Sick
I had a good pal call me this afternoon and as soon as I answered he said: "Apocalyspe? Or just end of the world?"
Took me a few seconds to catch the uptake as I had been locke up in meetings all day and had fortunately missed the non-stop hype over the Swine Flu Pandemic.
At least, I hope it's hype as, in principle, I mostly oppose mass death.
In principle, I also support vigorous pubic health preventive measures.
Which is more than I can say about a certain "moderate" Republican senator -- Susan Collins of Maine.
Turns out she is, in fact, for public funding to prepare for flu outbreaks...but only after she oppsed it.
One of the conditions that Collins imposed in return for her voting for the Obama stimulus package was the stripping out of nearly $1 billion in funding for.... flu prevention!
Collins, you see, is against "pork" but at the cost of ignoring pork flu.
Now she's playing CYA by claiming the opposite. Get a load of this statement from her office defending her asinine move:
“Sen. Collins supports increased funding for pandemic flu preparedness, but she felt it belonged in the regular appropriations bill, not the stimulus package,” said Kevin Kelley, Collins' spokesman. “That's something she made a point of saying during negotiations.”
Got it? (Cough).
The truth, of course, is much simpler. Collins didn't really care what got cut from the stimulus package as long as it got cut and she could publicly posture as a fiscal hawk. It could have just easily been a billion chopped from roads, schools, farm projects or cheese research. It just happened to be for preparedness against THE FLU.
Sick.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Now she’s playing CYA by claiming the opposite.
link not working?
April 28th, 2009 at 8:00 am
I wonder what the difference between pork and swine is.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:37 am
The truth from Daily KOS?
(1) Susan Collins is not against the idea of pandemic prevention funding
(2) George W Bush actually pushed for this pandemic prevention money in the first place
(3) Chuck Schumer called pandemic prevention funding a “little porky thing”
(4) The money was allocated a month after the stimulus in March’s omnibus bill.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:12 am
So will the Republican Governor of Texas (with his ‘thinking out loud’ about secession) volunteer to have his state stand a the very end of the line for tamiflu vaccinations?
April 28th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Welcome to the dark side Senator Specter . . .
April 28th, 2009 at 10:20 am
The joke is these vaccinations are very questionable– as is the amount of mercury and aluminum hydroxide used in them.
Research the literature on the use of flu vaccines. 1976 anyone?
And about 6 years ago my sister in law got one. Within days her arm went funny and she has now been diagnosed with a multitude of horrors including R/A.
I have always, instinctively, rejected the idea of a flu vaccine…as I did the gratuitous offer of a mammogram at UCLA 32 years ago. It has since become standard to NOT recommend them until the age of 40 or 50 and the rad amount has been significantly reduced.
If I had followed, dumbly, the directive to get checked annually I would have exposed myself to countless x-rays.
I also rejected HRT in 98 just as all the studies were coming out that taking–especially–unopposed estrogen was BAAAAAAD.
Ya gotta THINK. And please no knee jerk blather about the scourge of polio and other plagues having been mostly eradicated by vaccines.
We are in a new era where big pharma owns the world and crap is concocted to sell and convince the proles that if you pop a pill or get a shot all will be well. Remember who buys most of the advertising on TV.
And on a very unpleasant subject I recommend this book:
Living Proof: A Medical Mutiny
by Michael Gearin-Tosh
He is an Oxford Don who was diagnosed with a horrible form of cancer and giving about two minutes to live.
Its an elegant, elegant book and a cautionary tale.
I think everyone should read it to understand what it means to be accountable for yourself.
April 28th, 2009 at 10:58 am
As engraved on the smoking man’s lighter (in X-files)
“Trust No One” – especially the medical establishment
April 28th, 2009 at 11:02 am
It is about time that Specter came out of the Dem Closet.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Given that about one fifth of Americans identify themselves as Republicans, perhaps the next RNC meeting should take place in a closet . . .
April 28th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
How about two adjacent toilet stalls at the Ronald Reagan Memorial airport?
April 28th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
There are 52% MORE Conservatives than Liberals
See Randy Pauls link above, based on poll taken 4/24/09 – Question 908a. Would you say your views on most political matters are liberal, moderate, or conservative?
