink water. I love water.

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Good thing it’s extremely preventable thanks to modern medicine. We should all be so lucky that our greatest fear is 100% avoidable through easy life choices.

    • altphoto@lemmy.today
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      23 hours ago

      He used to scratch with the left foot but after the vaccine he does it with the right foot!