The one with the rest of Bolivia

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Bolivia was like stepping back into Indian mentality... the cost of living the traditions the change in culture countryside the change in food.... the dreaded stomach cramps no longer Delhi Belly but Boli Belly I found myself wowed by the womens attire the bowler hats the plaits and colourful skirts. I found myself trying to starve the bug out of my tummy after the salt flats and craving s

Mancora

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Hola AmigosThis is going to be a short one because there is not so many ways to say that all we did was RELAX in this next destination. After Lima Greg and I took a 17 hour bus to Mancora Peru. Mancora is in northern Peru right on the coast and is a renowned surf and kite boarding spot. We picked a pricier hostel for a first night as a splurge but turns out this hostel is now under new mana

Monteverde Cloud Forest April 29

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Hello againWe are in the cloud forest and it definitely has cooled off. Not parka weather or anything but much more bearable.Today we were awakened at 430 am by a bird or bat flinging itself into our bedroom window. It was so loud Guy and Wendy heard it two cabins overIt's a beautiful morning and we visited the Hanging Bridges 8 bridges connected by paths at the Cloud Forest Treetops. It is

Adieu to Vancouver

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Well today is our last full day in Vancouver. Craig has already started to pack up all our stuff. Tomorrow we'll be handing back the keys to the flat and heading off to a hotel for the night before we pick up the camper van on Saturday morning. Not quite sure whether we're really looking forward to becoming trailer trash for a while. I'm not convinced that I can get away with wearing a stained

Exhaustion and an Excuse for a Boat Trip

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So I stayed up way too late talking to that girl and was way too tired from climbing the mountain that 930am pretty much the latest you can get the free breakfast for came way too fast. I had a strange nightmare for the first time in my memory I actually woke up saying 'no no no' and I was clawing at the air. It was a dream about something trying to force something down my throat. When I t

south island

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So got on the bus on tuesday and went from christchurch to kaikoura north of christchurch met quite a few people on the bus so that was good. Kaikoura is right on the coast sea was a perfect blue colour. Was supposed to go for a spot of whale watching but the trip was cancelled due to rough seas i do pass through here again so maybe next time. Instead I went for a walk with some people fro

I can see clearly now

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Tomorrow is the big day when we head to Arizona for the Route 66 Fun Run. Jeff and Toni are enroute as I type.Things seemed to have settled down except for the wind the winds have been gusting to 40 mph since I got here and Irsquove about gotten everything back lsquoshipshapersquo with the RV.This morning they replaced my curbside mirror. While I was there I mentioned to them how my

Life with two kids

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April 30 or so 2010The last few days have been great. We have gotten to travel to distinct area of the Henan Province and see very different ecosystems and ways of living. It is really good to get out of this huge city 8 million and see the country side. Lots and lots of planted trees lots of wheat no rice and lots of terracing. Every square inch seems to be used. We drove two hours

2 blogs for the price of one

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Sorry for lack of blog yesterday Interenet connection has been bad.On Wednesday we took another stroll along the Strip taking in a few of the hotels and had lunch in a restaurant over looking the Strip which was nice. It was my turn to buy some jewellery from Tiffany today On the way back along we went into New York New York hotel which is linked to ours via an over pass. We found a nice res

On the way to Sydney…

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It seems I'm well on my way now I've spent the last few days tearing down the coast of New South Wales. I'm doing about 90km a day on average which depending on the hills and road surface equates to about 5 hours on the saddle each day. I'm very pleased with my progress. I even took a day off in Port Macquarie and sat on the beach reading The coast is really nice to ride along with the ocea

LATINOAMERICA 3 aterriza como puedas

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Estoy escribiendo desde San Jose de Costarica hecho para nada trivial teniendo en cuenta que ms de una vez en las litmas 48h pensaba que no podra sucederEmpezamos el viaje con un puado de percances que hemos ido superando a modo de pruebas de un videojuego. El primer de los dos vuelos era Reus Frankfurt y all a las 7 de la maana me dicen que con el yeso no puedo volar porque con la pres

