CDC’s Rasmussen Paper on Zika and Microcephaly: Poor Case for ‘Smoking Gun’
History is filled with watershed moments which radically alter the way something is viewed and, thus, significantly influence the progression of future events. With regard to the way the mainstream medical community, public health officials, political leaders, and the general public in the United States have come to view the Zika virus and its relationship…
Our Expanding Waistlines and Diminishing Brains
I was looking at some old family photographs from the 1960s and 1970s the other day and I was struck by how almost no one in the pictures was overweight, much less obese. Currently, in the United States, more than two-thirds of people are either overweight or obese. During the 1960s, the average American woman weighed 140 pounds.
Stranger and Stranger Vaccines: Are We Being Fleeced?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a vaccine as a “biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease.” The WHO further states that a vaccine “typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism” and that it is “often made from weakened or killed forms of the…
Inflating Influenza Mortality to Sell Flu Vaccine
It’s that time of the year again when drug companies, doctors, government officials and media conduct a national advertising campaign to sell flu shots to every American. You can’t pass by a pharmacy,4 enter a supermarket, shop in a “big box” store or catch a plane without seeing the “flu shots for sale” signs trolling for customers. The pharmaceutical industry is cutting…
The Cost of Avoiding Vaccines: The Flawed UNC Study
A new study published in the journal Health Affairs pegged the cost to the U.S. economy of people opting not to vaccinate against vaccine-preventable diseases at $7.1 billion in 2015. The study, performed by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and funded by Merck & Co., based the figure on estimates of medical and lost productivity costs related to being sick.
Moving Out of the House That Fear Built: Zika
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt On a recent trip to Costa Rica I discovered that fear has found its way to my “happy place”—or rather it infected it with Zika virus hysteria. This had been coming, I suppose—with the influx of ex-pats come modern conveniences and the comforts […]