Friday 12 May 2017

Scary...

...because true.



6 comments:

  1. Funny that you believe it is scary to think of a society based on equality points where, amongst other ridiculous stuff, science and facts are meaningless (of which I am afraid too) but at the same time you claim that vaccination makes us a weak race susceptible to "African germs". I recommend you would stick to what you know and try not to enter fields of which, objectively, you have such a poor knowledge. Before showing your support to populists who blame multinationals for enforcing ‘useless’ vaccination upon people, I would look into why we vaccinate against infections such as measles and chickenpox. I would look into the details of herd immunity, viral recombination and how vaccination is important to control this even if it still gives you a bit of fever. I would look into the pathophysiology of chickenpox and learn about what a deadly virus it is and why we do not die from it (today). I have chosen chickenpox because I highly doubt you could understand other diseases while I am sure you could relate to that even if you don’t understand that your ass is safe and your kids are not having neurological problems, secondary infections, brain lesions or haemorrhagic shock because someone else vaccinated their kids while you were spreading your uninformed ideas for which, I am afraid, there is no vaccine. You support some crazy know-it-all who thinks that what we see nowadays as the manifestation of chickenpox is the real disease and does not understand that what we are looking at is a mild leftover of a deadly disease. These people don’t understand why our mothers could put us all together once one of the kids contracted the disease (chickenpox parties) without killing us all, they just assume it’s because the chickenpox is not actually dangerous. After all why would you care? We are probably too old to see the effects of this massive anti-vaccination campaign but I suppose somehow evolution has to take its course, doesn’t it? Better your offspring than mine. Don’t take me wrong, I am aware of good reasons not to vaccinate, which vaccinations to avoid and in which circumstances, but I have dedicated my entire life to this while you blab about economy and finance parroting people who actually gave a damn about learning the dynamics of markets and economy. Culture is not optional, especially if you want to be a self-proclaimed carrier of the only truth of the world.
    Sincerely,
    B.W.

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    1. I already know that talking with you is useless. If you see equality in what that video denounces your mind is already fucked up. But I have to say that it's a bit cowardly rummaging on FaceBook comments and then using them out of context. A context which probably you didn't understand, because you're not Italian or because, as always happen to some people when talking about vaccines, you lost your mind. Or maybe you lost your mind on immigration? Doesn't matter, clearly you're not able to discern between who is against vaccines and who asks more transparency in vaccines business. You don't need to show yourself, stay hidden. It fits people like you.

      By the way, about the chickenpox, these are data from CDC:

      "Chickenpox used to be very common in the United States. In the early 1990s, an average of 4 million people got varicella, 10,500 to 13,000 were hospitalized (range, 8,000 to 18,000), and 100 to 150 died each year."

      A really deadly disease, isn't it? And about "neurological problems, secondary infections, brain lesions or haemorrhagic (sic.) shock"... Have you ever seen some of these effects!?! Because I've never seen or heard about anything like that, and when I was child everybody used to get chickenpox.

