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Swine Flu--Vaccine Efficacy

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This lengthy Atlantic article outlining the views of flu-vaccine skeptics provides much food for thought:

This is the curious state of debate about the government's two main weapons in the fight against pandemic flu. At first, government officials declare that both vaccines and drugs are effective. When faced with contrary evidence, the adherents acknowledge that the science is not as crisp as they might wish. Then, in response to calls for placebo-controlled trials, which would provide clear results one way or the other, the proponents say such studies would deprive patients of vaccines and drugs that have already been deemed effective. "We can't just let people die," says Cox...


In the absence of such evidence, we are left with two possibilities. One is that flu vaccine is in fact highly beneficial, or at least helpful. Solid evidence to that effect would encourage more citizens--and particularly more health professionals--to get their shots and prevent the flu's spread. As it stands, more than 50 percent of health-care workers say they do not intend to get vaccinated for swine flu and don't routinely get their shots for seasonal flu, in part because many of them doubt the vaccines' efficacy. The other possibility, of course, is that we're relying heavily on vaccines and antivirals that simply don't work, or don't work as well as we believe. And as a result, we may be neglecting other, proven measures that could minimize the death rate during pandemics.

I added the italics there. the next time somebody hates on you for not getting the flu vaccine, mention to them that more than 50% of medical professionals agree with you.

Oh and also, relying on vaccines ad Tamiflu probably makes the situation worse because we don't emphasize proven preventative measures enough:

"Vaccines give us a false sense of security," says Sumit Majumdar. "When you have a strategy that [everybody thinks] reduces death by 50 percent, it's pretty hard to invest resources to come up with better remedies." For instance, health departments in every state are responsible for submitting plans to the CDC for educating the public, in the event of a serious pandemic, about hand-washing and "social distancing" (voluntary quarantines, school closings, and even enforcement of mandatory quarantines to keep infected people in their homes). Putting these plans into action will require considerable coordination among government officials, the media, and health-care workers--and widespread buy-in from the public. Yet little discussion has appeared in the press to help people understand the measures they can take to best protect themselves during a flu outbreak--other than vaccination and antivirals.


"Launched early enough and continued long enough, social distancing can blunt the impact of a pandemic," says Howard Markel, a pediatrician and historian of medicine at the University of Michigan. Washing hands diligently, avoiding public places during an outbreak, and having a supply of canned goods and water on hand are sound defenses, he says. Such steps could be highly effective in helping to slow the spread of the virus. In Mexico, for instance, where the first swine flu cases were identified in March, the government launched an aggressive program to get people to wash their hands and exhorted those who were sick to stay home and effectively quarantine themselves. In the United Kingdom, the national health department is promoting a "buddy" program, encouraging citizens to find a friend or neighbor willing to deliver food and medicine so people who fall ill can stay home.

In the U.S., by contrast, our reliance on vaccination may have the opposite effect: breeding feelings of invulnerability, and leading some people to ignore simple measures like better-than-normal hygiene, staying away from those who are sick, and staying home when they feel ill. Likewise, our encouragement of early treatment with antiviral drugs will likely lead many people to show up at the hospital at first sniffle. "There's no worse place to go than the hospital during flu season," says Majumdar. Those who don't have the flu are more likely to catch it there, and those who do will spread it around, he says. "But we don't tell people this."

All of which leaves open the question of what people should do when faced with a decision about whether to get themselves and their families vaccinated. There is little immediate danger from getting a seasonal flu shot, aside from a sore arm and mild flu-like symptoms. The safety of the swine flu vaccine remains to be seen. In the absence of better evidence, vaccines and antivirals must be viewed as only partial and uncertain defenses against the flu. And they may be mere talismans. By being afraid to do the proper studies now, we may be condemning ourselves to using treatments based on illusion and faith rather than sound science.

I didn't even quote the part where the man who knows more about flu vaccine research than anybody in the world says we have no clue whether vaccines make a difference.

It's important to note that these authors have no quarrel with vaccines in general, and readily admit the vaccines are effective in combating diseases such as polio.

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Scratch that Itch... or not

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Hypochondriacs probably shouldn't read this.

One morning, after she was awakened by her bedside alarm, she sat up and, she recalled, "this fluid came down my face, this greenish liquid." She pressed a square of gauze to her head and went to see her doctor again. M. showed the doctor the fluid on the dressing. The doctor looked closely at the wound. She shined a light on it and in M.'s eyes. Then she walked out of the room and called an ambulance. Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night--and all the way into her brain.
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The New Atlantis

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One of my favorite journals, The New Atlantis, just unveiled a swank new web design featuring new weblogs and also posted their Winter 08 issue.

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Quoted

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Red Dreher:

If you want to get an idea of the mood inside the journalism business these days, wait till midnight tonight, turn off all the lights in your house, shut yourself in your bedroom closet, put on your sunglasses, pull a paper sack over your head, and stare expectantly at the future.

