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19 Sep 2011 16:11

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U.S.: Study shows children may need a repeat vaccination

  • 3 year time-frame for whooping-cough vaccine; kids need to re-up source
  • » Or hope everybody covers their mouths? The study, presented by lead researched Dr. David Witt at an infectious diseases conference in Chicago, determined that the vaccine’s effectiveness drops off dramatically three years from when it was administered — compared to a recently vaccinated child, for example, the odds of infection are nearly twenty times higher. This has bolstered support for mandating a repeat of the vaccination for public schoolchildren, as California notably experienced a whooping-cough outbreak last year that killed ten babies. Of course, mandated vaccinations are oft-considered controversial, at times based on scurrilous reasoning.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Jun 2011 13:54

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U.S.: Girl beats the odds, becomes a rare rabies survivor

  • unfortunateRabies is a disease that usually can’t be cured unless you’re vaccinated right after you get it. That was a problem for an 8-year-old girl in California — she contracted rabies from a feral cat and didn’t realize it. By the time her symptoms — including paralysis — were showing, it was too late.
  • fortunateDoctors placed Precious Reynolds in a medical coma and gave her antiviral medications. They didn’t have much hope for her because only two other people have ever survived the disease without the vaccines. Somehow, Precious beat the odds and survived. Definitely a story to smile about. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jan 2011 20:06

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World: Report: Retracted autism/vaccine study “elaborate fraud”

  • It’s one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors. But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data.
  • British Medical Journal editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee • Explaining that the findings in an infamously retracted autism study in 1998 were not only false, but fraudulently made-up. BMJ claims that the Lancet study’s author, Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the histories of the twelve people used in the study. The result was a sharp drop in vaccinations, leading to a significant increase in measles cases in the ensuing years. Wakefield’s medical license was revoked las year as a result. He apparently received over $674,000 from a law firm that wanted to sue vaccine-makers, which was not made public until years after the study first came out. He does have some supporters who question the allegations, but if this is true, he’s an evil mother(#&@)!#. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Sep 2010 10:43

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U.S.: Medical study: Does mercury in vaccines lead to autism?

  • NO the new study says that’s NOT the case at all source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Aug 2010 21:30

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U.S.: Why did the U.S. decide not to vaccinate hens from salmonella?

  • The U.S. chose not to force hens to get vaccinated for Salmonella. They claimed there wasn’t enough evidence that it did anything. (And it wouldn’t raise costs much; it’d cost less than a penny per dozen eggs.) With the very large egg-tainting problem in the U.S., it’s probably good to look at what happened after Britain mandated hen vaccinations:
  • 14,771the number of cases in England and Wales caused by the most common strain of salmonella in 1997, the year a new hen vaccine was tested by the country’s farmers
  • 581the number of cases in England and Wales last year, a decrease of 96 percent; the hen vaccine, which has been in use since 1998, has helped lead to yearly declines source
  • » So why didn’t they? Well, the FDA, while it claims that it looked at the vaccine seriously, said that there were significant differences between the U.S. version of the vaccine and the British one. The vaccine-maker, however, says that the differences were minor and the drugs were equally effective. Meanwhile, the current recall is at around 550 million eggs.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 May 2010 10:35

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Tech: Bill Gates throws money to a bunch of awesome crap for no reason

  • 78 the number of health projects Bill Gates is funding
  • $100,000 the amount each of the project
    got from Gates source
  • » What did he fund, anyway? In order of weirdness (least weird to most weird): A cell phone microscope to help fight malaria, a vaccine triggered by human sweat, treating migrant workers’ scarves with insecticide to reduce malaria, using ultrasounds at reversible male contraceptives, a way to control mosquitoes using flesh-eating plants, and an imaging technology to kill parasites with FRICKIN’ LASER BEAMS.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Apr 2010 00:37

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U.S.: The newly approved Provenge: It’s a cure for prostate cancer, kinda

  • $93,000 the amount the cancer vaccine,
    which the FDA just approved
    yesterday, costs
  • four the number of months the drug
    adds to the life expectancy of a
    prostate cancer patient source
  • » It’s a vaccine that doesn’t really work like a vaccine. The vaccine, administered in three shots, is made from a patient’s own cells, and is used to teach the body how to kill malignant cancer cells. However, unlike most vaccines, it doesn’t prevent the disease, just slows it down. The drug may be expensive, but it’s more effective than chemotherapy.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 5 Comments • Permalink
 

06 Feb 2010 13:16

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U.S.: Know all that swine flu vaccine? It’s just kinda hanging around

  • 70 million out of 120 million doses have been used source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Jan 2010 09:48

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World: Bill Gates has a nice little gift to offer the third world

  • $10 billion to make vaccines over the next ten years source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Jan 2010 20:14

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World: France retreats from a hell of a lot of swine flu vaccine

  • 50 million piggies went back to the manufacturer source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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