My Road Trip Day 4 and 5

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Angel Fire New Mexico Day 4 and 5Day 4Got up this morning the winds were very strong 30 to 40 gusting to 50 weather clear and nice. There is a fire in the canyon. The road that I came in on is closed due to the fire. Took a ride to Taos while I was gone the wind bent the poles in my trailer. Got it down and will fold up tomorrow. The guy that runs the RV park is really nice he is letting me sta

Medical College names South Carolina medical school official as CEO – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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89.7 WUWM - Milwaukee Public Radio
Medical College names South Carolina medical school official as CEO
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Medical College has all the pieces in place to move up in the ranks of schools like itself, and the search committee firmly believes Raymond is the ...
Raymond Named New MCW PresidentWTAQ
Medical College names new presidentThe Business Journal
Medical College names new president and CEOMilwaukee Small Business Times
89.7 WUWM - Milwaukee Public Radio
all 11 news articles »

Career And Education News – City Town Info Education Channel

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City Town Info Education Channel
Career And Education News
City Town Info Education Channel
The primary-care profession is decidedly unpopular, with the vast majority of medical school students opting to instead choose higher-paid medical ...
Shortage of Primary Care Physicians Expected to WorsenOpposing Views
Study Shows 'Invisible' Burden of Family DoctorsNew York Times
Primary care internists inundated with phone calls, e-mailsUSA Today
Reuters -TopNews Singapore (press release)
all 35 news articles »

Hanks, Barrymore, Schwarzenegger: Medical Files Breached at UCLA, Reseacher … – CBS News

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CBS News
Hanks, Barrymore, Schwarzenegger: Medical Files Breached at UCLA, Reseacher ...
CBS News
LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) A former researcher at the UCLA School of Medicine has been sentenced to four months in federal prison for reading confidential medical ...
UCLA Researcher Gets Jail Time for HIPAA Violations (Corrected Version)OutpatientSurgery.net
Medical RecordsSan Fernando Valley Sun
Prison for HIPAA Privacy ViolatorHealth Data Management
The Associated Press -abc7.com -SC Magazine US
all 159 news articles »

Rehab begins for school beating victim – Boston Herald

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Momlogic.com

Med school problems linked to complaints – UPI.com

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ModernMedicine

The Other Anti-Vaccinationists

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Those with an anti-vaccine ideology come from various starting points. There are those who just hate vaccines – because they don’t trust the system, they don’t like the idea of injecting something into their children, or they blame vaccines for their child’s illness or disorder. There is also the “mercury militia” – those who blame environmental mercury for all ills, and whose attention was drawn to vaccines through the mercury-based thimerosal connection. I wrote recently about another group – radical environmentalists who see vaccines and just another environmental exposure the government is trying to cover up.

There is another group that has been around for a while but about which I have not written before – some elements of the right-to-life group. What is their connection to vaccines? – the false belief that vaccines contain cells from aborted fetuses. Recently Lifenews published an article with the following headline: Study Suggests Link Between Autism and Use of Cells From Abortions in Vaccines. The study, of course, does nothing of the sort.

The EPA Study

LifeNews editor, Steven Ertelt, was referring to a recent EPA study published in Environmental Science Technology called Timing of Increased Autistic Disorder Cumulative Incidence. If you read the paper you will find no mention of vaccines, let alone fetal cells in vaccines. The study simply looked at databases of autism diagnosis to see if there was a point at which the increasing cumulative diagnoses was most sharp – any turning points in the data. The point of this exercise is to suggest where to look for a potential environment factor contributing to autism – because that’s what the EPA does, look for environmental exposures that are causing human disease.

They found that in the California, Danish, and worldwide datasets the turning point happened around 1988-1989, while in the Japanese dataset the turning point was spread out more from 1988-1996. Therefore, they conclude, if we want to look for an environmental factor we should look for things whose exposure began around 1988-1989. That is the extent of their conclusion – nothing about vaccines or abortions.

In fact, their study did not even establish that the rising rates of autism are due to any environmental factor. In the discussion they give a nice summary of other documented contributors. These include diagnostic substitution, expanding the diagnostic criteria, younger age at diagnosis, influx of children with the diagnosis to areas with good services, and increased awareness and surveillance. No one of these factors can explain the entire increase, but it is possible that all of them together can, and it is certain that they explain at least part of the rise of autism diagnosis. A real increase cannot be ruled out, but is not necessary to explain the data – and this study does not change that.

