JosephH

Dr. Harper's main complaints are around business practices, public health matters around the interplay of HPV vaccines and Pap Smears, and with how long the vaccine will have efficacy. Issues around cancer prevention are epidemiological and public health issues. All her concerns taken into account, along with understanding the HPV rates in the US (HPV prevalence was 24.5% among females aged 14 to 19 years, 44.8% among women aged 20 to 24 years, 27.4% among women aged 25 to 29 years), and we had and have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about having had our daughter vaccinated. Add to that if she only gets a decade of efficacy that still gets her through to age 26 in our case. With regard to the myofasciitis circumstance of Dr. Ratner's daughter, as tragic as they may be, even if there were ten cases reported that would make an incidence rate of 0.00000043 for the number of Gardasil vaccinations. The incidence of U.S. female auto fatalities is 0.000053 - should we keep our daughters off the road as well? Similarly, even if there were any association shown between Gardasil and ALS and there were ten cases instead of two that would again be an incidence rate of 0.00000043. The female incidence of MS is 0.00006 to put that risk in perspective. With regard to the speculation of Gardasil deaths: Again, all things in the balance we are entirely comfortable in our decision and would make the same call today.

The bomb squad has been sitting around just waiting for something to do.

Those Mt. Wilson approach gullies are such a delight...

For humans as a species, and as clustered large populations, the totality of our response to infectious disease is absolutely no different than the massed evasions of a school of Mackrel being attacked by Amberjack or of a flock of pigeons evading a Peregrine. No different in any way - someone is inevitably coming up with the short straw. We do get lucky on occasion as we have with Smallpox, but for the most part, and at least for the moment, we confront many diseases like Flu and Malaria with fast mutation rates which, despite our best efforts, will always 'take' a percentage of us. All our best efforts can mitigate that 'take' to a degree, but again, all our mitigations are no more than a collective evasive response to predation.

what are you rambling about? put the 1950's national geographic down and come back, joe. come back to 2012. Dude, if you can't figure out the essential, unyielding truth in that statement and acknowledge it you are completely adrift in any discussion about infectious disease in general and vaccines in particular. Completely adrift and lost, babbling without the slightest grounding in reality.

As opposed to corporations getting RomneyBucks?

Or adopt the infertile approach of the Ten Attendants and otherwise leave looks and charisma intact.

The individual risk is "near zero" only because of the societal vaccine coverage - and that's exactly what makes the anti-science / anti-vaccine point of view and focus on individual risks of adverse reaction so irrational.

Nah, it was just a public service banality alert. We now return you to your regularly scheduled spray.

I do know how technical terms fly over your head and that 'herd' is your new meme, but a shred of investigation and critical thought might serve you better both in terms of intelligent discourse and more injurious invective hurling.

Exactly. In medicine and public health there are always folks who end up with the short straw and if you dwell on the fate of those individuals' tragic circumstance you'll end up in paralytic state which will prevent you doing what is necessary for society as a whole - i.e. don't run the theory of the game from the measure of individual outcomes, rather run it from the measure of the outcome of the whole. I know as humans tend to view ourselves as apart and above nature, but with regard to actions in the face of infections we as a society are no different than school of fish, flock of birds, or herd of gazelle confronted by a predator - there will generally always be a sacrificial cost of individuals to save the whole. It's a cruel world in that respect - but that's living - and our frontline responses to infectious disease will always come at an unavoidable cost of some lives being adversely affected to one degree or another. And if enough folks focus on the effects on a small number of users, and respond by not supporting what's necessary to protect the whole, they may change lessen their odds with regard to the risk of adverse effects, but they greatly increase they're individual odds of being the target of the primary risk and also decrease the defense of the whole. It's a fear-driven, irrational perspective.

Except now in a modern world it's a recipe for complete clusterfuckage on every front - especially infrastructure. And rights? Corporate lawyers play state law like a fiddle. And what rights do I have? California rights, Alabama rights, New York rights, or Texas rights? Rights are sort of ala carte by state which I wouldn't call optimal.

I dunno, the whole affair casts serious doubts on a couple of guys who are the go-to crew for counterinsurgency. For them to have missed a low-grade conflict in their own beds and emails seems like a degree of incompetence and points out how easy it is to get blindsided by friendlies when you get in bed with them.

