No, it's not. I've tried most of the cupcake shops in NYC (it was a weird bachelorette party, just roll with it) and it was among the worst. They're awful and, much like Shake Shack, the only reason anyone sets foot in there is because of the hype.

OK?! Duncan Hines yellow cake mixes are a key ingredient in happiness. Go to the grocery store and buy a box and then eat nothing but cupcakes until you realize the error of your ways.

Not so fast. Magnolia still has a line out the door of people eagerly waiting to buy sugar doused cardboard at the behest of Carrie Bradshaw. I won't relax until they close their doors as well.

Never EVER go into a basement

I did bring it up, you're right. Just making the point that we can't judge people out of hand when it comes to finances

That's great. Where is she working and what are her living expenses? I'm not saying people shouldn't swallow costs (almost all doctors do that to some degree) — it's right to do that and I have no intention of ever not vaccinating a patient because of financial issues. I would find that personally unethical. I'm…

Don't get me started on the distribution of funding. Sometimes I suspect that a requirement of working in Washington is being an idiot incapable of grasping long term ramifications (helping kids leads to healthier adults leads to less costs in the future).

I wasn't implying you didn't know the debt - I know your wife is a doctor and you must know of all this by proxy - but people seem to forget it in these discussions. It's not just about how much doctors get paid, it's about how much they owe. When I factor college, med school, adn my MPH into the equation I finished…

You can't always deal with it, especially in small rural practices where they are struggling to provide the most basic of care at a low salary. At what point would you find it acceptable for those of us who graduate with $200,000 worth of interest heavy loans to say that we can't swallow it anymore? You can't always…

The idea is that they won't get sick and, if they do, they won't bring the infection into school with them and infect the other kids. It's more about protecting other kids from the walking talking petrie dishes of preventable disesases than helping the unvacciated kid.

You're right, the weight thing really varies between people. Also, a lot of times when people have flare ups they're on steroids which often make you decidedly not skinny. It's quite possible to still be chunky with a colostomy bag or total colectomy.

I literally cannot believe I have never seen this show. I need to go download every episode immediately.

sorry, I saw this after I responded to you. Yeah, I think that's a key element here. Her body might be "inspirational", but she's one of thousands of skinny girls we're bombarded with every day. An autoimmune disease isn't going to show up on a thinspo board in the same way as dieting techniques.

I don't think anyone would glamorize the symptoms of crohns/UC or having a colostomy bag - and even if they did, we don't exactly have to worry about an autoimmune disease serving as a how to guide for how to get skinny.

Skinny is already held up as the ideal, this isn't going to change that one way or the other (especially since this is not something people can induce in themselves if they were inspired by her body). I think only good can come from someone taking ownership over something that has such an ostracizing effect on so…

My little brother is the same way. They reconnected him a few years after he got the bag. It's not a perfect system but it works!

I appreciate your mentioning this both because it's true and because it's important for people to hear it from someone who experiences it.

In NYC there is a policy that if there is an outbreak, unimmunized children are forced to stay home from school. I'm not sure where you're from so maybe that's what's behind it?

Exactly. Herd immunity is to protect kids who can't protect themselves. Not selfish dipshits

IRB applies to any research study. Every research institution has an IRB board to submit their human research studies to. I'm not actually sure how having it be federally funded changes anything other than who is culpable for any issues with the research, but private funding does not exempt you from the IRB.