My Kid is a Damn Nutter

[glatt]

listening to it off an on at work in between stuff. You sound good. Interesting stuff.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I've seen food fads, what to eat/avoid, to live longer/lose weight/bigger boners, since forever. Drink wine, don't drink wine, drink coffee, don't drink coffee, eat shit and die. Vegans/vegetarians? I don't care, what ever blows your skirt up, just don't tell me what to eat. PETA, go fuck yourself.

I knew a woman who would be in serious trouble eating food cooked in a pan that had ever had onions cooked in it, but that was very rare... then food allergies burst on the scene. I thought not letting a kid take a peanut butter sandwich to school, or have cookies in his lunch was pretty stupid.

Sugar, saccharin, trans-fat, then gluten became the devil, but when I saw shampoo advertised as gluten free I figured Mad Men were using the current buzz word to get attention. There again, whatever you want, if avoiding or bingeing on something makes you feel better, even if it's psychological, good for you, it doesn't concern me. If it's secretly killing me, it's got to get in a very long line.

I'm just starting to get my head around how seriously these things affect some people, like the Fobblettes. How gluten in shampoo can be a real threat to someone, and what an incredible job Clodfobble has done in finding/drawing the map to Holland.

[Clodfobble]

The thing that makes it tough is it truly didn't used to affect hardly anyone. It's the "we've been eating X for hundreds of years" argument. But both the "stuff" and our bodies today are very different. Bread today doesn't equal bread 100 years ago, and my stomach today doesn't equal my great-grandmother's stomach. It's all fucked up.

[DanaC]

I worked with a girl a few years ago who had to carry an epi pen with her at all times. We also had one at work in the supervisor's drawer just in case. There were a few things she couldn't have, and one of those things was a kind of chilli flavouring used in crisps. One time she went into full on anaphylactic shock after she kissed her boyfriend when he had eaten spicy crisps earlier that day.

@Clod: forgot to come back in here and let you know how awesome that podcast interview was. You sound so confident and at ease, passionate and knowledgable. It was a really engaging interview.

[monster]

How were the first week's Sales, Fob?

[Clodfobble]

I don't get complete numbers, but physical books from US Amazon are at about 75 right now. E-books, brick-and-mortar, and UK sales (I did one radio interview in the UK so far,) I have no idea. And I have no idea if 75 is good for week 1 for an unknown author or not. Mostly I try not to bring up the graph a dozen times a day.

[DanaC]

What radio interview for UK?

[Clodfobble]

Talk Radio Europe, "the largest English-speaking station in Spain." It was 15 min and lightweight--she pulled the quote on the back cover and said "one of my favorite things you said was..." Definitely hadn't read it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

[Clodfobble]

It's okay, she had me on at least. She interviews like four authors every day, she couldn't possibly read them all.

[glatt]

You mention the 1 in 45 statistic in one of those interviews.
I saw it in print today for the first time, so mainstream media is picking it up too. Washington Post, A Section.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Interesting, that says 1 in 45, ages 3 to 17, have it, not 1 in 45 of the children turning 3, have/will have it.
I suppose if it turns out to be genetic based, it can be waiting to be triggered or not yet diagnosed, which seems to be a big problem because of parents in denial and doctors in the dark.

OK, I'm talking out my ass, but I'd never seen the numbers expressed that way.

[Clodfobble]

Yeah, the thing about the 1 in 45 number is the very DAY after I did that interview, the CDC announced that while this is one of their typical benchmark studies for their "official" numbers, they are waiting until the other benchmark studies come out with their latest numbers later this year, before deciding on a new average. So officially it's still 1 in 68 according to the CDC, but that will change in the late fall, I imagine.

[lumberjim]

Do they have the same stats for non immunized kids?

[Clodfobble]

Congress ordered the CDC to gather those stats in the late nineties, if I have my dates right. The CDC ignored them, claiming that by definition any study that required non-immunized kids, even volunteers, was unethical.

Jenny McCarthy's nonprofit did the study, 100,000 random surveys by phone, found the rate was much lower in non-immunized and much higher in partially-immunized (presumably because in cases where there's an obvious regression parents stop,) but no one listens to her anymore.