Why is rabies an infamous topic on HA forums?

[NervUs]

Where did someone die of rabies ?

Probably because rabies is a terrifying illness that people have feared for millenia. There is tons of documentation of the fear of dog bites. Emily bronte seared herself with a hot poker after getting bitten by a dog. Until fairly recentlt , like the 70s when dog vaccines got good, rabies cases were higher in the US. So , historical fear doesn't just evaporate. It passes through generations, in stories and zeitgeist. Plus, newer trends in rabies are pretty sensational bc they are mosrlt cryptic and can't be traced to a known bite or exposure.

[MagpieWitch]

Probably because rabies is a terrifying illness that people have feared for millenia. There is tons of documentation of the fear of dog bites. Emily bronte seared herself with a hot poker after getting bitten by a dog. Until fairly recentlt , like the 70s when dog vaccines got good, rabies cases were higher in the US. So , historical fear doesn't just evaporate. It passes through generations, in stories and zeitgeist. Plus, newer trends in rabies are pretty sensational bc they are mosrlt cryptic and can't be traced to a known bite or exposure.

Yeah of course but I think the florida boy news sparked up the topic again. My fear is from being scratched by a kitten, tho I had my ninja bat fears over the years.

[LouiseAndy]

My Dad and his siblings were often bitten by all types of animals that could carry rabies he was a child (he worked on a farm all his life). They would be out working until late, they would all get bitten when they worked on certain crops. They were exposed to a lot of stuff. None of them ever got seriously sick! My Dad is heading for his 70's and all his siblings are perfect as well.

None of them ever got really sick, I think my Dad's twin got a local bacterial infection on the part of the arm he was bitten once? They are all still doing well! Medicine has moved forward and lot since he was young!

[MagpieWitch]

Last year I was convinced a bat swooped in on me in the park and scratched me on the head.
This year my rabies fear is because my neighbors got some kittens dropped off in their yard (they have like 5 cats) and the kids including my brother were playing with them. Long story short one scratched me when I almost dropped him and drew few dots of blood and I think I have rabies - even tho all kittens are alive and well 6 weeks after. (And my brother still plays with em)
HA is that "what if im the first and only in the world" deal

[NervUs]

Yeah of course but I think the florida boy news sparked up the topic again. My fear is from being scratched by a kitten, tho I had my ninja bat fears over the years.

I'm not so sure. I have had rabies fears for the past 6 years. Not constantly but triggered by wildlife getting up in my space. It started when a stray cat killed a bat and brought it to my garage and I thought my son might have gotten licked by the cat and I googled. We also had raccoons coming around b/c we left food for the cat.

You can't unsee what you see!

[Fishmanpa]

I'm truly sorry you still have this fear in light of the impossibility and the fact that both your parents being medical professionals not being concerned in the least.

Hope you feel better soon.

Positive thoughts

[MyNameIsTerry]

Probably because rabies is a terrifying illness that people have feared for millenia. There is tons of documentation of the fear of dog bites. Emily bronte seared herself with a hot poker after getting bitten by a dog. Until fairly recentlt , like the 70s when dog vaccines got good, rabies cases were higher in the US. So , historical fear doesn't just evaporate. It passes through generations, in stories and zeitgeist. Plus, newer trends in rabies are pretty sensational bc they are mosrlt cryptic and can't be traced to a known bite or exposure.

So, why mainly the US? It's much rarer to see someone from the UK post and this site is more UK members.

Why does it pass through generations? Through scaremongering? Because surely everyone would be afraid of many more deadly diseases that modern medicine has made great efforts to stop.

TB is on the rise in the UK yet no threads.

---------- Post added at 01:58 ---------- Previous post was at 01:48 ----------

Just a thread like that, why is it one of the more hated fear, along with brain eating amoeba and ALS/MS?? People absolutely hate talking about these 3-4 culprits.

There's obviously more threads this year than in previous years which is one element.

Another element is other members jumping on them. We keep getting "oh no not another one of these" on a board that is wall to wall with cancers, brain tumours, previously ALS, etc.

The same members seem to follow these threads saying the same things and showing frustration. If they didn't, there would be less going on in these threads.

Look at the OCD board. It must be 99% about intrusive thoughts yet no one is complaining other than on the odd occasion and my observation of those is that they are mainly those from the HA board who would say it there.