April 28th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Pokey consideres of himself as a conservative independent.
Independents outnumber Democrats or Republicans – 4/24/09 Poll
April 28th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Nevertheless, Obama’s ratings run high while the GOP’s are tanking.
April 28th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
That is true, but even I am somewhat happy with Obama at this point, which is reflected in 69% of the population approving of Obama.
Even though I think that his economic team is going in the wrong direction, by thinking that everything will be solved by giving money to big Wall Street banks.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
“by thinking that everything will be solved by giving money to big Wall Street banks”
Huh? What are you, some kind of socialist? Everyone knows that the world will be saved by free, unfettered Ayn Rand capitalism, and that this can only be achieved by doing everything possible to give the large banks everything they request. Like, duh.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
“And please no knee jerk blather about the scourge of polio and other plagues having been mostly eradicated by vaccines.”
I know I’m totally asking for it here, but I’m pretty sure “eliminating polio and other plagues,” as Anna so artfully puts it, was good. Does that qualify as knee jerk? Is it blather?
In my book the anti-vaccination folk aren’t any more impressive than the creationists. They’ve both rejected science in favor of something they’d prefer. Now, I don’t want to say that all vaccines are necessarily safe and that you shouldn’t be somewhat skeptical, so if that’s all Anna’s voicing then I’ll add an amen, but if she’s saying flatly that vaccines are bad, well, then she’s wrong and believers in science shouldn’t let it slide. Let me add that where creationists are merely misinforming people, anti-vaccine zealots can be public health risk.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
“There are 52% MORE Conservatives than Liberals”
Bullshit – try pushing a “conservative” agenda through Congress, try cutting spending at the same rates knee-jerk, idiot idelological “conservatives” advocate cutting taxes and you’ll find out what crock of “self-defined” shit that is. On issues, which is all – as someone who is conservative in many respectives but a “policy liberal” – I care about, this isn’t a “conservative” country. And it’s getting less so every day as the epic fail of conservative bamboozlement plays out as total and utter failure of policy.
You’re being childish and dishonest if you think that crap can be passed off as a description of contemporary America.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
In principle, I also support vigorous pubic health preventive measures.
Larry Craig will be grateful to hear it, Marc.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Mavis, I don’t disparage the eradication of disease through the use of vaccines in the past…but there are a lot of scientific studies about the current use of vaccines and the associated problems.
You want a flu shot, girl, you get yourself one.
Note this 2006 BBC article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14458-bacteria-were-the-real-killers-in-1918-flu-pandemic.html
And there is another New Scientist article also discussing the recent resurrection and study of the 1918 pandemic as being lethal because of bacterial pneumonia and anti biotics being the more important weapon.
This is a bullshit engineered panic. The bug got out either on purpose or by accident.
There are several legit older stories on Tamiflu etc not even being effective on the strains its often hauled out for etc etc.
I am addressing the current controversy around vaccine use and the lack of ethics by big pharma.
One has to be vigilant and use common sense. Modern medicine is miraculous and people are unscrupulous if there is a buck to be made. And, uh, the unscrupulousness of the pharmaceutical industry is hardly a fringe idea.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
oops meant to put in the BBC article link fromn 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5385894.stm
I think this is creepy.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
“There are 52% MORE Conservatives than Liberals”
reg,
Don’t argue with me argue with me, argue with the poll Randy Pauls linked to.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_042609.html
April 29th, 2009 at 5:26 am
“Many experts have warned that the only way to expand flu-vaccine manufacturing capacity is to get governments to pay for it. In its 2004 “Consultation on priority public health interventions before and during an influenza pandemic,” the WHO cautioned: “Industry has little incentive to build additional manufacturing capacity, which requires very large long-term investments for an event that occurs only rarely and unpredictably.” (See Bibliography: WHO 2004) Last year, Britain’s Royal Society added bluntly: “It is not commercially viable for the vaccine industry to commit the necessary resources to scale up production in advance of a pandemic when there is no existing market, the threat of a pandemic may be years away and the risk in any single year may be considered to be low” (see Bibliography: Royal Society 2006).
