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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 20 2020, @12:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the whoop-de-doo? dept.

Whooping cough evolving into a superbug:

Australia needs a new whooping cough vaccine to ensure our most vulnerable are protected from the emergence of superbug strains, new UNSW research has shown.

The current vaccine, widely used since 2000, targets three antigens in the bacteria of the highly contagious respiratory disease which can be fatal to infants.

All babies under six months old -- in particular, newborns not protected by maternal immunisation -- are at risk of catching the vaccine-preventable disease because they are either too young to be vaccinated or have not yet completed the three-dose primary vaccine course.

Australia's whooping cough epidemic from 2008 to 2012 saw more than 140,000 cases -- with a peak of almost 40,000 in 2011 -- and revealed the rise of evolving strains able to evade vaccine-generated immunity.

In a series of UNSW studies, with the latest published today in Vaccine, UNSW researchers took this knowledge further and showed, in a world-first discovery, that the evolving strains made additional changes to better survive in their host, regardless of that person's vaccination status. They also identified new antigens as potential vaccine targets.

First author and microbiologist Dr Laurence Luu, who led the team of researchers with Professor Ruiting Lan, said whooping cough's ability to adapt to vaccines and survival in humans might be the answer to its surprise resurgence despite Australia's high vaccination rates.

"We found the whooping cough strains were evolving to improve their survival, regardless of whether a person was vaccinated or not, by producing more nutrient-binding and transport proteins, and fewer immunogenic proteins which are not targeted by the vaccine," Dr Luu said.

[...] "Put simply, the bacteria that cause whooping cough are becoming better at hiding and better at feeding -- they're morphing into a superbug."

Dr Luu said it was therefore possible for a vaccinated person to contract whooping cough bacteria without symptoms materialising.

Journal Reference:
Laurence Don Wai Luu, Sophie Octavia, Chelsea Aitken, Ling Zhong, Mark J. Raftery, Vitali Sintchenko, Ruiting Lan. Surfaceome analysis of Australian epidemic Bordetella pertussis reveals potential vaccine antigens. Vaccine, 2020; 38 (3): 539 DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.10.062


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Monday January 20 2020, @12:38PM (62 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Monday January 20 2020, @12:38PM (#945765) Journal

    > "We found the whooping cough strains were evolving to improve their survival, regardless of whether a person was vaccinated or not"

    So let me recap.
    "Get vaccinated else the bug gets nastier by being hosted and mutating, herd effect" blah blah.
    "The bug got nastier but it doesn't matter if you were vaccinated or not".

    These two are already at odds. I call bullshit on the first as I experienced more stable pathogens back in the day where we vaccinated for way less disease. But also the second one by itself is anti-darwinist. The selective pressure is caused by vaccines, so saying the evolution is independent of vaccines is quite an extraordinary claim.

    Here whooping cough seems to have resurfaced in recent years: migration, air pollution, new vaccines, generally weaker people, should be among the causes.

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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @01:03PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @01:03PM (#945779) Journal

    The selective pressure is caused by vaccines, so saying the evolution is independent of vaccines is quite an extraordinary claim.

    As also extraordinary is saying that "the" selective pressure is caused by vaccines (instead of "a selective pressure"), so [Citation needed]
    I'll make the job easier, you only need to show with numbers that vaccines are the main, principal cause of whooping cough mutation.

    Otherwise, an as good a hypothesis as yours or any pulled-outta-ass other: the bug mutated in the members of Thylarctos plummetus which missed their targets and the evolutionary pressure was the elevated levels of adrenaline cause by frustration - everybody knows that frustration, upset and stress makes one weaker and promote over-feeding. Proof: the new bug is specific to Australia; yet another thing that tries to kill you here.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @02:39PM (59 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @02:39PM (#945832) Journal

    Your recap missed that antivax bullshit caught on huge in Australia and some absolute fuckers allowed a breeding population of pertussis to start developing circa 2005

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday January 20 2020, @05:35PM (56 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday January 20 2020, @05:35PM (#945892) Homepage

      Where are all these super-diseases coming from? "Refugees," or from China? The antibiotic blame-game only goes so far.

