Virtually every generation thinks that theirs is particularly troubled and that the end of days may be nigh. Doomsday beliefs in one form or another have been around for millennia. Maybe we are teetering on the edge of the abyss right now, but I don't think so. Even world war doesn't mean the end of mankind. World War II killed over 50 million people, but it was far from threatening to the entire species. Even if we had nuclear war there would still be survivors in many unbombed areas of the globe. I won't deny that nuclear war would be catastrophic, but so was Black Death, which wiped out anywhere from 30% to 60% of Europe's population between 1348 and 1350.

In fact the only thing that concerns me is some sort of super virus that spreads easily and kills rapidly. Ever see "Twelve Monkeys"? Something like that. But not knowing a goddamn thing about virology or infectious diseases, I don't know how likely such an event would be.

BOO!

Average pounds per year of Sugar Consumption
1700: 4 lbs
1800: 18 lbs
1900: 90 lbs
2000: 145 lbs
2009: 156 lbs

Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Dementia, etc. were all virtually nonexistent several hundred years ago. Life expectancy figures you've likely heard where people only lived to be 35, etc. are complete B.S. High infant mortality rates, accidents, and infectious disease dramatically skew the life expectancy downward. Those subsets of the population not affected by these outside factors lived to be in excess of 80-100 years old without any incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes - the so called "diseases of civilization." Here is a table of ages of deaths for a population of Inuit from the Moravian Church in Labrador
and the Russian Church in Alaska, 1822-1836:

Aleuts, Unalaska district
Died ages 1-4 -- 92
Died ages 4-7 -- 17
Died ages 7-15 -- 41
Died ages 15-25 -- 41
Died ages 25-45 -- 103
Died ages 45-55 -- 66
Died ages 55-60 -- 29
Died ages 60-65 -- 22
Died ages 65-70 -- 24
Died ages 70-75 -- 23
Died ages 75-80 -- 11
Died ages 80-90 -- 20
Died ages 90-100 -- 2

People who lived in the jesus damn Artic 200 years ago, had zero access to fruits or vegetables and subsisted on a diet of 100% meat (fish, seals, whales, etc.) for their entire lives. 25% of them lived to be over 60 years old, with some living past 90...in a freaking igloo!

In one study of terminally ill patients, patients who were so close to dying that any treatment (including no treatment) was deemed ethical, an intervention method consisting of the complete removal sugar from their diets (think about what most hospital diets consist of for a second) was introduced. Those patients living past the first week (most were so far gone, they died before the study could even start) had their tumors either regress enough to be surgically treated, or experienced full remission. Patients who were previously given less than a week to live were now cancer-free simply by removing sugar from their diets.

Cancer cells have been shown in many studies ( including this one http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=296896) to have a disproportionally higher number of insulin receptor cells. Cancerous cells are "successful" mutations from an evolutionary perspective in that they lead to massive cell propagation. However, most cancerous cells have no method of internal cell metabolism, and must subsist and grow almost exclusively on energy supplied by blood glucose (hence the elevated receptor count). Essentially, cancerous cells are "parasites." By removing all sources of glucose from the body, and entering a state of ketosis, where acetone bodys supply energy to the cells as opposed to glucose, the cancer cells starve; dying or slowing growth to the point where the body's immune system can sucessfully remove them.

Long story short, you wanna live to be 100, stop drinking so much f*ing soda.

I was mostly referring to the northern megafauna, and mammoth in particular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth#Extinction
A definitive explanation for their mass extinction is yet to be agreed upon. About 12,000 years ago, warmer, wetter weather began to take hold. Rising sea levels swamped the coastal regions. Forests replaced open woodlands and grasslands across the continent. The Ice Age was ebbing. As their habitats disappeared, so did the bison and the mammoth.

Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial. Another theory suggests that mammoths may have fallen victim to an infectious disease. A combination of climate change and hunting by humans is the most likely explanation for their extinction.
---
Exactly the point I've been making all these posts. It's just not sure yet, need more work. So you could still be right, but a real scientist would say WE JUST DON"T KNOW YET. Okay he might not shout it, but I will.