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  2. I don't see equality in the video, I actually agree with it. I hate political correctness from the bottom of my heart. I believe in hard work even if I see people going ahead because they tick all the boxes of minority or if I when I need a panel to review my work I have to make sure I have a mixed bag even if finding a woman expert in the field means I have to fly her from USA. It is because I like the video that I find ironic that you would support it and at the same time believe that vaccines are a conspiracy from multinationals.
    I do discern between being against vaccines and being in favour of information on vaccines. Exactly for this reason I have explicitly said that I am aware of many good reasons and circumstances where vaccination is neither a solution nor beneficial altogether. What I am trying to say is that if there is a small truth in what this guy was saying (which would be the need for transparency in vaccination) it does not make the remaining 99% of his bullshit correct. Claiming that vaccines are made to make us susceptible to African germs is the same that claiming that aliens probed my ass to see if Lochness’s Nessie was in there.
    Some of the danger of chickenpox lies in the genetic similarity between chicken pox virus and other Herpes virus. These virus have been around from 100 million years, give or take. The fact that you have not seen the dangerous effects of them, doesn’t mean much. I have never seen the plague, for example. Mortality rate of chicken pox is less than 1% but it is a much more complicated disease for immunocompromised patients, pregnant women and infants, due to the inability of the immune system to fight back like the majority of kids do when they catch it at school age. Vaccination also means that if you catch it, it is a milder infection. This explains why you probably have never seen major consequences of this infection. Secondary infections are highly common in infants, particularly caused by widespread rashes so they don’t die directly from chickenpox but from Staph or similar bacteria that live there (but then again, those people probably go around saying that antibiotics and MRSA are another multinationals’ conspiracy). Other symptoms are rare cases but I cannot stress enough that they are finally rare because of vaccination which, in most cases, reduces the pool of most virulent features. Unfortunately, what happens if a certain percentage of the population does not get immunised is that herd immunity disappears and in 30-50 years one virus will produce an epidemic.
    I am not sure why commenting on two of your posts in one makes me a coward. It was the irony in the contrasts between the two that I was trying to stress, it would have been very difficult to do it without including one of the twp. Next time I will comment a facebook post, for equality’s sake, of course. I have not clear how not being Italian makes me not capable to understand the context of your post (please tell me you are not playing the race card but just the translation issue). I also doubt you know my position on immigration and I don’t know how that anyway has anything to do with my knowledge of medicine but since you brought it up I try to make it simple by saying “the less, the better”, even if I am the product of immigration. I guess you were trying to bring the topic onto something more familiar to you. In that case, I have to say I am not an expert on immigration nor economics therefore I would never dream of writing supporting statements in favour of this or that opinion without a serious study of the matter. Sometimes it is better to admit that one has said something in the spur of the moment without proper documentation. You have chosen the defence of a lost cause. I want to be optimistic and hope you were going Schopenhauer on me. I am sorry if this has offended you, I guess we both have to deal with being offended every day. I get offended by stupidity (I am not inferring you are, don’t get wind up) however being white and middle class I cannot claim anything.
    Best Wishes,
    BW

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    1. I think I misjudged you, let me see how much starting it over. First of all, I probably confused you with someone else, for some reasons I will not list now. Second, it's the translation issue I referred to, not the race card, and the knowledge of the debate going on in Italy about vaccination and immigration. Both send many people coo coo. I assume (tell me if wrong) that you translated the post on FB, but which? I re-posted a re-post, and the original included a letter sent to an Italian newspaper by a reader. Have you been able to read the letter? Do you know the Italian panorama? So, what's the Italian panorama? We have the government that wants to make compulsory new vaccines, according to some sources it would include flu vaccines. If a child doesn't get all vaccines will not be able to attend school, which is compulsory too. At the same time, it's imposing us a destructive mass migration, trying to sway people's mind in favour of it with a media campaign. A couple of days before my post, an Italian newspaper wrote that "since our immune system got weak and weaker we need to be happy of the bacteria that immigrants are fetching from Africa". I joined a discussion on a group regarding that article, which my post was part of. And when I answered you I was thinking just of that discussion, not of my post, in fact, I wrote "rummaging on FB comments". I thought you were a member of the group where the discussion started on, for this reason, I called you a coward. I apologise for that.

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    2. Let me get into the details of my post, now.
      One of the vaccines the Italian Gov wants to make compulsory is against measles. To justify it, they said we had "340 cases in one year". The letter asked if 340 cases out of a population of 60 million is a good reason to forbid school to a child who didn't get the measles vaccine. And if you think that the compulsory vaccines are available just in combination with not compulsory ones, and one of them is the Hepatitis B which is a GSK's patent (isn't it?)... Well, I don't believe it weird if many people come out with the idea that our Gov is working for Big Pharma. Since a past Italian Minister of Health, De Lorenzo, got a draft of 600 million lire from GSK to render a vaccine compulsory, and many other similar things, I think that such an idea stands on solid ground.
      My affirmation that vaccines make us weaker in front of African germs and that our Gov wants to vaccines us for that reason was partially a tongue in cheek affirmation. I don't think that, but I'm sure our politicians are bribed by Big Pharma. And it's not a conspiracy, it's how the world works. At the same time, we are getting weaker and more susceptible to diseases. Due to pollutions, the artificial pregnancy of couples who shouldn't reproduce (yes, it's pretty Nazi), bad food, too much hygiene and a smaller amount of germs we get in touch with. Vaccines have a part in it, especially if we vaccine all population for even the most innocuous bacterium, like could be the flu bacterium.