The Abortion Link

Ertelt demonstrates the ability of dedicated ideologues to transform a study beyond all recognition. He reports:

The 1988 date is significant because, as pro-life blogger Jill Stanek notes, the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute indicates that’s when the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices added a second dose of the MMR vaccine, containing fetal cells from aborted babies, to its recommendations.

That’s it – a second dose of MMR vaccine was added. Since the vaccine schedule was being expanded regularly over the last two decades, no matter what date the EPA study found as the turning point for increased diagnosis, a temporal link to some vaccine could have been found. So the fact that this roughly correlates with the addition of a second dose of MMR is meaningless. It is not evidence of a connection. At best this kind of data may suggest a potential link, that would then have to be confirmed by other means – but even that is extremely weak.

Ertelt continues:

“For years the evidence has pointed toward the link between vaccines using DNA from aborted babies and the rise of Autism Disorder rates,” he said. “Parents need and deserve to know the risks associated with vaccinations made from lines derived from the bodies of aborted children.”

“While the pharmaceutical industry ignores the evidence and continues to put our children at risk,” Sound Choice is conducting studies on the impact of residual human fetal DNA in vaccines on the brain development and autism in children, Sedlak continued.

Wait a minute – the headline says (or at least strongly implies) that cells from aborted fetuses are in vaccines, but now they are talking about “lines derived from” cells from aborted fetuses. And then it sounds like they are not talking about cells at all, but just “residual human DNA.” So which is it?

Some vaccines culture the attenuated virus in human diploid cell lines that were derived from aborted fetuses. There are currently two such human cell lines in use: the WI-38 line (Winstar Institute 38), with human diploid lung fibroblasts developed in 1964, and  MRC-5 first cultured in 1970.  So each cell line is over 40 years old. Further, the cells themselves are not part of the vaccine. Viruses are cultured in these cell lines.

It is true that viruses are sloppy in their reproduction – they get their DNA mixed up with other viruses and host DNA. So it is likely that viruses cultured in a human cell line will come away with bits of DNA from that cell line – but so what? There is nothing special or different about this DNA. There is no theoretical reason why it should pose any health risk. This is simple scare-mongering using deception and misinformation.

And that is the point – scaring the public with emotional appeals. A search on this topic reveals dozens of websites and article declaring that there is “aborted fetal tissue” in vaccines – a claim so remote from the tiny sliver of truth on which it is based that it is simply a lie.

I have no issue with those who have a moral objection to anything that derives from abortions, if that is their moral position. I object to distorting the science in order to spread propaganda. If you have to lie to make your point, then your position is severely diminished.

Ertelt further reports

Stanek also commented on the new developments.

“I’ve always read it was mercury in vaccines that was implicated in autism, although many studies state this isn’t true,” she said, noted SCPI debunks the idea.

Interesting – so the pro-life antivaccinationists are at odds with the mercury militia antvaccinationists. They are willing, it seems, to look at the data to debunk the notion that mercury in vaccines is linked to autism, but then happily cite a potential connection to MMR without also noting that the same volume of data also has cleared the MMR vaccine of any connection with autism.

Conclusion

The EPA study is interesting in that it clarifies the timing of the increase in autism diagnoses. It says nothing about the cause of this increase, however, and does not contradict the generally accepted interpretation that artifacts of definition and surveillance are largely, if not completely, responsible for the increase. But ideologues have twisted this study as if it suggests a connection to vaccines, which were not even mentioned in the article and were not part of the research. But not only vaccines – those vaccines that were cultured in cell lines derived over 40 years ago from aborted fetuses.

Further, there is no reason to suspect, either theoretically or empirically, that there is any health risk from using these cell lines in the production of vaccines.

This has not stopped some pro-life antivaccinationists from misrepresenting this study and the background science for their own propaganda purposes. Accurate science should inform moral and ethical discussions, it should not be subverted to an ideological position. One might further consider it immoral to use misinformation to scaremonger about a public health measure, making the position of those pro-life antivaccinationists who engage in such activity even more tenuous.


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