There is an element of narrow definitions of the disorders that come under HA. Much of OCD can be the absolute impossible, afterall these disorders aren't so much based on the true possibility than they at irrationality. People seem to forget the subconscious doesn't care whether it's possible or not, all it does it add a fear and keep running it's "process" thinking it is protecting you. Facts don't matter to the subconscious, it doesn't have that type of power to make decisions and relies on the conscious mind to make decisions. The subconscious goes on what core beliefs, memories, feedback, etc it gets to form something.

Consciously you have to challenge this (or use acceptance to undermine it) just as you have to stop yourself react with panic when you feel panic coming on or the outcome is more panic. But you can accept it all you wish and the subconscious will still keep sending the same old "data" to the conscious mind because it sees a valid fear still in "memory". It takes time to change it and until you do you have to learn to accept that the mind is doing what is always has using the same processes.

Just like anxiety if you give it important it learns it's important. The same could be said of the threads in some respects.

[NervUs]

So, why mainly the US? It's much rarer to see someone from the UK post and this site is more UK members.

Why does it pass through generations? Through scaremongering? Because surely everyone would be afraid of many more deadly diseases that modern medicine has made great efforts to stop.

TB is on the rise in the UK yet no threads.[COLOR="blue"]

It passes through generations because it is not too far removed that people actually had to worry about it a lot, so different generations interacting keeps older fears that might be less risky today very much alive. Basically, part of it is an older generation, who lived when animals weren't routinely vaxxed, telling a younger gen, "don't go near a dog or cat b/c you'll get rabies." Is that scaremongering? I don't really think so. It's just that what was prudent for a generation and what was "wise" before doesn't automatically adapt to new facts (i.e the fact of vaccination and rabies effectively wiped out in dogs).

The other thing, objectively, is that there is more rabies in wildlife in the US than there is in Europe, from what I have read. It's fun to say, American rabies fear is so illogical because only 1 or 2 in 300 million get it a year. But, that is because 40,000 or more get vaccinated for exposures each year. It's estimated about 40% of that number is wrongly vaccinated, i.e. they should not have gotten the PEP. But, that still leaves a good number of people in the US getting rabies prophylaxis after exposures that fall under CDC guidelines as true exposures. Rabies would be much much higher than it is if people were totally blase about animal bites or certain other exposures. I think in the 1940s, there were like 100 rabies cases a year, out of a much smaller total population. It really wasn't that long ago here that dogs weren't routinely vaccinated (like I said, that become law in the 1970s). And, about 25,000 give or take having legit exposures a year means rabies is rightly perceived as a threat and, over a period of time, any person is likely to know a person or two who actually had a run-in with a possibly rabid animals, so awareness is prolonged that way too. Plus, our health departments do try to educate about rabies, wildlife cases make the news, etc.

Bottom line, though, I think there is a focus on rabies that crosses generations simply because there is a very long-lived collective consciousness about it that relates to the fact that humans and dogs are intertwined, and dogs used to be the major rabies transmitter. If it had always been just a wildlife-carried disease, maybe human awareness and fear of it wouldn't have ever been so pronounced. But, it has penetrated human consciousness for millenia. Even Aristotle wrote about rabies.

I agree that there are A LOT more zoonotic diseases to fear that we don't fear (lol), and that is bc we don't know about them. I just learned about tularemia, and my lord, lol!

I am actually surprised, as you seem to be too, by how many people get bent out of shape about rabies threads. Given a centuries or millenias old fascination and mythology about rabies, it would be weird for people now (especially people on a site bc they have anxiety and OCD) to NOT have any concern or fear for rabies at all, especially considering it is endemic in wildlife in the United States (some areas have more of it than others, but nationalism means we don't always think about regions so Americans have general fear when they hear about a US case. Florida and California have a crazy number of wildlife cases, though!) This board brings people from different countries together, esp after AZ bit the dust, so Americans are going to voice concerns that might not apply so much in Europe. And that is just going to have to be okay, lol!!

[NancyW]

I am really fascinated by bats. They are very cool little buggers.
We have them here, we actually hang bat houses to attract them because they eat thousands of mosquitoes every night.

[NervUs]

I am really fascinated by bats. They are very cool little buggers.
We have them here, we actually hang bat houses to attract them because they eat thousands of mosquitoes every night.

I am cool with bats so long as they stay out of my house and way above my head !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Ill admit, fruit bats and flying foxes are absolutely snugg-able, but the ones we have in the USA are just *shudder* lol