(The Atlantic) – The kids and their caretaker got off on their floor, leaving me to ponder the cootie phenomenon for the first time in many decades. Beyond being amused, I was struck by the morbid salience of a children’s game that mimics infection at a time when vaccine skepticism is on the rise and an outbreak of a non-pretend disease, measles, is threatening the lives of children in the Southwest. I learned that there is a vibrant if slender slice of academic literature on “preadolescent cootie lore,” as one scholar puts it, and that this goofy grade-school fixation is more closely tied to real public-health concerns than you might think if your cootie expertise derives only from the playground. (Read More)