This weekend I did a joke that fell abit flat….I suggested that Aaron Booster…..the Amish/Pilgrim Neuro:-) OK maybe not….but look at the the beard and sideburns.(Just realised it is just a beard but different hair colour on the chin)…:-), had joined the fold as ProfK had tweeted about Aaron Boster MD…You may think it is Medical Doctor. But I suggested it said it was MouseDoctor and some of you bought it….I should have saved it for April the first. But based on some comments, I see there are a few Whipper-Snappers out there that aren’t old enough to remember the early days of the blog and how I got my name
ProfG was posting on the Blog once in a blue moon and wanted some support…so he took the horse to water and pushed it in.
So where did MD come from?
If you are old enough to remember the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s there were a load of militant anti-viv (vivisectionists) nutters out there and no-one who worked with animals was going to say so in public, for fear of letter bombing and the like. There were the monkey/Dog/Cat researchers who went around with body guards becuase they got on the nutters hit lists. I knew someone who fell foul of working with Guinea pigs sold by the Halls (Guinea pig suppliers in the UK)….If you remember the nutters dug up the Hall’s parents and stole thier bodies…the person I know was targeted and there were false accusations that they were paedophiles with their neighbours and bank managers etc.
Working on EAE is seen as one of the worse things to do to animals…plus you have no life as you are in every day checking the beasties.
Now the average American will say “what’s the problem with doing animal experiments?”
You see animal experiments on the TV every day..as researchers claim the next cure. Forgive me for generallizing but whilst animal experiments do not raise an eyebrow in the USA………but mention abortion and the nutjobs come flying in, which would not occur in the UK. We have different cultural sensitivities.
Can you remember the Ear Mouse.
In the States this was in the news….In the UK this media interest created a backlash
I once touched someone on the shoulder when they were on a microscope…apparently this signalled “I want you to have my Babies, please send death threats to my wife..Oh and please sign me up for lessons with Cat Stevens” …..Luckily they had psychoerotic tendencies…..but it was around the time of Fatal Attraction, if you are old enough to remember the film.
But back to my point. In the UK we are a nation of Animal Lovers….and in some parts I hear they take this literally and Wellington Boots have another use:-(…….P.S. This is illegal
However the UK government (Tony Blair) promised to hunt down the Nutter anti-vivis and remove their income source but in return they wanted researchers to talk about research. I and am most of my friends thought what a pile of Cobblers. Why would you put your head above the parapet….it will get chopped off. I remember a documentary around this time of an undercover reporter who infiltrated a militant anti-viv group..they were tracked down after the show aired and had something, I think “traitor”, written/branded on their back with a knife. You have to be a nutter to want to talk about animal stuff in public.
However most people are inherently lazy and they won’t put in the effort to see who you are. ProfG could be ProfGeraldine but many people others think it is ProfGiraffe as he comes from South Africa.
Away it was decided that I would talk openly about animal experiemts and as we have treated more mice than ProfG has had hot dinners I decided I would call myself “MouseDoctor“….Most people would not care or know who I actually was. People wouldnt work it out. However I could say “we”,because maybe we a cyborg collective? Just like BartsMSBlog or MSblogger is not one individual. People simply complain to ProfG about MouseDoctor after they followed their altmetric (points for Social media on papers) to the blog to find some constructive criticism by MD or MD2 so that it was clear that their “Cell paper ” was Tosh.
My outfits were designed by (Naiomi and Anna@) the “House of Mouse” (Now closed), who made me in felt. If Will-I-Am could do it so could I and I have my own line of T-shirts (see below)
I also decided that I would have abit of an alter-ego and say it how it is and to not admit to being who I really am. I would not write like I have a plum up my bum and try be the light hearted part of the team…….leaving ProfG and the other neuros to do the un-funny stuff. I was not going to be a wet-rag and would say things that ProfG couldn;t or wouldn’t….such as call pharma out. The funniest thing I heard from one of the gang went to the loo, and they could a pharma employee complaining about the F..ing MouseDoctor (Charming!) to someone in a toilet at ECTRIMS…. As for the Trolls I hunt them down.
However, you can only do “Cure of the Week” so many times, Whilst being supportive of animal experimentation, we still get the horrorshows that needed to be called for what they are..Horror shows that should not be done in this day an age….Even great work can come at a price and the inventors of the COVID/MS vaccine are happy to stick needles into the beasties eyes…a practice that was outlawed in the UK over thirty five years ago. However, discussing animal work takes too long to do the posts…..Over the years, I have been changing and look at me now…the schizoprenia has taken over.
More T shirts! MD rocks!
this raises more questions than it answers.
A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma 🙂
Well said
Your wonderful, don’t change a thing!
Your wonderful, don’t change, we need you!
I would buy this merch!!
You are too kind,
Unfortunately the T shirt shop has updated their printing software and has destroyed all of designs…A new word on exclusive. However I’m sure I have a spare one somewhere.
Nice
Where do i but the t shirt?
Can’t be bought…a bit like me!!!!:-)
Lollll
Thank you for enlightening us – or at least me. I had a feeling it had to do with rodent experiments -but didn’ t know if it might be a link back to your Zoology studies or that you just liked cheese…
Take care and thanks for going to bat for us again and again… (and have the bruises to prove it!)
Always thought MD might also be a play on “house doctor,” but I don’t know whether that’s used outside NAm. Here it means a company or on-site physician, or really any physician working on salary or contract but not in a health care setting. Or one regularly consulted on medical matters, as by a TV current-affairs show.