In fairness, most ERs are perfectly capable of dealing with the majority of patients that come through their doors -- heart attacks, bone fractures, etc. The Level 1 designation is a "stamp of approval" from the American College of Surgeons, given to trauma centers that can handle anything, from gun shot wounds to someone run over by a train to especially infectious diseases.

The more important point I was making is that with our current system, a very large number of people use the ER as their primary care. The kind of services needed to change that are just not particularly profitable, especially when dealing with low and middle income patients. This is one of the bigger reasons that our for-profit medical system is so screwed up. Basing the quality of care people get on a quarterly bottom line is not just morally wrong, it's more expensive in the long run.

That is of course the other side of the coin. The story is framed as if the vaccines are just bad and imposed for monetary gain, but there may very well be significant medical reasons for them, which covers everyone. For instance, not wanting to be treated for whatever infectious disease for religious reasons should not be allowed, because while it may be anyones prerogative not to be treated, you can infect others and that is more important.

As sad as it is, Iraq is not the cleanest place on Earth. When I was there, it was not uncommon for animals to be shot on sight. Marines were not allowed to have animals because they may be carrying any number of infectious disease. And with so many troops living right next to each other those diseases would spread like wildfire.

P.S. Shooting a dog in the head is not "Brutally murdering." Beating them to death with the butt stock of the rifle would be brutal. Not that just randomly shooting a dog isn't brutal, but if you have to kill a dog in Iraq, a shot to the head is the most humane way of doing so.

>> ^dag:
I'm definitely not arguing that vaccines haven't saved many, many lives - but I would posit that a better understanding of how infectious diseases transmitted helped too. Quarantine, hygiene - better health and diet in the 20th century all had a role to play.
I understand the "free-loader" dilemma too, and recongnise that it was selfish choice.


I would posit that decisions regarding your own child's welfare are rarely selfish. Parental instincts are to forgo that remote chance of adverse reaction. Parents can't help that, can we?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm definitely not arguing that vaccines haven't saved many, many lives - but I would posit that a better understanding of how infectious diseases transmitted helped too. Quarantine, hygiene - better health and diet in the 20th century all had a role to play.

I understand the "free-loader" dilemma too, and recongnise that it was selfish choice.

from wiki:

Leprosy (from the Greek lepid, meaning scales on a fish), or Hansen's disease, is a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae.[1] Leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions are the primary external symptom.

Ah, I've run into these guys before. They do good work in general, although from time to time they can be a tiny bit misguided.

A few corrections to some statements he made:
On viral hemorrhagic fevers: "If you get it, you're pretty much gonna die" - no, although they're dangerous on the individual level, the real danger lies in their capability to be transmitted from human to human quickly and easily. Survival rates vary widely amongst the different families of VHFs, amongst different viruses, and amongst different strains.
On BSL-4 labs: "There are only five in the US" - no, to public knowledge there were seven fully-capable BSL-4s in the US at the time of his speech.
On preparation: "Red teams raise treaty issues" - wut. Treaty issues? On our own territory?

His overall analysis of budgeting for infectious diseases in terms of biowarfare/bioterrorism is pretty spot-on, allocation isn't based on demonstrated current need, and very often it should be, rather than fear, political influence, and public desire (anthrax springs to mind). The argument against that, however, is the fact that demonstrated current need is not all that needs to be considered. Avian flu, for example, demonstrates little current need in terms of infections and deaths per year, but the potential for both is staggering. Also, considering the US's policy of "homeland defense" above international wellbeing, it is no surprise that the military budgets its bio research money towards biowarfare and countering such and related topics. I think the overall call should instead focus on NIH, NIS and other federal grant-giving organizations moving away from these research topics, where the most good can be accomplished.

Rembar could you tell us if it's true that they concluded it was all the Ames type, and if in fact this is "almost" entirely controlled by the pentagon? Is there even such thing as an Ames strain? Is he the guy they c...never mind I'm going to sound stupid if I keep asking questions so I'll go look at wikipedia.

Okay you're right, it's way deep and this video is very alarmist.

First this...