Wait, talk about the glass half empty - 70% of all cases of cervical cancer are associated with the subtypes covered by the vaccines - 70%. Do you still have to get pap smears? Sure. Will some women still get HPV-related cervical cancer? Sure. But you're going to sneer at 70% and say vaccinating and not vaccinating are equally reasonable approaches? What kind of world does she live in? I don't anyone would wouldn't reduce their exposure to that degree in a heartbeat. Unimaginable.

I've got a better fix, abolish the states as an unnecessary anachronism.

I would add another correlation is the whole range of autoimmune diseases which have been increasing over the past seventy years in a dramatic fashion. Here is an NYTimes article discussing the probable role of maternal inflammation during pregnancy in autism. Time to start eating dirt or ordering worm cocktails...

Well, happy birthday regardless of the chronology.

First off, did you read all of that wiki page you linked to? You know, down to this part: And on this... You're obviously of Eleanor McBean's persuasion if you think flu is in some way benign. There is nothing benign about it. It's a deadly virus and capable of startling waves of lethal pandemics killing millions. And who believes that flu is horrific rather than benign? Well, Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota for one and he is the 'vaccine critic' who is the subject of the blog post in your original link for one: But then you and all the other anti-vaccers are the product of the success of medicine at minimizing the societal effects of infectious disease. Again, my parents lost many friends and classmates all through their school careers and beyond. They saw firsthand the effects of childhood diseases and remember TB sanitariums and masses of polio victims in respirators. If we stopped vaccinating tomorrow the effects would be horrific. As for your initial link, the NYTimes writer entirely misinterprets and misrepresents the conclusions and recommendations of the very report she's writing her blog post on. Dr. Osterholm is criticizing our lack of efficacy data in various populations and is not arguing against the use of current vaccines, but rather saying we need vaccines with high efficacy. Read his actual report linked above - here are his real conclusions: The good doctor isn't recommending against our current vaccines, he's arguing for MORE funding for BETTER vaccines - specifically he and everyone else in the business are searching for a 'universal' vaccine that, given once, would confer immunity against all flu, seasonal and pandemic. Next time read the actual report that is the topic of a blog posts you link to and be aware that all medicine and especially that related to public health and infectious disease is a societal 'best effort' affair with stark risk / benefit tradeoffs and someone will always end up with a short straw - a bummer, but that's life in an imperfect world.

There is no end to what a republican can do with the stroke of a pen once they realize there is no earthly possibility of exploiting a resource. And while remote, I'm guessing they're ripe for a patriotic colonization in kind of a honky Liberia.

Actually, I didn't miss the point. The attempted conjunction of cancer and the incredible miscalculation of risk of 'hurt' was what I was responding to. You 'get' both cancer and the flu (and there's a distinct possibility a lot of cancers are virally initiated). One we don't really have much in the way of anything specific you can do to avoid getting it, the other we do. So the huge leap necessary to put the risk of adverse reaction from the flu vaccine on par with the risk of flu virus and cancer is in and of itself astounding, but to then jump on stage and declare, "why would I voluntarily 'harm' myself" with said vaccine is about on par with the thinking used to accuse women of witchcraft.

You keep telling yourself that despite overwhelming ** gasp ** facts to the contrary. Let me guess where you stand on sasquatch, UFOs and the moon landing.

Well, if you get an aggressive cancer you be sure and tell the docs you want them to be ultra-conservative and only do things we know are 100% sure deals with no possible unintended consequences and see how you make out.

Case in point: In other words we're somewhat desperate for effective cancer treatments and leap on things which appear to have an effective risk/benefit ratio. That evaluation may or may not include testing in every possible age group, sex, race, etc. Sometimes we get it only partially right or entirely wrong, but if you had an aggressive breast cancer how safe would you want the "medical establishment" to play it?

Agreed. Dude, you must be right if the bone is rallying to your side. And you think there is some form of medicine that doesn't represent the "medical establishment experimenting on us"?

Dude, get some edjumacation before spouting: herd immunity. and of course you care more about a few nesting birds than humans. Sigh, is it a reflex or an affliction?