Vaccination Industry Secrets

I had a chat with a mother who refused vaccination for her family. She has five children, the youngest in her arms while she talked to me. I’d say the young is about eight months old. She is raging about vaccination, reasoning that it isn’t natural and it’s dubious why we don’t hear anything in the news about the fatalities of antigen injection. Vitamins are her best bet to build up their immune system.

Vaccination is an intervention against diseases. It saved thousands of medical cases in the United States. Before the widespread of measles immunization, 20% of affected people are hospitalized with 450 deaths each year. Vaccination equips immunity from diseases like chickenpox and hepatitis.

Yet, not everybody believes in them. Parents who refused their child vaccination were called ignorant. But 4% of pediatricians won’t give their own children ages 11 years and below any immunization, according to a 2005 study. Are these pediatricians ignorant too or do they know more than public knows?

Vaccines have side effects. The nurse may inform the patient that inflammation, pain and fever are normal occurrences after the immunization. But no one has ever told us, or at least in my case, that vaccination has rare but major side effects. For example, DTap, a vaccine to prevent diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (all are serious illnesses) has a 1:1,000,000 risk of developing encephalitis (a critical condition where the brain swells). Some may have long term side effects such as an inflammatory process that extends to a lifetime.

The ratio may be small but as Stephanie Messenger said, a mother who lost a baby after immunization, the “risk was 100%” when it happened to a child. The doctors call her son’s disease unexplained yet a mere coincidence that it occurred after the vaccination. Messenger had three more child, all are healthy and unvaccinated.

Administering vaccines all at once increases the risks. A recent study found a significant correlation between babies’ vaccination and hospitalization. Those who received the most immunization have higher and worse hospitalization occurrence. They also have higher death rates.

Giving multiple vaccines also increased the risk for older children since it is unusual to have a high dose of antigens all at once; and under normal settings, these foreign bodies are usually inhaled or swallowed, not pushed through the skin. But the US government is requiring vaccinations for immigrants and public schools in which multiple injections are given at the same time.

While a vaccine’s safety was studied incessantly, there is no scientific backup that injecting them all at once will not yield any unprecedented harmful effects.

Vaccines may have halted epidemics and saved many lives, but the mother I talked to was right. We don’t hear these stories and we don’t know the full information.

Dictating Your Genes

C’mon, let’s tell the truth. We wished our parents bestowed us their best genes. We hoped for the blue eyes, vertically profuse bones, tame teeth, and hyperactive metabolism. But since genes are shuffled randomly, some will get receding hairline or left inclined nose.

Thankfully, there is a way to change them. Cosmetic help has never been better at its job. But the epidemic of a treacherous disease in your line can be stopped. You have the ability to alter your genetic makeup starting from you and down your line.

Researchers in Madrid investigated the genes of twins growing up. We know that twins are basically clones with genes almost completely identical. They found that as the twins grow up, their genetic similarities became fewer since the twins engage on different lifestyles.

You may start thinking on eating leafy vegetables. Munching on greens for just 12 servings a month reduces DNA methylation of genes to 20%. Taking multivitamins reduces it to 50%. Lowered methylation suppresses the expression of diseases like cancer and helps repair DNA, thus you’ll be walking with a beneficial genes inside.

Eating foods rich in fats and sugars is carving a new gene. Not only does it make you fat but it also changes your genes in a way that your body retains more fat than you should. It makes it harder to shed them away. In contrast, a healthy intake of omega-3 found in fish oils can leverage over 100 genes positively.

There is another identical twin study that shows the influence of controlling methylation. At age 22, one developed schizophrenia while the twin brother successfully suppressed his “schizophrenia gene”. This gives us an easier breath as the disease gene we may have can be silenced.

The bad habits will make your genes bad. People who smoke, endure prolonged stress and eat on poor diet conceive children with higher risks of diabetes, heart disease and depression, among other health problems. Everything you are doing to your body may be your burden or gift to the next generation of your family. You start taking care of them by taking care of yourself.

What genes would you like to have?

Gross National Happiness

We spend maybe one fourth of our lives learning. Compulsory education exists in all western countries. We’ve all accepted that as a fact. We all understand we need education to find a good-paying job. We’re raised as capitalists, and we don’t mind. Is capitalism the way?

Governments are doing what they’re supposed to when they make everyone go to school. They want a country to improve. In order to handle the competition between countries they need to stimulate the competition between people. Some think that governments focus too much on the welfare of the country, rather than on the welfare of the population. But then again, if education makes us capitalists, individual welfare in terms of economics and therefore national welfare should make us happy.

In the Western world we measure countries by their gross national product (GNP). If that is a high value, it means that the economic condition is good. We automatically assume that the better the GNP, the higher the quality of living. But we can’t be sure. It’s just that there is no other way of measuring a country’s happiness.

That might apply to most countries, but not for Bhutan. They don’t use GNP, but gross national happiness (GNH) as a way of measuring the progress in their country. We think that happiness improves when GNP does; but in Bhutan it is believed that the country improves when GNH does. Those two ways of reasoning are quite the opposite of each other.

But we hold on to our way of thinking. It is impossible to change our system so that we don’t care about money anymore. Gross national happiness sounds good, but we don’t believe in it. And how do you measure GNH? So we keep on learning 20 years of our lives, because there is no other way of becoming happier. It would be strange if poor (less intelligent?) people would be happier than rich (intelligent?) people. Therefore we continue our search for money, hoping there’ll be some happiness along the way.

Climate Change is Proved, Disapproved, Harmful and Beneficial

Scientists hustle to prove or disapprove climate change. They cite benefits and others add to the list of harmful effects to our planet. It does not only affect humans, but every species on Earth will show how the warming affects their living. It’s such a controversy that lay people and notorious researchers won’t agree collectively.

Proved

Statistical data proves that climate change is happening. Since the late 19^th century, the global temperature increased by 0.6° C. Glaciers thaw and 10% of the snow cover decreased since 1966. The sea-ice’s thickness is narrowing in a rate of 1.57 inches annually. Since the ice is losing its mass, the sea-level is rising in a rate of 0.06 inches yearly.

This peremptory consensus already used up $106.7 billion of US taxes trying to amend the problem of global warming.

Disapproved

16 scientists tagged their names in a Wall Street Journal article discrediting global warming. While records in the past 50 years or so indicates increasing temperature on earth, it is not consistent. There has been no warming in the last 15 years.

Global Warming is natural in Earth’s climatic cycle. It happens before humans are born and even before the debate started. The glaciers in Asia’s Karakoram Mountains are getting bulkier. 2008 has been the coldest since 2000, averaging on 14.3° C. Dr Mojib Latif predicts that it’ll be colder in the next two decades while other scientists claim that Earth a century from now will be 4° C colder.

Harmful

Climate change exalted the catastrophes – fiercer storms, more prominent wildfires and longer heat waves. Flash floods are counted in Europe. Freshwater ran out in Asia and Africa. Forests disappear in Latin America. These issues keep on breaking previous records.

There is an estimated six million species on earth and 20% of them are endangered due to global warming. In 2012, newly found species include gorgeous primates, smallest known frog and 24 different skinks in the Carribean. With the rate of extinction, their disappearance will run faster than discovery.

What does species’ demise meant for humans? Russell Mittermeier answers: “without species diversity, we wouldn’t have the healthy ecosystems that supply our food, cleanse our air and water, provide sources of life-saving medicines and help stabilize our climate.”

Beneficial

The typical news reported how humans suffer from climate change, but not all organisms are contested. Plants from drylands can adapt to warming of climate. It is logical that extended and intensified draught will lead to demise of these plants, but these species are used to the hot climate. Ecologist Roberto Salguero-Gómez, who investigated the plants during the research, claims that they also benefit from the climate change. Higher temperature at night will induce the growth of plants.

Increased temperature in the North Sea boosted its food web, according to Dr. Richard Kirby of Plymouth University. Since the 1° C rise, swimming crabs actually swam longer in the sea. Adult crabs will then increase in the next year. It makes it easier for lesser black-backed gulls to hunt them, which will also increase their numbers in the next three to four years.

Killer whales, wandering albatrosses, mosquitoes, jellyfish, and trumpeter swans are thriving in the warming condition. Even polar bears, according to researchers from Umea University in Sweden, benefit from climate change as species migrate towards the north promoting biodiversity and arctic ecosystem.

Economically, climate change will increase production in agriculture. Olivier Deschênes and Michael Greenstone’s study in 2007 believed that the “changes in temperatures and precipitation” will modestly enhance the yields and profits of American agriculture.

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Any side you take on climate change, there will be a community supporting it. Which do you believe in?

9 Intelligences Make Everybody a Genius

If you’re an athlete, you’re probably dumb. If you’re a chef, you probably don’t have any other talent. But if you scored A+ in tests, you’re intelligent. You’re looked upon. It meant potential for greatness. This is how the world used to think.

Yet, IQ is a myth. Publicized research from University of Western Ontario could not find an area in the brain that accounts for IQ. There is no such thing as a measure of general intelligence. And not everybody is even exposed on the different types of intelligence.

Developmental psychologist Dr. Howard Gardner enumerates nine types of intelligence.

Linguistic Intelligence. These people utilize the power of words. They apply the complexity of combinations and meanings to express their statements.
Writers, comedians and salesmen share this intelligence.

Spatial Intelligence. These people have multi-dimensional imaginations. They appreciate a picture of any kind, including a map.
Surgeons, photographers, and makeup artists share this intelligence.

Musical Intelligence. These people understand music more than the average. These are the lads who can create or recreate music from scratch.
Singers, DJs and violinists share this intelligence.

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence. These people are the pattern, abstract and numbers embracers. They have the propensity to solve any mystery.
Scientists, pharmacists and chess players share this intelligence.

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence. These people have the skill to coordinate their mind and motion perfectly. They’d rather pace, build and balance.
Athletes, magician and carpenters share this intelligence.

Interpersonal Intelligence. These people thrive with people. They interact, relate and understand them effectively.
Politicians, teachers and travel agents share this intelligence.

Intrapersonal Intelligence. These people are highly aware of their self. They recognize their own shortcomings and strengths, own their feelings and plans for their own directions. Entrepreneurs, researchers and freelancers share this intelligence.

Naturalist intelligence. These people are sensitive to natural forms. They value the wandering predators to the hovering clouds.
Botanists, chefs and farmers share this intelligence.

Existential Intelligence. These people reflects deep on human existence. They ask about life, death and the path.
Philosophers, psychologists and priests share this intelligence.

Comparison between people’s intelligent isn’t right. I can’t say I’m smarter than LeBron James because while I can beat James in algebraic problems, he’ll shatter me in a one-on-one basketball battle. And I can’t say that a chef is nothing more than a cook because I’m not the best person to experiment on food – a chef is the Einstein in that area.

This theory of intelligences proved that everybody is a genius in their own ways.

What are your intelligences?

He’s Male, She’s Female

It doesn’t take us more than a split second to determine whether the people we see around us are male or female. It happens automatically, like a reflex. But reflexes can be suppressed, like the awkward and unavoidable moment when you say sir to a woman. How do our brains know what gender our eyes see?

It’s strange that when you’re born, you don’t understand a word, literally. Only when you’re told that he is your father and that she is your mother, it becomes clear that there is a difference between them. Or did you already know that? We understand the word ‘male’ when it is explained to us. But once we know what that word means, we automatically know that he does fit the description, and she doesn’t. The description itself, however, is pre-programmed in our brains. There is a logical explanation for this because in order to reproduce this, information is necessary. But it is a mystery how our brains seamlessly connect the word to the description.

What exactly is the description then? Men are more muscled, but woman can train their muscles as well. The chin and cheekbones of men are more prominent, also because the faces of women hold more fat. Women’s eyebrows are high arched, and men have more facial hair and their skin is thicker. This is only a fraction of the checklist. Brains process faces almost too fast. Are they very fast, or is there something else, something our brains can perceive, but we can’t?

The only moment you start wondering what makes a man a man and a woman a woman is when your brains hesitate. We are challenging them, for example, by wearing clothes. As we grow up our brains might get used to, maybe an outdated assumption, women having longer hair than men. Or to the difference between clothes, to women’s tight jeans, to men’s boring t-shirts. But women wear clothes originally designed for men all the time. This really will get our brains confused, especially when they already have trouble determining the gender by facial characteristics. If plastic surgery becomes even more widespread, will our brains keep up, or is the 21^st century too much to handle?

What’s Up with Scientific Nomenclature?

If the doctor says you are infected with orthomyxoviridae virus, would you freak out? If the doctor walks out after giving you prescription, you would probably rummage for your phone and search for it. You would then learn that orthomyxoviridae is a family of influenza virus. It meant you have flu.

The scientific community has their own language. It is complicated, hard to pronounce and often threatening.

Scientific nomenclature is continually expanding its dictionary. In the latest update of DSMV-5, a bible of psychological disorders, Gender Identity Disorder was renamed as Gender Dysphoria. Although the purpose was to update the book to the latest information and to stray away from confusing transgender people as disordered, it seems like they’re itching to convert simple nomenclature to sophisticated terms.

Scientific nomenclature is for standardization of names. One breed of dog may look similar to another but a feature could render them different species. An owl may be called a different name in Russia. Organisms have varying common names per region. Scientific naming ensures that species are properly classified and international scientists can relate to each other.

Scientific names use Latin. It is a dead language; and unlike the languages we still speak today, it will not change. It is the world’s language when scientific discoveries exploded. And it is the root of many languages in the world, making the scientific names descriptive.

Like Latin terminologies are not confusing enough for normal people, the scientific language can be updated and have synonyms. The bobcats we know is once known as Felis rufus, and then changed to Lynx rufus. All bats whose generic name is Nycteris may also be named Lasiurus; thus Lasiurus borealis is a synonym of Nycteris borealis.

Maybe scientists feel good on sounding smart.

Do you bother to pronounce the scientific names right?

Country Doctors – A Fading Memory

At eighty-seven, Dr. Russell Dohner still sees patients who come by his office off the town square in Rushville, Illinois, just like he has done for the past sixty years. But time marches on, and Dr. Dohner has been forced to more than double his fee for a first-come-first-served office visit. On their way out, each patient now pays Edith Moore, the eighty-five-year-old secretary, a five dollar fee.

Dr. Dohner doesn’t accept medical insurance–he says it’s not worth the bother. “I always just wanted to be a doctor to help people with their medical problems and that’s all it’s for. It was never intended to make a lot of money.” You can read more of Dr. Dohner’s story here, in the LaCross Tribune.

From the late 1950s, I grew up in a small, rural town in northeast Ohio. There was a little white house across the street from us, where Dr. List had his office. With wisps of gray hair, black-rimmed glasses, and a white coat, Doc List stitched me up when I fell partway through a glass storm door, prescribed medicine whenever I got sick, and he even fitted me with my first pair of glasses. My parents always paid him in cash. Back then, Doc List either didn’t take medical insurance, or we didn’t have that kind of insurance. I’m not sure which was the case, but whenever we needed medical care, we just walked across the street.

Fortunately for me, Doc List’s son followed in his father’s footsteps. When I was about thirteen, and too sick to even walk across the street, the young Dr. List made the last house call I can remember. He ended up sending me straight to the hospital with a 105 degree temperature, and a bad case of viral pneumonia.

In the story, An Irish Miracle, Doc McGowan makes a house call to look after Alastar Connolly, after he took a nasty fall and split his head open. Dr. Dohner, both Dr. Lists, and Doc McGowan are caring, dedicated country doctors. The only difference is that Doc McGowan was a large animal veterinarian, affectionately, a horse doctor. Since his patients usually weighed well over 1000 pounds, it wasn’t really his fault that he might have been a little heavy-handed with the local anesthetics he administered to Alastar.

Would you trust an old country doctor, like the ones in this story, with your medical care today? Their training and methods might have been from a bygone era, but they each cared deeply for their patients, many of whom were also friends and neighbors. Going to a doctor’s office these days seems to begin with “Has your insurance changed?” instead of “It’s nice to see you, how are you feeling?”, and end with a string of cryptic billing statements and frustrating telephone calls that can stretch out for months afterward.

Something in between might be nice.

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