I’ve been musing about what would happen if anti-vax pediatrician invented a smoke alarm. I imagine it would look something like this:
And it would be just as effective at keeping kids safe as Dr. Bob’s anti-vax advice.
Author:Amy Tuteur, MD
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37 Responses to “An anti-vax smoke detector?”
Amy Tuteur, MD
Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician gynecologist. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1979 and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine in 1984. Dr. Tuteur is a former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. She left the practice of medicine to raise her four children. Her book, Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting (HarperCollins) was published in 2016. She can be reached at DrAmy5 at aol dot com... More
The truly frightening thing is that some Looney Toon out there is actually going to take this seriously
Smoke detectors have ruined my sacred cooking experiences on more than one occasion, yet they’ve never actually saved my life! I need a healing unassisted open-fire cooking session in the forest.
Preferably during a drought and fire-ban, simply for the freedom and to stick it to those judgemental know-it-alls in the Fire Department.
Fire is as safe as life gets. Humans survived for thousands of years without smoke detectors or firefighters– they’re just a big money-making scheme by Big Fire.
Smoke detectors are interventions. Your nose will detect smoke that poses serious problems long before you need to take any action. Trust smell!
Exactly. There is always plenty of time to call the fire fighters.
Some houses just were meant to burn down.
It’s not just the batteries, they spew toxins into the air as they contain americium. Really, it’s best to not have any smoke detectors at all. Fire is natural and kills germs. In most cases, things grow back better and stronger than they were before the fire. Why would you want to avoid it?
It’s too much noise, too soon. Young kids’ ears aren’t ready for that much stimulation.
My kids have slept through fire alarms twice.
OT: The Dr. Seuss tournament is getting close to the Final Five. Two books have punched their ticket so far, and not necessarily one you might think. And there is another major upset looming, according to Yertle the Turtle…
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/wenthold/bge/DrSeuss.htm
Instead of hiding in the herd, you should hide in the ‘hood. If enough of your foolish neighbors have smoke detectors your house will be totally safe.
I know these comments are riddled with sarcasm…. but it makes me sick to think of homes without smoke detectors. House fires kill (residents and fire-fighters alike). Burning furniture & house is some of the most toxic gas that a westerner can experience. Your insurance may not cover the re-construction if there weren’t any smoke alarms installed at the time of the fire.
Get new smoke detectors every few years, change batteries every 6 months, test your smoke detectors occasionally. /end rant.
my dad, the firefighter, would certainly agree. And add have a fire extinguisher for the kitchen. (that get’s changed before the expiration date.)
Come to think of it, it’s been a while so I should check my extinguisher.
I have one, as well as two fire blankets. Better safe than sorry!
I just bought a home fire extinguisher. I’ve never lived with one before, but something about owning for the first time has made me extra protective (which is illogical, of course, because it’s our lives it protects and who cares if you own when you’re trying to save lives?)
Definitely sarcasm here. But just last year there was a house fire where the smoke alarms weren’t working and something like eight children died. Only one made it out. It was terribly, horribly sad.
Lol yes I know. We really were woken up the other night by one of our smoke alarms – the one right outside my daughter’s bedroom. She’s 17 and wasn’t really crying ( I just said that to make the satire funnier) but she was disgruntled and quite put out as 17 year olds are want to be when their sleep is disturbed, and I grilled her on whether she had been smoking in her room or had incense burning but couldn’t smell anything so it remains a bit of a mystery as to what caused it to go off.
Moral to the story – it did what it was supposed to do – WAKE US UP.
Definitely sarcasm, my brother in law convinced us to let him stay in the house that was the joint estate of all four of the kids. He cleaned out the wood stove, put the contents in a plastic bucket which he left in the middle of the wood floor and left the house. He didn’t burn the entire house down, but the damage was extensive and he killed one of our dogs. Smoke detectors would have helped call attention to what was going on. No insurance money either, being a dumb ass isn’t covered.
The big problem I have – they want to put smoke detectors in every house regardless of it’s on fire or not.
I prefer just to teach my kids match safety.
Besides, people only died in fires in the past, when sanitation wasn’t as good. Nowadays, sure, your kid might get a little burnt, but it just builds their own skills at smoke detection.
Variant on #2 – “My kid doesn’t need a smoke detector. She doesn’t smoke cigarettes!”
Smoke detectors cause people to panic and call 911 before the fire gets out of control. They don’t know for sure that the house will be engulfed in flames or if anyone will die. Those professional firefighters just want to run in with their equipment and training to ruin your fire experience. Lay firefighters with no training or equipment is the way to go unless you want an all natural, unassisted fire.
And it leads to so much unnecessary expense! All that water damage…
Even if my house does catch fire, I have a garden hose and have a home fire extinguisher. Fires are natural, and I don’t need to call the fire department just because of a little fire.
I am opposed to smoke alarms. They go off unnecessarily and wake the whole house for nothing.
I know this is true because it happened to us just the other night. My daughter was very upset and cried at being disturbed. “Why is it so loud!” she said through sobs. It took me ages to settle her down afterwards.
I’m sure smoke alarm companies are just after our money.
Big Alarm conspires with Big Battery to make sheeple think they have to buy new batteries once a year.
It’s coming up to that time again! (There’s campaign over here to remind everyone to change their batteries on April Fools Day)
I don’t get the daylight savings version we have. It’s supposed to be every 6 months, but time shifts have been getting more like 4 and 8 months.
You know how much extra I had to pay when we built our house just to get smoke alarms in? They had to run all the wiring to connect them all and give them power.
And we STILL have to change the batteries all the time. Why have them run on house power if we have to change the batteries every year?
Why indeed lol
I just don’t even with the house power kind. Someone installed one in a less than ideal location in my unit, and even though I’ve disconnected it and installed two in better locations, I can’t get rid of it because there’s a big hole in the ceiling if you take it down.
Give your house natural immunity from fire!
Your house needs to burn down naturally so it can have lifelong immunity to fire.
Some houses aren’t meant to last. If it burns to the ground it wasn’t meant to survive.
Smoke detectors are unnecessary: they don’t work 100% of the time, anyway, and most kids will do fine with a little smoke inhalation.
Smoke inhalation is nature’s way of helping children learn to cough effectively.
No, no, no. That’s Whooping Cough, just ask the anti-vaxxers.