"Although the anthrax preparations were of different grades, all of the material derived from the same bacterial strain. Known as the Ames strain, it was first researched at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Ames strain was then distributed to at least fifteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and six locations overseas."

So, anybody could have it by now.

And then this...

...The new work also shows that substantial genetic differences can emerge in two samples of an anthrax culture separated for only three years. This means the attacker's anthrax was not separated from its ancestors at USAMRIID for many generations.' (9 May 2002, New Scientist)

So it wasn't "on the street" for long.

Personally, I remember thinking it was an attack by the Pro-life (Anti-choice). I had googled who was attacked in the Senate and it came back that they were all part of a Pro-choice (Anti-life) committee or initiative or something.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol4no2/bisgard.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/default.htm
http://www.simcoehealth.org/Facts/immunization/effectiveness.asp
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7666874
http://infectious-diseases.jwatch.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1003/1
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/extract/103/5/1064
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/child-vpd.htm#Haemophilus%20influenzae%20type%20b%20(Hib)
http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/STDFact-HPV-vaccine.htm
http://www.pidj.com/pt/re/pidj/abstract.00006454-199907000-00010.htm;jsessionid=Hn2JtyMthBTbntdbK0MKx07PnVTvJmdyyb2gtFyc6Cj8JTZj9R8z!1219373867!181195
629!8091!-1
and I'm out of time for now.

^Doc_M bear with me as I address your assertions one by one.
you stated
"First on novaccine.com itself. Having looked through the list of references and their summaries, I would say that 1 in maybe 80 to 100 is from a reliable scientific source. The vast majority are poorly reported from simple newspapers and such. Most look like BS, sorry to say."

Maybe you didn’t follow my directions to click the link that said “scientific literature” or perhaps I was wrong about you wanting to understand the “other side of the issue”. Considering your rushed perusal of the site and that you somehow overlooked the multitude of “scientific literature” here is a small sampling of 220 sources taken from scientific literature for you.(only under the section of Vaccine Ineffectiveness) more can be found by following my directions under the Vaccine Risks section (about 1500 references)

Since you couldn't find any (except 1) of these, i cut and pasted them into a webpage for you.

http://www.archetype-productions.com/nfo/vaccines/scientific_literature.htm

Let me know if you don’t consider the sources below as scientific literature.

The New England Journal of Medicine
The Journal of the American Medical Association
The American journal of medicine
The British Medical Journal, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association.
The Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition
The Journal of hospital infection
CMAJ, Canada’s leading medical journal
Cleveland Clinic journal of medicine
Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America
Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases

the sources listed above were culled from the first three pages, so there are still more "scientific literature" to list. Keep in mind the total list reflects studies done worldwide.

Keep in mind. I don't have to prove that vaccines are harmful. I only have to prove that there is real research being done by real scientist who have evidence contrary to what you say does not exist (or is fringe, conspiracy). Let's also remember MycroftHomlz said he couldn't find any. I have now presented to you over 200 sources and pointed you in the direction of another 1500.

It depends what you mean by compulsory. A citizen has a right to not get vaccinated. The public school systems also have the authority to require up to date vaccinations for their students and staff, because of the social contract.

This is where the social contract argument comes from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

I do not think a parent should be sentenced to jail time for not getting their children inoculated, but this is consistent with my opinion from the beginning.

Furthermore, vaccines have proven to be a valuable tool in control infectious disease.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella
etc.

There is a proven health risk to viruses on the international stage.

http://www.unicef.org/immunization/index_25953.html

Vaccines have helped eliminate diseases from the public sphere, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox

While vaccines may not be 100% perfect, nothing is and that is a ridiculous requirement to put on anything. Vaccines are our best tool at fighting diseases and we should not rush to conclusions without having good science to support our opinions.

On a separate topic:

My other arguments were aimed at people(not necessarily you) who believe vaccines cause disease, or genetic disorders. To which, I personally did a literature search. There are no scientifically peer reviewed papers, which not been retracted that prove this. All the current studies, that I could find, indicate that this is not true. Moreover, if you simply ask to have thiomersal free vaccines.

I like to think they work in a CDC infectious disease laboratory, and they are wearing those giant yellow isolation suits