Click here to support the Daily Grail for as little as $US1 per month on Patreon

News Briefs 29-01-2015

Damn giants grow taller each year…

Thanks to the inventor of ellipsis –whoever you were…

Quote of the Day:

“Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

~E. B. White, responding to a letter-writer in 1973, Letters of Note.

  1. Vaccine
    I have been through the typical round of vaccinations as have my children, but there is a risk analysis for some of them that needs to be known. The flu vaccine is one about which I am ambivalent ever since a friend of mine who was in her 30’s at the time had a rare extreme reaction and was paralyzed over much of her body for two years. After that she was on a cane for three years. After That she slowly regained normal mobility though she has all sorts of immune system issues and probably always will have them. It does make you pause for reflection. Is it worth a tiny catastrophic risk of vaccination with that vaccine, or do you want to wrestle with the potential complications of getting the flue? As I get older I will probably go for the vaccination since the flue can be so deadly for the elderly, but there are risks,and they should be stated.

    1. A numbers game

      So, the tiered model of antibody response leaves a small percentage of vaccinated people susceptible. But note: It’s also the reason why you’re better off being vaccinated even if you end up getting infected. Your antibody levels might not be high enough to completely protect you, but they’ll still help—the CDC has seen vaccinated patients with measles who only get a rash for about an hour, says Wallace. And, importantly for octogenarians (whose immune systems are weaker) and infants, vaccinated patients are much less likely to transmit the disease to other people. Even if you’re the unlucky sucker who gets infected after vaccination, getting a shot still helps contribute to herd immunity—good job, world citizen! Taking one for the team!

      Vaccines are a numbers game. As you get older, you’d be safer living in a community where all your neighbors get their shots.

      If the anti-vaccination movement continues to grow, it’s not unlikely to foresee how in the future some countries would deny entrance to US citizens who refuse to take vaccinations –of course, poor countries like my own would still welcome gringos and their dollars, making matters worse…

      1. All of this is further
        All of this is further complicated by the plethora of pollutants in the environment that are upsetting the immune system. It’s a soup of chemicals, aerosols, food additives, etc. So many people now are getting diagnosed with fibromyalgia that it is getting to be ridiculous. The diagnosis may be reckless and imprecise, but the point is a lot of people are coming down with immune disorders, or what at least look like it.

        1. Tribal Immunity
          Serrapeptase (enteric-coded) is a wonder substance produced by the silkworm. It breaks down fibrous substances in your body, including the outer shells of antibiotic resistant viruses. Take some regularly! It’s cheap and you can get it from many health food stores or on-line. I’ve been using the Solaray brand for years.

    2. Flu vaccine
      If you have to take it form anyone take it from me, or rather, my family of medical professionals and the pharmacists that trained me before I changed careers: None of the trust the flu vaccine. The virus often changes too fast for the CDC to keep up and it’s effectiveness is less and less each year. The worst was that swine flu vaccine a few years back, complete and utter BS. Combined with how the CDC handled the ebola crisis, I just don’t trust they know what is really going on.

      1. Flu…….
        Neither I, nor my 16 year-old daughter, have had a flu vaccine for the past 10 years or so. The one shot I did take, and had her take as well, was a Pneumonia vaccine. That latter was taken about 6 years ago or so.

        Since then, each of us has only had a serious cold once.

        I will say this much: Prior to the PneumoVac, I had a serious of quite serious colds, bouts with pneumonia and chronic Bronchitis. I have asthma, and was always susceptible to such infections. But after having the vaccine, only the one attack, and it was not neary as serious as any prior infections.

        As to vaccines in general, I had quite a number of them in my lifetime. I was an aircrewman with the US Navy. In boot camp, we had almost 20 inoculations. ONE of them caused a change in my metabolism that bothers me to this day. I developed an allergy to shellfish. Iodine as well. The docs think that the shellfish allergy is due to higher levels of iodine in them. Regardless, it’s a deadly reaction and to this day I carry an EpiPen in case of accidental ingestion. It’s so bad that, for example, I can’t eat any foods cooked in the same deep-fryer as shellfish.

        The thing is, I used to eat shellfish all the time as a kid. It wasn’t until I had some after leaving boot camp that I had the first attack. The only explanation that makes any sense is some sort of metabolic change due to one of the vaccines.

        Otherwise, I’m pretty healthy. I do fully support vaccinations for all sorts of diseases, but based upon my personal experience, I can’t recommend the flu vaccine.

        1. Apples and oranges
          Ok, the flu vaccine is debatable, for the reasons Lastloup mentioned –although I think I’d have to disagree on a couple of things with re. to the Swine fly scare of some years ago. Remember that I was on ground Zero (Mexico) when the outbreak started, and things got really dicey for a while. The pharmaceutical companies and the governments knew that Tamiflu was not going to be effective against H1N1, but they had to do something –if anything, in order to replenish the supplies once citizens started to stockpile the meds on their own.

          But what happened in Disneyland was not a flu outbreak, but a measles outbreak. We’re talking about a very dangerous illness that used to be the concern only of developing countries, because in America it was a thing of the past. But now, thanks to the general distrust in *ALL* vaccines, those viruses are back to haunt once again the American children and their families.

          Yes, NO vaccine is 100% effective, or 100% safe. Why? Because we’re living organisms, not identical machines. You want your kids to be 100% safe all the time, you’d better stay out of parenthood and play The Sims instead; but if what you want is to keep your children to have the bare minimum of protection against the pathogens inhabiting this dynamic world of ours, you need to play it safe. For them.

          1. I’m not against all vaccines…
            …in fact I think that parents who don’t vaccinate are irresponsible, and then to bring them to a pietry dish such as Disneyland is downright crazy. I just don’t care for the flu vaccine and the extent corporations go through to insist you get one. The pharmacy I worked in was run by corporation and we had to push the shot for a ridiculous 4-6 months out of the year. Combine the pressure of filling other prescriptions in a timely manner plus giving flu shots in a tiny pharmacy you have a recipe for disaster. At our height may have done about 20-40 a day, but that’s nothing compared to my mom, a nurse at a hospital, who would do an average of 200 a day!

  2. Tulpamancer
    I have one too and was fully aware of it since I was about 12-13 years old (as in is was given form), but was always aware of his presence. Actually I may have more than one. The main one calls himself Ouque (Pronounce the letter ‘O’ and then c’way), and the other Kato (K-toe). The also have their own language called Balien (pronounce the “B” like a “V”), which sounds like a bastardized cross between Japanese and Spanish with an accent that makes it sound Russian. I refer to Kato more as a “familiar.” We get along fine…

    *senses blank stares*
    So now that you all think I’m crazy….*gestures towards the door* *runs for it*

    1. Oh-kay…
      You know, it’s funny. I was a very lonely child, and I’ve always had a very big imagination, but somehow I never had an imaginary friend. I don’t know why it never occurred to me…

  3. Attacked by the goat sucker
    [quote=Johnny Depp]I was attacked yesterday morning by a very rarely seen or experienced animal called ‘chupacabra.’ I fought with it for hours. They’re very persistent, very mean. And I’m pretty sure it came into my suitcase. I threw him off the 23rd floor. So we’ll never see him again. Thank you for understanding.[/quote]

    Everything after this is just gravy 😛
    Also, I demand to see the security cameras, not because I think he is full of it, but because that would be a frickin’ awesome fight!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mobile menu - fractal