Creating enough vaccine-manufacturing capacity to protect the world’s population is not cheap. The price tag is likely to be at least $2 billion and could rise to $9 billion, according to a WHO estimate (see Bibliography: WHO 2006: Global pandemic influenza action plan). Experts within the vaccine industry say that expecting manufacturers to make the investment asks companies to spend against their own best interest. “In the US market alone by the year 2010 there could be a surplus capacity resulting from ‘building for demand’ for pandemic preparedness but ’suboptimal utilization’ based on significantly lesser demand for seasonal vaccines,” an engineer and two strategists from the Danish biotech firm NNE PharmaPlan wrote in the industry journal BioPharm International. “In Europe, Asia and the rest of the world, planned future capacities for ‘pandemic preparedness’ would have to address how potential surplus capacities can be effectively used in markets where there is little or no demand for seasonal vaccines” (see Bibliography: Thomas 2007).
The United States has already experienced the aftermath of vaccine companies’ feeling overextended. Between 1998 and 2002, two of the four companies that then supplied seasonal flu vaccine left the market, citing losses on investment and increased regulatory demands. In the 2000-01 and 2003-04 flu seasons, the country experienced significant shortages of flu vaccine, with long lines, panic buying, price-gouging, and subsequent congressional investigations (see Bibliography: GAO 2001, 2004; Grady 2004).
The same scenario could happen again. “The U.S. will have a serious problem if the pandemic doesn’t strike in the next couple of years, because interest will decline and demand will go down again,” said Hedwig Kresse, an associate analyst for infectious diseases with the British-based market analysts Datamonitor. “Governments will have to guarantee a certain sales volume to keep [manufacturers] in the market and to keep these capacities up” (see Bibliography: Kresse 2007).”
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/biz-plan/news
And in today’s Guardian this opinion piece:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/29/swine-flu-mexico-uk-media1
April 29th, 2009 at 6:24 am
I’m arguing with you because you leave out the word “self-defined” and don’t deal realistically with policies that most Americans support. If this was a “conservative majority” country, you guy would have been able to destroy Social Security and there would be no prospect of universal health insurance – which is going to happen. What people call themselves when faced with a poll question is irrelevant. (I’m a left-liberal for very “conservative” reasons, incidentally – so, Voila! – this Obama-loving lefty is “conservative”. There’s nothing less “conservative” than free-market capitalism, incidentally. Nor any crowd more “atheistic and materialist” – and contemptuously elitist – than those Ayn Rand-loving, snot-nosed libertarians. )
April 29th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Jesus Christ, pokey, you had to scroll through an awful lot of counter-evidence to get to your last, very weak item in that poll – did you even bother to read the part where nearly two-thirds of the people think Obama’s views on “most issues” are neither too liberal, nor too conservative but “about right.” That speaks volumes more than whether folks choose “liberal”, “moderate” or “conservative” on the tail end of a very comprehensive poll that shows enormous approval for Obama and his agenda, and considerably more approval of Dems than a right-wing policy agenda and the Republicans – who are pretty much living in shit city if that poll is even close to accurate.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Your argument is called grasping for straws, Pokey.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I’m not sure we totally see eye to eye on this, Anna, but point taken.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Mavis, WHO has now declared we have an imminent pandemic! 132 cases and one death (outside Mexico) makes a pandemic. This is the worst sci fi scenario being conjured. Its outrageous. First the bullshit Tamiflu and Relenza is being bought by gov’t and distributed while pharma is being given gazillions to concoct a vaccine so we can all be poisoned.
As the Guardian columnist suggests more people die of hospital superbugs that nothing is being done about.
I mean this is like so fucking Orwellian.
I just plead with all of you on the forum to NOT be suckered into having a flu shot. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Take your C etc.
This is the most infuriating, blatant bunch of bull in the history of the world.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
36,000 a year die of regular flu. Is that an imminent pandemic?
May 1st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
The joke is these vaccinations are very questionable– as is the amount of mercury and aluminum hydroxide used in them.
Cracked pot.