      In conclusion. You have knowledge of medicine, I haven't. I need to rely on what people like you tell me to make my mind on medical issues. About vaccines, some experts say they are really useful. But then they don't answer when I ask if they have no risks at all. Other experts warn about a possible risk linked to vaccines and suggest caution, still saying they are useful. Unfortunately, those opinions are used by people who simply want to refuse any vaccination always. Then the medical authorities step in the discussion, and they expel those medical doctors who uttered their own doubts about the vaccination system (more and more vaccines in younger and younger babies). The same authorities which did nothing against a hospital director who used to break his patient's bones to make practice (this is just one example, I can bring more cases). The medical science didn't defeat any disease in the last decades, just "created" new ones year after year promoting new useless vaccines for all of them. In such a panorama, bribed politicians, patented vaccines, untrustworthy medical societies, can you blame people (like me) who stand against these imposed vaccinations?

      Now, if I made my position clearer, would you explain me the expression "going Schopenhauer on me", please? I didn't find any reference on Internet.

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  3. I arrived to your fb via a re-post. I can read Italian but I used the translation for some parts so I might have lost something. I understand what you are saying about compulsory vaccines but I strongly disagree on certain points. First, all vaccines have a patent. I don’t believe that researchers’ work is for the great and good. In the same way pharma companies are not charities, they are business. It is up to governments to stand for citizens rather than benefit the earnings of a company. Politicians are corrupted and big pharma want to make more money. That doesn’t make science less credible. I am really tired of hearing about plots of the pharma companies to “infect us all”, “deliberately not curing cancer” etc. They are trying to make money, yes, but from that to say that they introduce virus to then sell the vaccine it is just beyond ridiculous. Medicine didn’t defeat any disease in the last decades? Maybe you meant that no disease was eradicated in the last 20 years, although I you can’t say that not eradicating is the same as not defeating any disease. Eradication is a highly complex process which can only be achieved for bacteria or viruses with particular features, no matter how hard you try. That said, I can make a list of great successes of the last few decades. In no particular order: Ebola, Zika (if we want to keep it mainstream), smallpox, polio, avian flu, H1N1 flu, HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, Hib, neisseria, mumps, pertussis, rubella, pneumococci, lyme disease, rotavirus, hepatitis, adenovirus, anthrax (to stick to the infectious diseases only). How exactly can you say that medicine has been sitting on its ass? We slave for hours and in working conditions that many white and blue collars cannot even begin to understand. 20-30K to work even 18 hr/day without forgetting the kind of jobs that most of us had to do to put ourselves through university for at least 10 years.
    You say that it’s suspicious that the compulsory vaccine (hexavalent vaccine?) includes the HepB, which is patent of GSK, but why is that relevant? The other 5 vaccines are patent of other big pharma companies as well, why is that okay and the hep B is not? Why for years nobody asked why they take 1 shot containing 6 and why those specific 6 vaccines?
    340 cases are not enough to justify a compulsory vaccine, I agree, I would have to look into the epidemiology of measles and I could get back to you (if I am not wrong the first epidemics of measles involved around 400-500 children, so not far off). Maybe due to the trend of liberal-chic parents not to vaccinate kids and the ratings below 30% in some countries, perhaps epidemiology suggests it would be better to make it compulsory. I am not sure.
    I agree that germs from countries can make your immune system stronger but I wouldn’t go as far as using it as a good reason to promote immigration. I agree that too much hygiene makes us weak. I am not suggesting to avoid to shower (the train is bad enough as it is) but let kids play in the garden a bit more. I agree as well on food, pollution and many other things however, I still disagree on vaccines. See, if you take too much antibiotic too often you are effectively weakening your immune system and strengthening the bacteria’s virulence. When you take vaccines you are “priming” your immune system to fight faster. The same happens when you play in the garden and you come in contact with germs and you “prime” your immune system.
    I would never blame you for standing against compulsory vaccination but I would expect more documentation and avoid populist statements.
    Lastly, about Schopenhauer, I was referring to “The art of being right” and I was inferring you were using rhetoric to help your case, in particular you were trying to make me angry, leading to my loss of the sense of logic or, as I said, that you were trying to pilot the discussion towards a topic more comfortable. I was just messing with you, trying to be friendly but I am socially awkward so it doesn’t always come out right.
    Best Wishes,
    BW

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