Expert or Just Rich and Famous?

Why are Jim Carrey (who dropped out of high school), Jenny McCarthy (a model and actress), and Robert F Kennedy (an attorney by training) qualified to influence people about vaccinations? Is it because they are experts in human biology and immunology? Or is it because they are rich and famous?

I get a little frustrated seeing people eat up what Jim Carrey said about how the one-size-fits-all mentality does not apply to vaccines. He is partially right--one size actually only fits about 99% of kids. There are an extremely few individuals with immunodeficiencies (but soon all 50 states will be testing all newborns like they do in Wisconsin) that leave them with lives like "the bubble-boys." But when it comes to vaccines, the genes that control our immune systems are over 99% identical regardless of where you live and who you are (no that is not including the hypervariable VDJ recombo regions in our lymphocytes, but if you know what I'm talking about then you probably aren't anti-vaccine).

And what makes me mad is that people take what Jenny McCarthy say she 'thinks' about vaccines as guidance over what scientists, doctors, statisticians, and the 400,000 participants in the most recent and biggest vaccine efficacy/safety study say. It all seems to me like beauty and emotion are winning more people than logic, evidence and experience.

And what is a lawyer by profession saying about too many vaccines being a problem for kids? Kids and adults are exposed to BILLIONS of microbes every day, so limiting the amount of microbial peptides in a vaccine is not going to make them any safer--it will just make them less effective.

People argue that the science behind vaccines is over 200 years old. It is older than that--it is as old as humankind!--scientist just came to understand it then and use it for good. Just like electricity--it's always been there, we just haven't been able to do anything with it. And like with electricity, our understanding is getting better, so that's why the list of bugs covered by vaccines is growing and that's why they started to add adjuvants like thermisol (which contains mercury) in the first place--to make them better. But even when thermisol was in vaccines (up until the early 2000's), there was still more mercury in a tuna sandwhich than any vaccine. And mercury poisoning and autism are 2 completely different beasts, so it goes to show that people claiming the vaccine and autism link haven't studied medicine.

I'm tired of actors and politicians misusing their power and making little kids sick when it could have been prevented!

So that was on my mind and it's off so I can study in peace for my immunology test.

Illusion of Independence

So I have been studying (read "cramming") for a psychiatry test, and I have repeatedly thought "If only people didn't have the idea that they were completely independent and could do things on their own, they wouldn't have this problem in the first place."

No one is independent these days--we all rely on farmers to make food for us, and even farmers who grow their own food rely on store people for fertilizer, tractors, etc.

The psych lecture I was listening to that got me thinking about this was about people (especially doctors) thinking they didn't need help for depression and then they let it get worse and they end up doing things they regret in their saddened state.

Then the next lecture was about child psychiatry, and how families don't want to admit they need help with kids, but then once a crisis happens and help is forced on them, the child improves dramatically.

Independence is not right mindset--interdependence is better!!! See Stephen Covey's "7 Habits" book for more on interdependence;)

Global Warming Solutions

First off, if you like Al Gore, stop reading this.

A few years ago, I got an email from my dad about Al Gore, and how at the time he made his film on global warming, his mansion was the ultimate sign of hypocrisy.

Yesterday, I just found out about how Al Gore in 1997 recommended limiting family sizes to help solve global warming (yes, I'm over 10 years behind in my news). He has 4 kids, so what about himself?

I just want to say if you want to persuade people, set an example; don't be a hypocrite.

History lessons at medical school

I have enjoyed the few history lessons I have received while at medical school. The first was actually one I read about on my own on a study break. It turns out many think that the doctors taking care of George Washington may have sped up his death by "bloodletting," an old practice used to supposedly let the bad stuff out by cutting a person and just letting them bleed. But thankfully medicine has taken a role as a side-kick to science so that scientists do the dirty work on computers, cells and mice so doctors don't do stuff that out-right kills people.

Another history lesson I heard today may end up happening again thanks to Jenny McCarthy and Oprah. First things first: the history lesson.

Back before the 30's, whooping cough or pertussis was a common occurrence, and before antibiotics, it killed 50% of people it infected and infected up to 90% of people exposed to a sick person. Thanks to antibiotics, it only kills 1/500 infected people, but infections last weeks if not months and include a deep, long-lasting (15-20 seconds) cough and possibly neurological problems in up to 4% infected.

But scientists came up with a vaccine and antibiotics for it, and so whooping cough became rare. The only bad thing was the vaccine caused a fever in 50% of immunized kids. One guy around the 80's tried to convince people that those fevers were causing neurological problems worse than what the pertussis bacteria could cause, and a lot of people bought into it. Japan, Russia, the UK, and Australia were a few of the countries that stopped the pertussis vaccine. Unfortunately, what followed were whooping cough epidemics. A disease that annually only hospitalized hundreds of kids across the world skyrocketed to putting tens of thousands of kids in the hospital in only a few short years!

I pulled this graph from an article by a researcher named Gangarosa published in 1998 in "The Lancet," which is a world-renown medical/scientific journal.

It shows on the right how the US kept on vaccinating, but Australia had a huge increase in incidence thanks to not vaccinating.

Now back to what I mentioned about Oprah and Jenny McCarthy, who claim MMR vaccines cause autism: countries like the UK that fell for the pertussis story are falling for the MMR/autism story, and measles vaccination rates are dropping while incidence is climbing just as fast! History is repeating itself, except instead of pertussis, it is measles, mumps and rubella.

What many people don't realize is that even though we may be vaccinated and immune to diseases caused by bacteria and viruses, we still carry the germs! So we can pass along the germs to those not vaccinated without even knowing it...

I've learned a few other history lessons in medical school, but I'll save them for later.

Meet the Mormons debriefing

So we had a "Meet the Mormons" night at my school. It was a dinner and panel for fellow students to ask questions. Of the 80plus people there, there were only about 30 Mormons. There were 3 students who had heard much about the Mormons and were asking questions in a rather attacking manner, but the rest had great friendly questions. Almost all the panel members ended up sticking around for a few hours after the 2-hour long dinner and panel discussion to talk more with the 3 in particular and a few other that didn't get their questions in. I was talking to my friend who had a conversation with one of the 3 about how the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible, so if my friend believed in the Book of Mormon, he couldn't believe in the Bible and was, therefore, not Christian.

I heard this later and was a little frustrated with the misinformation out there. The Book of Mormon doesn't contradict the Bible any more than the Bible contradicts the Bible. For example, Exodus 7:3, the Bible says that the Lord told Moses "I will harden Pharaoh’s heart," which is contradictory to basically to everything else in the Bible about God's love and His desire for all on earth to be humble. There are a few more things that the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible fixed that make the Bible not contradict itself so much, but the Book of Mormon doesn't contradict the Bible any more than the Bible does itself.

WWJD

So I'm involved with a group on campus that is trying to get people of different faiths together (actually, they are all children of Abraham) for a dinner to hear some speakers from different faiths talk about how their faith has helped them in their career. The Christian group here on campus won't come though because their goal is to celebrate Jesus, not other different faiths.
I'm a little sad that the group wanting to celebrate Christ won't emulate Him as well--what did Jesus preach about Samaritans, who were of a "different faith"?
Oh well...