      Perhaps we wouldn't be having these problems if we enforced better border controls. Of course America has its own problems, but it's confounding how a Five-Eyes nation could be so readily colonized by the Chinese. What ever happened to "Fuck off, we're full?"

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:12PM (#945905)

        If you killed yourself there would be room for one human being. Come on, do the right thing!

      • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @06:56PM (39 children)

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @06:56PM (#945916) Journal

        Australian has been doing "fuck off we're full" since 2008 or so as well, and it has solved zero of their problems.

        The great thing is, other than guns, Australia's Liberal government has instituted every American right winger's dream program, and so all your standard-ass blame game targets are gone and the target you paint is right on your own big fat ass.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:57PM (38 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:57PM (#945934)

          You would rather children die than even test them for vitamin c deficiency.

          • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @08:28PM (37 children)

            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @08:28PM (#945948) Journal

            Oh weird, the alt-med guy is back.

            You would rather children get eaten by tigers than test this rock that keeps tigers away

            This is how you sound to anyone who hasn't gotten too deep into Pauling-going-senile Land

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:36PM (4 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:36PM (#945951)

              Ok, now you are on record. You would prefer that children die than even test their blood vitamin c levels... which have been reported as deficient in every illness ever checked.

              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:47AM (3 children)

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:47AM (#946091) Journal

                Vitamin C alone won't cure illnesses. I am taking 1500mg of it, and 1500mg of magnesium as MgO daily, and it's doing wonders for my mental health. But it's not going to cure much of anything physically (and I intend to draw down the Mg over time, as at some point I'm going to get repleted and too much of any of the big four--Ca, Na, Mg, K--spells serious bad news). It may place the body in a state where it is better able to handle oxidative stress and illness/inflammatory states, but by itself it's no cure-all.

                Do I agree the RDA is way, way too low for most nutrients? Absolutely. 90mg/day of vitamin C is enough to prevent the outward manifestations of frank scurvy. I think it should be 200-400mg, with allowances for more if extremely stressed, as I am. "To bowel tolerance" is something I've heard, and am wondering what it says about me if even a gram and a half daily doesn't give me the trots. But let's be realistic here, okay?

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:18AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:18AM (#946143)

                  1-2 grams per day is nothing. The median bowel tolerance dose is 10 grams in about 2 hrs: https://i.ibb.co/3MxX81T/jaffe2.png [i.ibb.co]

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:35AM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:35AM (#946218)

                  Different AC but as I somewhat mentioned below, the RDA for vitamin C in the literature is closer to 200 mg for most people. Also, the side effects of Vitamin C depend on how you take it and the 2 g UL is set based on what experimental evidence shows a lack of side effects in 2 stdev of a one-tailed distribution, not that you will actually get sick with it. Not that taking large amounts of Vitamin C will actually do much of anything when your body stores are full other than increasing the nutritional value of your urine.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:19PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:19PM (#946332)

                    And that RDA id based on what?

                    The excretion of vitamin C in healthy young people! Your numbers do not apply to most of the population... when you are ill or wounded your body can use much more vitamin C.

                    And taking too much vitamin c (for your personal needs) causes osmotic diarrhea, which is annoying but you will feel stomach rumblings start before that point if you pay attention.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:41PM (31 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:41PM (#945953)

              How about this, can you find a single study that checked blood vitamin c levels in sick people and did not find they were lower than in healthy people?

              Just one study, any illness at all.

              • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @08:53PM (30 children)

                by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @08:53PM (#945962) Journal

                How about you find one study where the tiger-protection-rock was higher in tiger eaten people than not-eaten people. Just one.

                They've researched with so many diseases and the overall efficacy of vitamin C supplementation on outcomes. And it's consistently in the realm of no benefit to miniscule(and that's pretty much just those put under long-term oxxidative stress). Actual medicine works much better than magic.

