March 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Did the picture above catch your attention? It’s a bit odd. The large stuffed animal/bean bag animal is some kind of anime/Pokemon formerly loved object my millenial brother dropped off at my house. His 2-bedroom-2-bath downtown condo was getting too filled, and he passed this on to us. It’s an interesting piece of human artifact. Honestly, I did it more to keep it out of the landfill. If you want it , it’s in excellent condition so just let me know and I’ll clean it up (it’s pretty clean) and send it over after the COVID-19 crisis if you have kids who will love it. The other object is a plastic bag I made from scraps of plastic I save. I know it’s weird, but I have embraced my off-kilter personality. The Plastic Picker children consume enormous amounts of clementines now known universally as cuties. They actually do have fiber. My daughter and son pointed out to me about 1.7 grams per clementine https://drplasticpicker.com/squeasy-gear-1-tackling-the-pediatric-fiber-deficit-with-real-fruit-and-not-plastic/. But those cuties come in this god-awful orange plastic mesh bags with an elongated plastic product label strip that is a third the size of a piece of paper. Every time we throw these away, I have this irrational sense of guilt. I think it’s having picked up now 178 bags of ocean bound plastic. I’m not sure how a peditarician who picks up trash and pays my taxes and has not ever had an extramarital affair and never fake-called in a sick-day feels guilt? Not sure what my parents did to me when I was young.

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March 12, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Wow. The world is in a panic. The White House gave an address that just caused more confusion. Yes a pandemic is something to take seriously but there is nothing to panic about. There is nothing to panic about because doctors just want you to stay at home as much as you can, wash your hands especially when you are out in public and in contact with other people, don’t gather in large crowds and certainly don’t go on flights or cruise ships if you can help it. If we all did this, called social distancing and understanding why we need to all pitch in to #flattenthecurve, then we’ll do okay.

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March 8, 2020

by drplasticpicker

COVID-19 is here. There is a cruiseship docked off the coast of Oakland with several infected persons and in our area there was 1 case at a local AT&T store. Dr. Plastic Picker worked at the CDC offices during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 2000s, but the CDC today is not what it used to be. Messages are coming down from public health, but this lone pediatrician out on the blogsphere is skeptical of our public health leadership and I work as a front-line pediatrician at a large HMO now. I have some infectious disease chops as I did some heavy lifting to stop a Measles case last summer. During that case, I had to panic as Measles is highly infectious and unvaccinated infants were at risk. COVID-19 I am not as panicked since it is spread through contact, and I wash my hands. Also I am a pediatrician and my patients are not the ones at increased risk of death. But we have grandparents with underlying medical conditions so we do want to keep them safe.

Just like I think everyone should all pick up their own litter and maybe an extra 3-10 pieces on the beach, I can’t wait for the federal government or the CDC to mandate things. When I saw the plastic pollution along our beach, I went to the beach and I pick up trash and it makes me feel like I’m doing my part. Now that COVID-19 is here, I know that we all need to practice “social distancing” and I am not waiting until public health tells us to do so. We know how this will spread, by people fanning out to different locations from epicenters. Some travel is necessary. Most is not. The Spanish Flu moved slow throughout the world via train mostly. COVID-19 can spread fast. But our family will not contribute to this spread.

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