HELLO I reached a slight checkpoint in my academic studies, so I finally had time to compile my doodles from way back in the summer here. Behold. My historical microbiology hyperfixation aka ✨Louis Pasteur✨
An entire village is cursed with spasms and frothing and madness before they die in agony, what wizard did this? Turns out it's just rabies, here's a vaccine.
Raw Farm denies link to illnesses while patients keep identifying its products.
Sorry RFK Jr. fans, I like my cheese à la Louis Pasteur.
Some people may not like hearing this, but natural does not always mean healthier.
The life expectancy for an American born in 1820 was 39 years; for a Brit it was 40. Just about all foods back then were natural. By 1900, average lifespans had spiked to 47 in the US and 50 in the UK. The formulation of the germ theory of disease by scientists like Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch in the 19th century was already nudging longevity upwards.
There are certainly food additives nowadays which we would be better off without. But the bizarrely simplistic thinking that we would be healthier if we ate like people did in the 1820s is likely to make people sick – or worse.
A company in California which produces unpasteurized cheese is refusing to initiate a recall despite customers falling ill from its cheese.
Two more illnesses have been identified in an E. coli outbreak linked to unpasteurized cheese and milk, the Food and Drug Administration reported Thursday. The maker of the products, California-based Raw Farm, continues to deny the link and has refused to issue a recall.
According to the FDA, at least nine people have been sickened in three states, an increase of two cases since the outbreak was announced earlier this month. Three of the nine cases required hospitalization, and one person developed a life-threatening complication called Hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, which causes a type of kidney failure.
Outbreak investigators have interviewed eight of the nine people sickened. All eight reported consuming unpasteurized dairy. One person couldn’t recall a brand, but the remaining seven all singled out products from Raw Farm. Five people ate Raw Farm’s raw cheddar, and two drank Raw Farm’s raw milk. Whole genome sequencing of the E. coli isolates from the patients shows high similarity, suggesting they came from a common source.
That's as close to a smoking gun as it gets. And it's not the first time this company has been linked to contamination.
Raw Farm, a high-profile anti-pasteurization dairy producer, has been linked to over a dozen other outbreaks and many recalls in the last 20 years, including a Salmonella outbreak in 2024 that included at least 171 illnesses. But in repeated social media posts, Raw Farm owner Aaron McAfee (son of founder Mark McAfee) has rejected any responsibility for the illnesses and says they “100% disagree” with the FDA’s findings.
The unpasteurized movement is just another aspect of the same thinking which produced the anti-vaxxers. They are part of the anti-science movement which waxes nostalgic for the pre-Enlightenment era.
"Everything's better with some wine in the belly." -
Tyrion Lannister
"I couldn't agree more with Tyrion Lannister's philosophy: there is truly nothing better than some wine in the belly—an exquisite elixir that stands as the most highly cultivated masterpiece humanity has ever brought forth from simple, wild shrubs." 🍷
Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris
Il y a plus d'esprit dans ces 100 litres que dans tous les livres de philosophie du monde...“
I'm making a self portrait but with weird colors n all that (I used the petals and leaves from a real rose) and need to decide on a quote to put on it, here's the picture and quotes!
quotes
The universe is asymmetrical.
Science and Peace with triumph over Ignorance and War.
My strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Messieurs, c'est les microbes qui auront le dernier mot.
Voting ended onApr 27
they're all from Louis Pasteur because he's my favorite historical figure.