                It doesn't hurt at normal FDA guideline levels, so feel free to keep pissing out a few orange glasses worth of acsorbic acid each day, hoping for immortality.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:01PM (23 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:01PM (#945969)

                  No one mentioned immortality, but I got home from a road trip late last night and woke up congested w a runny nose, so I took 2 g sodium ascorbate and it started clearing up. Then I took 4 more grams and it got even better. Then I added 8 g to a glass, got some osmotic diarrhea (because my body didn't need any more) and all my symptoms all stopped. This probably cost me less than a dime.

                  Ive had the exact same experience dozens of times.

                  Your bs debunking studies are for like 500 mg per day max, which is not enough.

                  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @09:27PM (13 children)

                    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @09:27PM (#945988) Journal
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:32PM (12 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:32PM (#945991)

                      You have a serious problem with arguing against strawmen you crafted yourself instead of other real people.

                      Also, I doubt you know shit about metabolism, because then you would understand the universal role that reducing agents play when things go wrong for any reason.

                      • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @09:34PM (11 children)

                        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @09:34PM (#945994) Journal

                        Yeah, not like I mentioned long-term oxxidative stress already or anything.

                        You literally think Vitamin C magically destroys disease. I'm lecturing you because what you believe is dumb.

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:41PM (10 children)

                          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:41PM (#946002)

                          More strawmen from you.

                          There is nothing magic about biochemistry, and vitamin c does not "destroy disease" it primarily quenches free radical cascades (which are a very common sequels to almost all disease states) and regenerates intracellular/membrane antioxidants like glutathione and vitamin e.

                          All you would need to do is measure the vitamin c levels in these sick children to see they are deficient, but you would refuse and prefer to let them suffer and die because their vitamin c got used up. Just to not admit you are wrong.

                          • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @10:06PM (9 children)

                            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @10:06PM (#946017) Journal

                            Where the fuck did you get the idea that "disease states" are some runaway cellular process?

                            I need to calibrate my expectations, whether you're a germ theory denying psycho or just believe you understand the single mode of operation of all infectious germs.

                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:12PM (8 children)

                              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:12PM (#946022)

                              Lol. Are you even unfamiliar with the process of inflammation? What degree of ignorance am *I* dealing with here?

                              • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @10:20PM (7 children)

                                by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @10:20PM (#946027) Journal

                                And we're back to "This one chemical completely mediates an entire complex process" vs "no that's really dumb and shut the fuck up"

                                1. Inflamation is not entirely caused by oxidation via free radicals.
                                2. It's not even predominantly caused by oxidation.
                                3. It's not even notably frequently caused by oxidation via free radicals.
                                4. It's not even frequently caused by intracellular processes at all
                                5. It is often a healthy response to immune signaling.

                                Hell, vitamin C isn't even the most relevant vitamin to the process of inflammation, because granulocytes need Vitamin A for healthy development.

                                I'm hoping we've finally reached the bottom layer of your fractal wrongness and actually start talking about our genuine differences in understanding(where I'm mostly right and you're entirely wrong, btw). What do you think inflammation is?

                                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:35PM (6 children)

                                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:35PM (#946036)

                                  More strawmen and wrong info from you. No one said inflammation is caused by free radicals, your post goes downhill from there.

                                  Here's some basic info to get you up to speed:

                                  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3614697/ [nih.gov]
                                  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC297842/ [nih.gov]
                                  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000398618371074X [sciencedirect.com]

                                  You are one of the most biomedically ignorant people I have ever come across. It is truly amazing what your training has managed to do.

                                  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @10:50PM (5 children)

                                    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @10:50PM (#946045) Journal

                                    No, those papers don't say what you say.
                                    No, you're wrong about everything
                                    No, just please, shut up.
                                    No, that's not what fucking strawman means
                                    No, none of this supports your insane beliefs about disease.

                                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:04PM (4 children)

                                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:04PM (#946052)

                                      Those papers pretty much do say what I said here, but are indeed not what the strawman you made up says.

