RIP: Michelle Trachtenberg, aged 39

Michelle was found in her New York City apartment unresponsive. No cause of death has been announced. For a 39 year old, she has been an actor for 36 of those years! Perhaps most famously for Gossip Girl and Harriet The Spy, for me she will always be Dawn Summers, Buffy's kid sister in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remember the utter shock of the reveal that *BOOM* Buffy has a sister? It was an amazing twist in a great TV series, and she was fantastic in that show. It's additionally sad as it's entirely possible that Buffy may be seeing a relaunch with Sarah Michelle Geller coming up: talks are in progress with a good producer, not Joss Wheden.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/michelle-trachtenberg-dead-obituary-1235280880/

First measles death in the USA in a decade

In Texas, an unvaccinated school-aged child has died of a vaccine-preventable disease in the middle of a growing outbreak.

Thank you, Mister Illustrious Anti-Vaxxer Robert Fucking Kennedy Junior Mint. Add one to your tally.

At least 124 people are sick in Texas, 18 or more hospitalized, and this county shares the border with New Mexico, where at least nine are sick. And while the affected county is not contiguous with my area, we have at least one case in my county.

Fucking anti-vaxxers.

From the article: "It is the first death in the mushrooming outbreak in Texas, and it marks the first measles death in the country since 2015, when a woman with underlying health conditions in Washington state died amid an outbreak. The death highlighted the importance of maintaining high community vaccination rates to prevent the spread of the extremely infectious disease to vulnerable people. Prior to that, the US hadn't recorded a measles death since 2003.

In 2000, the US declared measles to be eliminated, meaning it no longer continuously spreads in the US. Outbreaks that occur have been limited and are generally sparked by cases linked to international travel. In the decade before the measles vaccine became available in 1963, it's estimated that 3 million to 4 million people were infected each year, leading to 48,000 hospitalizations, 1,000 cases of encephalitis (swelling of the brain), and 400 to 500 deaths annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

A disease that had largely been eliminated. One death in over twenty years until now. It's not going to be the last, and it's going to continue to grow, especially in the People's Republic of Texas. And it'll grow in New Mexico, because the rural areas have lot of people just as obstinately stupid and anti-vax as Texans.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/unvaccinated-school-aged-child-dies-of-measles-in-texas-amid-growing-outbreak/