Dr. Donald Blake & Thor Odinson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ifwebeworthy) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2025-09-10 09:15 am
ifwebeworthy) wrote in fandomhigh2025-09-10 09:15 am
Entry tags:
Health Education, Wednesday, Second Period
"All right," Don, who seemed considerably perkier and wasn't holding a travel mug like it was his only hope of salvation this week, said at the beginning of class. "Take two. I hope everybody is who they're supposed to be this week, and has their usual complement of thumbs, whatever that may be. I remain Dr. Donald Blake, and this is still Health Education. Spoiler alert: the humors have gone out of fashion.
"So, I want to talk about relative knowledge. Where I come from, some people come from space. Some people are gods. Some people are from different time periods or dimensions. Sound familiar, right? This means that's what's basic knowledge to one person may be brand new information to the person standing next to them, or one way of explaining something may not work for everyone, and that's okay. So if I start talking about, say, vaccines, and you're thinking, 'Pffft, everyone knows this,' please remember that maybe the person sitting next to you doesn't. Maybe they use magic where they're from, or vaccination hasn't been invented in its modern form yet. And if the explanation I use for something doesn't work for you, please don't be afraid to say so and ask for more information. Okay? Okay. Now let's talk about vaccines, because they're important.
"You may already be familiar with the basic concept behind vaccines, which is immunity. That is, if someone has, say, chicken pox once, they're immune and can't catch it again. That's because the cells in the human immune system--wait, okay. Let me back up. So your body is made up of a bunch of tiny, tiny building blocks called 'cells.' They're invisible to the naked eye, so take my word for it and we'll look at some under a microscope sometime. Different cells have different functions, and the cells of the immune system attack intruder cells, like the bacteria and viruses that cause disease. Once these cells have been introduced to a particular form of intruder cell, they 'remember' how to attack it, creating immunity.
"Get it? Got it? Good.
"Some of you may be familiar with the earliest forms of vaccination, which were various methods of exposing people to smallpox in a controlled way, so as to hopefully induce a mild, survivable case. Over the centuries, we have refined those methods, and immunizations, or vaccines, now are mostly in the form of injections, which may involve a weakened or killed form of the pathogen, or may not use the actual pathogen at all but rather something similar enough to invoke the correct immune response. Some of the earliest smallpox vaccines used the less dangerous cowpox instead of smallpox, and in the modern day, well, I was reading a fascinating paper about training the immune system to attack a particular kind of protein spike structure the other day...but that's probably only interesting to me." And honestly, a lot of it had gone over his head. He wasn't an immunologist.
"Some vaccines are only given once, and create permanent immunity. Some need to be given regularly, either because immunity wears off over a period of years or because there are too many different strains of a disease for one vaccine to be effective. There are dozens of different strains of influenza, for example, so it's important to get your flu shot every year so you can collect 'em all.
"Now, there is a lot of misinformation out there about vaccines--a lot of it thanks to a single debunked study which the author has since admitted he made up." Fuck that guy, by the way. "Unless you have an adverse reaction--basically you turn out to be allergic to something in the vaccine--which is rare but something medical staff are trained to deal with, vaccines are safe, and are the best tool we have to prevent disease. Smallpox was completely eradicated in the last century thanks to vaccination, and we're on the way to polio meeting the same fate. So I highly recommend that everyone who can get vaccinated do so. If you have concerns, you should speak to the medical staff at the clinic about your specific situation. And if you don't have concerns, then I would recommend visiting the clinic or another healthcare provider like the Department of Public Health in Baltimore at your earliest convenience to find out about a vaccination schedule to get you caught up.
"Does anyone have any questions?"
"So, I want to talk about relative knowledge. Where I come from, some people come from space. Some people are gods. Some people are from different time periods or dimensions. Sound familiar, right? This means that's what's basic knowledge to one person may be brand new information to the person standing next to them, or one way of explaining something may not work for everyone, and that's okay. So if I start talking about, say, vaccines, and you're thinking, 'Pffft, everyone knows this,' please remember that maybe the person sitting next to you doesn't. Maybe they use magic where they're from, or vaccination hasn't been invented in its modern form yet. And if the explanation I use for something doesn't work for you, please don't be afraid to say so and ask for more information. Okay? Okay. Now let's talk about vaccines, because they're important.
"You may already be familiar with the basic concept behind vaccines, which is immunity. That is, if someone has, say, chicken pox once, they're immune and can't catch it again. That's because the cells in the human immune system--wait, okay. Let me back up. So your body is made up of a bunch of tiny, tiny building blocks called 'cells.' They're invisible to the naked eye, so take my word for it and we'll look at some under a microscope sometime. Different cells have different functions, and the cells of the immune system attack intruder cells, like the bacteria and viruses that cause disease. Once these cells have been introduced to a particular form of intruder cell, they 'remember' how to attack it, creating immunity.
"Get it? Got it? Good.
"Some of you may be familiar with the earliest forms of vaccination, which were various methods of exposing people to smallpox in a controlled way, so as to hopefully induce a mild, survivable case. Over the centuries, we have refined those methods, and immunizations, or vaccines, now are mostly in the form of injections, which may involve a weakened or killed form of the pathogen, or may not use the actual pathogen at all but rather something similar enough to invoke the correct immune response. Some of the earliest smallpox vaccines used the less dangerous cowpox instead of smallpox, and in the modern day, well, I was reading a fascinating paper about training the immune system to attack a particular kind of protein spike structure the other day...but that's probably only interesting to me." And honestly, a lot of it had gone over his head. He wasn't an immunologist.
"Some vaccines are only given once, and create permanent immunity. Some need to be given regularly, either because immunity wears off over a period of years or because there are too many different strains of a disease for one vaccine to be effective. There are dozens of different strains of influenza, for example, so it's important to get your flu shot every year so you can collect 'em all.
"Now, there is a lot of misinformation out there about vaccines--a lot of it thanks to a single debunked study which the author has since admitted he made up." Fuck that guy, by the way. "Unless you have an adverse reaction--basically you turn out to be allergic to something in the vaccine--which is rare but something medical staff are trained to deal with, vaccines are safe, and are the best tool we have to prevent disease. Smallpox was completely eradicated in the last century thanks to vaccination, and we're on the way to polio meeting the same fate. So I highly recommend that everyone who can get vaccinated do so. If you have concerns, you should speak to the medical staff at the clinic about your specific situation. And if you don't have concerns, then I would recommend visiting the clinic or another healthcare provider like the Department of Public Health in Baltimore at your earliest convenience to find out about a vaccination schedule to get you caught up.
"Does anyone have any questions?"
OOC