                                      • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @11:13PM (3 children)

                                        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @11:13PM (#946057) Journal

                                        No, they really goddamn don't. "Diseased state" is a non-concept. A fiction. A fantabulation of a diseased mind. And I don't know why I care that you don't get that.

                                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:21PM

                                          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:21PM (#946061)

                                          As I said, it is difficult to imagine someone more ignorant about biomedical topics than you:

                                          Morbidity (from Latin morbidus, meaning 'sick, unhealthy') is a diseased state, disability, or poor health due to any cause

                                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease [wikipedia.org]

                                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @05:51AM (1 child)

                                          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @05:51AM (#946194)

                                          No, they really goddamn don't. "Diseased state" is a non-concept. A fiction. A fantabulation of a diseased mind. And I don't know why I care that you don't get that.

                                          Would not a diseased mind be in a "Diseased state"? LOL at internal contradictions.

                                          Regardless of that; the AC may be talking a lot of crap, but he is not wrong when he accuses you of strawmanning.
                                          Vitamin C may not be a panacea, but all he is claiming is that it's anti-free radical properties reduce inflammation and reduce secondary damage from immune system reactions. That is not an unreasonable claim, and probably should be investigated properly. It won't be, because nobody can get a patent on vitamin C.

                                          I read some of his links from a previous argument on this, and there were interesting beneficial effects from large dose injections, that were not replicated by pill studies.

                                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:12AM

                                            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:12AM (#946206)

                                            Ikanread claims to be a cancer genomics researcher... But had never heard of the armitage-doll model of carcinogenesis and even said they could not understand it.

                                            Here we see they have obviously never heard of the term "disease state", so my guess is they are a python dev lab tech with no training in (and seemingly no awareness of) biochem, cell bio, epidemology, etc. They also seem to be proud of making things seem as complicated as possible rather than act like a scientist and attempt to distill phenomena down to general "laws".

                                            Btw, the IV vitamin C is still not ideal because it is excreted so quickly (after a few hours). Better would be a pump that attempts to maintain a given blood level, eg like described here: https://riordanclinic.org/journal-article-archive/continuous-intravenous-vitamin-c-in-the-cancer-treatment-reevaluation-of-a-phase-i-clinical-study/ [riordanclinic.org]

                                            They amazingly find that infusing 20g of sodium ascorbate over 20-22 hrs per day for a month is almost completely safe. It's interesting to think about why exactly the body normally keeps levels so low (peak of ~250 uM and "steady state" of ~80 uM in healthy people) if there is no harm of constant 1 mM concentration for a month. Perhaps it is to maintain a certain amount of ferric (3+) iron in the blood? What exactly is the tradeoff here?

                                            Also, there have been some tantalizing hints that the kinetics of oral ascorbic acid are different from sodium ascorbate. Presumably it can be absorbed faster via the stomach (vs the intestine) if the pH is right because it is uncharged and lead to blood concentrations in the mM range for like 20 min. All the kinetics studies I saw used "buffered" ascorbate, ie sodium ascorbate, and/or did not collect data so early.

                                            Finally, I've come to the conclusion the best way to overcome the ridiculous resistance to vitamin C is simply get it to be on a standard lab test. I've yet to see a report of anyone with an illness who did not have below average levels, even according to the "official" very low expectations (~22 uM).

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:01PM (8 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:01PM (#946016)

                    14 grams of sodium ascorbate is 1554 mg of sodium and 12.5 grams of ascorbate acid. That is practically guaranteed to give you diarrhea, as the UL is on 2 grams. And it is no surprise you had overnight nasal congestion. The stress of travel, combined with unusual head positioning, air quality, possible pathogens, etc. will do that. There is a good chance it would have gone away on its own once you were in an upright position. Not to mention the sudden influx of sodium in your blood is going to slow any rhinorrhea that is exacerbating your congestion. Plus pharmacokinetic studies show that that much sodium ascorbate does not increase non-mean-peak-plasma levels beyond taking 110mg and mean-peak-plasma levels are much less sensitive to dietary intake at levels above 300mg. In fact, studies show that the total amount of ascorbate acid in the body is likely fixed and that taking too much beyond the recommended level provides no benefit but increases the chance of urolithiasis.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:07PM (4 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:07PM (#946019)

                      Why don't you cite these pharmacokinetic studies? Eg, Levine 1996 where they studied *healthy* (ie, not sick) people?

