There are five factors that led to over hundreds of thousands of Americans needlessly dying

[no_hypocrisy]

1. A personal corollary

In 1984, I was 26 and working in a NYC daycare center. I was the kindergarten teacher. I watched as, one-by-one, students contracted chicken pox. I didn't remember getting CP as a child but guessed I was immune. Not so.

One morning in the middle of July, like today, I woke up with a single small vesicle on my tummy. I knew what it was right away. I called my father, a doctor, that I believed I had chicken pox. He dismissed me out-of-hand, claiming I already had it. I was demeaned for being an amateur pediatrician. He didn't even say, "Let me see later when I return." More vesicles appeared, red and itchy and resembling small blisters. By the time Dad showed up that evening, I was covered head-to-toe. He had to concede to my "diagnosis". In the meantime, I had gone shopping for Aveeno Oatmeal Bath, Benadryl cream, had shortened my fingernails, and found winter mittens to wear to bed.

My point: Not that anything could have been done to stop the inevitable "progress" of chicken pox once it started, but my father, a doctor, refused to consider that CP at my age could have consequences after the condition had abated. He didn't even know whether I had had them and we lived together for more than two decades. I had to handle my situation alone and without internet to find useful information.

I ended up going to a dermatologist instead of a pediatrician as I figured scarring was going to be an issue.