Is she urinating frequently? The thirstiness would have me very concerned about diabetes. Those are all signs of diabetic ketoacidosis, or very high blood sugar. If it were my kid, I would take her to the ER right now.

I agree that those comments are appalling. Fortunately, he appears to be distancing himself from that position. From The Washington Times

Do you have a reference for this? I googled, and found an old case (1995) where a city limited families to 2 dogs. It was eventually found invalid. There are some local ordinances limiting number of pets. I can't find anything statewide though.

Where's the part about no consent?

There's always the possibility that some individual is going to go rogue and do something against the law. But as public policy? No way would they do mass vaccinations without consent.

Well, whoever said it was wrong. It would be against the law. I can assure you there are no plans to vaccinate without parental consent.

At our local ps parents can review all curriculum and opt out of anything. I thought that was standard.

Where did you hear this?

Our local theater has a sign that no one under 18 will be admitted to an R rated movie after 6:00 pm. :confused:

The ones "freaking" about global cooling weren't climate scientists. It was the media.

Nobody's going to be forced to do abortions. From WSJ:

Maybe it was this thread. I've never tried it, but I think I will do this next time.

I love this! And it's very close to the truth. I'll be using this one.

I do think you can change a lot of negative thinking. Or at least you can choose not to verbalize it. ;) But I don't believe you can change your underlying personality all that much.

I did Google it and didn't find anything. First, if you wanted to cause more pregnancies, prescribing minipills would be a very ineffective way of doing it. It might cause a handful of additional pregnancies a year. I don't know exactly how compensation works for Ab providers, but I don't think they get paid per procedure, since PP is a non-profit organization. (Correct me if you know differently.) So doing more Abs wouldn't benefit any one financially. Even if they did profit, the actual amount would be so small that it wouldn't be worthwhile. Second, if the doctor was deliberately doing something to cause pregnancies, it is totally unethical and possibly illegal. Which casts great doubt on their credibility. Ditto if he knew the staff was doing something unethical and didn't report them. Most importantly, however, minipills are an accepted form of contraception, so claiming they were prescribing them to make someone pregnant is ludicrous.

How do you know this? You weren't the OP. They are talking about prescribing minipills after an Ab so the girls will get pregnant again.

I didn't know what that was, so I googled it and YES! I do have one, but I have no idea how to use it. Guess I better get started.

First, if you bought one, the instructions in the box S.U.C.K. Go to the Galileoscope page and download the updated instructions. They are much better. I know nothing about astronomy. How do I figure out where the planets are tonight? Any good websites?

I think there must be a misunderstanding here. I can imagine the doctor saying that they put the girls on the minipill and they ended up coming back for another abortion, because that is bound to happen occasionally. If a patient wants to start oral contraceptives after an abortion, many physicians will start them on the mini-pill instead of the combination pill, because it is probably safer. After an abortion (or delivery) some women are hypercoagulable (more likely to have a blood clot). Combination OCs are known to increase the risk of blood clots in susceptible women, while mini-pills don't raise the risk. So lots of doctors will put them on the mini-pill for about 6 weeks and then switch. Unfortunately, the mini-pill isn't quite as effective (~93% vs ~98%, depending on who you ask), and occasionally someone will get pregnant again. If somebody is doing this because they want to do more abortions, they are extremely confused about their job.

No.

I have to disagree with this. I worked at a PP and *ALL* options were discussed, and abortion was most definitely not encouraged. Some of the counseling staff were pro-choice, some were not. Our PP didn't do abortions, because none of the providers would even consider doing them. There is probably a great deal of variation depending on the staff, and I have no idea what other clinics were doing. We were all about prevention.

I'm a strong swimmer and I would never canoe without a life jacket. I'd have a conversation with someone in charge so this never happens again.

Why? The doctor is following accepted protocol. There is a big difference between how things are handled in the hospital vs. in the community. The highest risk of transmission is in health care settings. In the community, the risk is much lower *IF* the wounds are covered and hygiene is good. The current recommendations may change and become more strict, but right now, most physicians would probably not tell the family to stay home.

This is true; prevalence varies widely depending on area and whether you're talking about people in the community or people in a health care setting. In the general population, prevalence is usually fairly low, less than 2% or so. In health care settings the prevalence can be very high- 30 to 40% (or higher) of patients may be colonized with MRSA. This means they carry it in their nasal passages, but don't have an active infection. Rates of colonization of *regular* (not methicillin resistant) staph is pretty high in the regular population, but it has been that way for many years. Carriers can be contagious, but people with an active infection and drainage from a wound are more contagious than carriers.

Generally, people with MRSA aren't isolated from the community. Transmission is usually through skin-to-skin contact or from contaminated surfaces (typically towels or contaminated bandages). Wounds should be kept covered and infected people should wash their hands frequently. If you know someone is infected, wash your hands frequently and be careful not to touch anything contaminated with wound drainage. Here is the CDC rec for MRSA and the workplace. Your friend's doctor is following accepted guidelines, assuming he/she told them to keep the wounds convered and use good hygiene. MRSA is scary. :grouphug: