Some of the swine flu panic comes down to something I rant about frequently: the public lack of understanding of risk and the even more fundamental lack of math. By definition, a new disease is discovered in the sickest patients, because they're the ones who end up in the hospital or dying. Once the disease is identified, then you can start looking for other people who have the disease in a milder form to determine its actual mortality rate, for example. From the first cases, it might look like the disease has a 50 percent mortality rate. After they've found more, less serious, cases, the mortality rate may end up being 5 percent. This is why I twitched violently when a newsperson last night said, "I don't know why the CDC is saying this isn't very serious, when they've just announced that there are so many more cases."
eta: The Coming Plague is a great book. I wish she'd do an update. It is a book that makes you want to grab med students by the lapels and shake them until they agree to be epidemiologists.
The ENT is sending me for a head CT. (Insert joke about finding out whether there's a brain in there or not.) He also thinks some of my problems may be due to my acid reflux and told me to double my Prilosec, which is a damn expensive proposition. Oh, well.
told me to double my Prilosec, which is a damn expensive proposition.
I was happy when generic Prilosec became available.
Some of the swine flu panic comes down to something I rant about frequently: the public lack of understanding of risk and the even more fundamental lack of math.
And the inverse, being the anti-vaccination whackjobs. They have no fucking clue about herd immunity or the very horrific consequences of rubella, polio, et al.
Both things make me have rage blackouts.
Mypressi Twist
Cool! Totally a Wallpaper lifestyle gadget.
I don't know much about these two - is either a surprise?
Well, Kelly's been rumored to be gay since way back around the time of Witness. I'd say she's roughly as closeted as Jodie Foster.
And David Ogden Stiers doesn't surprise me at all. I'm sometimes surprised that Kelsey Grammar is straight though. (And has appalling taste in skanky girlfriends and wives.)
(I must say, my initial guess about the Mypressi Twist was that it would be a vibrator.)
(I must say, my initial guess about the Mypressi Twist was that it would be a vibrator.)
I'm sure that's one of the settings.
1. Espresso.
2. Cappucino.
3. Orgasm.
One distinction to make is that it is the press that is panicking (because it attracks audience/sells papers) not the CDC. The CDC recommended school closings when the flu appeared virulent, changed the recommendations when it turned out not to be. Both made sense. Schools that closed when the CDC suggested it were taking sensible precautions. Schools that close now are not.
The CDC recommended school closings when the flu appeared virulent, changed the recommendations when it turned out not to be.
What that says to me is that the CDC overreacted. I expect the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to not overreact. I expect them to be able to do more than make a guess as to the "appearance" of a disease's virulence.
Schools that closed when the CDC suggested it were taking sensible precautions.
That's not actually true, since the swine flu was never as virulent as all the panicked reactions suggested. They were following the recommended precautions, but those precautions were not actually sensible.
I was happy when generic Prilosec became available.
That helped, but it's still more than my copay would be with a prescription. When Prilosec went OTC, Kaiser stopped prescribing any of the related drugs. I swear it would be half the cost if they eliminated the wasteful and difficult packaging.
My main fear is that if we have too many viruses that cried wolf, people won't take recommended precautions when something really nasty gets loose.