Michael Brendan Dougherty:

Clinton’s approach in Pennsylvania provides a nice contrast with Obama’s. He stands on a platform surrounded by screaming supporters. Clinton sits at a table with local business leaders, local academics, and the mayor of Pittsburgh discussing ways “we can collaborate to find solutions.” When audience members share their worries with her, she thanks them for their “courage,” blames Dick Cheney, and nods at them like a supermom: maternal, efficient, and in control.

I find both approaches a little creepy.

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Three of a Kind

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You gotta earn the right to live up here

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Do you have a toddler two toddlers who love horses and cowboys? You could do worse than to get "The Man From Snowy River." Nobody gets shot, there're plenty of horses, and, for our 3-year old who makes tow cables out of everything from shoelaces to Mama's headscarves, there are even a scene where ropes and knots figure prominently. And though there's some mildly rough language, it's no worse than the boys hear from their old man when he loses it and there aren't nearly the kind of problematic elements raised by, say, McClintock, which was our previous favorite cowboy movie.

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ISSigh

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I like the folks at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and I'm glad that they have a new web journal, First Principles, but how do you start a website in 2007 with no syndication feeds?

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Way to go animal rights nuts!

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Horse slaughtering was banned in Illinois this year. Has that spared horses the cruelty of being treated like... um... every other animal? Of course not! Now they're all crammed into trailers and shipped under grueling conditions to Mexico where the slaughterhouses (and the jobs!) went. Well, all except for the ones that won't yield enough meat to justify the increased shipping costs -- those are just shot. Congratulations PETA!

By the way, Catrin Einhorn is awesome. The New York Times should totally give her a raise. Tray ball!

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Merry Christmas!

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Not very relevant to the season, but I had to swipe this from Rod Dreher.

If Sesame Street was more like that these days, I think I'd let the boys watch. How is Elmo better than THAT?

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Unrelated thoughts and quotes

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  1. They light up too!
    I believe it's plainly obvious that our society/culture is completely batsh*t insane. But if you need proof, drive around your neighborhood and count the number of artificial outdoor snowmen. Yeah, think about it.

  2. In other words, "Slow down, Poppy!"
    3 year old: "WOW! It's kind of like a racecar!

  3. It's about 50/50
    3 year old: "Me and God... we know everything."

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Uh-oh

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The Gates of Paradise

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Say what you will about Garry Wills, this NY Review of Books piece about newly restored 15th century bronze door panels from the shrine of John the Baptist in Florence is worth a click, and if you're in NYC it would be worth a trip to the MMoA to lay your eyes upon three of the ten panels.

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On Pricing Risk

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NYT article on catastrophe insurance

Was it Warren Buffet who said there's no such thing as bad risk, just bad premiums?

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Seriously?

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A body pillow?

Sometimes, It's OK to throw it away.

Yuk.

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Aerogel

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This stuff is pretty neat. Back in college, my aero engineering roommate showed me a video of a crayon sitting on top of a sheet of aerogel thinner than a pane of glass with a blowtorch underneath. An enormous amount of time passed, and the crayon was unmelted. It was pretty neat. Back then, the challenge for home use was the bluish tint that would make it unappealing for windows. That and the fact that people who care about home heating costs don't have bajillions of dollars for space age insulation. I wonder if either of those problems have been solved.

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Fed cuts rate half a point

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Great news unless you just signed a mortgage last month. Arg.

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Cool Web Junk

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First, some blogger, I cannot now remember who, directs us to The Redistricting Game - gerrymander your way to permanent job security!

Second, Ask.com has a pretty nifty new redesign.

I ran a search for Aramis Ramirez. The center of the screen gave a normal search result. The left sidebar gave a few different options: narrow search ("Is Aramis Ramirez married?" asked some enterprising female), expand search ("Chicago Cubs") and related searches ("Manny Ramirez").

But that wasn't it: after a few seconds, the left bar started filling out more, giving me more options. Now, I could narrow my search down to "Aramis Ramirez Jersey" or expand it to "Dominican Republic Baseball" There also appeared a column on the right side, where I could find images of A-Ram, his Wikipedia entry, and recent news and blog posts about him.

I'm sure google's not quite shaking in their boots yet. I think if I were searching for say, a specific page or article, I'd still use google. But if I were a blogger typing a post about, say, St. Boniface, this link puts on one page links to:

  • several hagiographical entries,
  • images I might swipe to put in my post,
  • other recent blog posts about St. Boniface, and
  • the story of the pagan oak tree.

Very neat stuff.

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Cool tech stuff

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All Hail the Mighty You Tube!

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Where else can you find a bunch of lions attacking a pack of buffalo, knocking one of their young (calf?) into a nearby lake, dragging it out of the water only after playing a game of tug-o-war with a friggin crocodile, and digging into their meal only to have the buffalo come back about 100 strong to get their calf (who is still alive after getting attacked, yanked two different directions and feasted upon for a couple of minutes) and chase them off after goring one of them about 6 feet in the air.

Who needs Animal Planet?

Hat-tip: Assymetrical Information

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