                      There are other issues but you can start your journey to enlightenment with that fact.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:40PM (3 children)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:40PM (#946037)

                        I am already aware of

                        Levine M, Conry-Cantilena C, Wang Y, et al. Vitamin C pharmacokinetics in healthy volunteers: evidence for a recommended dietary allowance. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996;93(8):3704–3709. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.8.3704

                        which is what I assume you are talking about. Note that that even recommends levels (200 mg from all sources, with 400 mg maximum benefit level at any population) far below what is being suggested. But

                        Jacob RA, Sotoudeh G. Vitamin C function and status in chronic disease. Nutr Clin Care. 2002 Mar-Apr;5(2):66-74.
                        doi:10.1046/j.1523-5408.2002.00005.x

                        and

                        Padayatty SJ, Sun H, Wang Y, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, Katz A, Wesley RA, Levine M. Vitamin C pharmacokinetics: implications for oral and intravenous use. Ann Intern Med. 2004 Apr 6;140(7):533-7. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-140-7-200404060-00010

                        are the ones I was referencing.

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:06PM (2 children)

                          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:06PM (#946053)

                          And do those papers report ascorbate pharmacokinetics in anyone who is ill? That is rhetorical.. Do the challenge I put to ikanread above, find one paper where they report vitamin c levels in sick patients where they are not depleted.

                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:36PM (1 child)

                            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:36PM (#946067)

                            Coulter I, Hardy M, Shekelle P, Udani J, Spar M, Oda K, et al. Effect of the supplemental use of antioxidants vitamin C, vitamin E, and coenzyme Q10 for the prevention and treatment of cancer. Evidence Report/Technology Assessment Number 75. AHRQ Publication No. 04-E003. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2003.

                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:42PM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:42PM (#946070)

                              Please quote the part you are referring to. I see no report of ascorbate pharmacokinetics in ill patients.

                    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:53AM (1 child)

                      by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:53AM (#946133) Homepage

                      That's because at high doses, vit.c can suck calcium out of your bones, which then winds up deposited in the kidneys.

                      For a while dosing puppies with mega-vit-c was a fad, in the name of 'preventing' hip dysplasia (an inherited disorder). In some cases you could actually see the effects as swelling in the long bones. (Went away once the dosage was reduced to something rational. Unless it had gone on long enough for the bones to soften and basically imitate rickets.)

                      --
                      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:22AM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:22AM (#946144)

                        That's because at high doses, vit.c can suck calcium out of your bones, which then winds up deposited in the kidneys.

                        Amazing how you find a couple case reports of kidney stones (oxalate, having nothing to do with calcium...) in 50 years to be conclusively proven but the hundreds of thousands to millions of people reporting benefits to be questionable.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:59AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:59AM (#946157)

                      This is the only data I was able to find on bowel tolerance doses: https://i.ibb.co/3MxX81T/jaffe2.png [i.ibb.co]

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:23PM (5 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:23PM (#945984)

                  When first seen many of the patients were excreting almost no ascorbic acid; others of slightly better finan-cial circumstances showed small amounts, but still below normal figures.

                  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC536087/ [nih.gov]

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:16PM (4 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:16PM (#946025)

                    An article from 1937 that involves 10 people, no legible charts, uses first daily voidings, the total treatment levels far below what you are claiming is beneficial, with no established protocol, no blinds, no controls, etc. Trash study, trash inferences, trash conclusions.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:01PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:01PM (#946051)

                      There never will be a "good" study funded. Too bad for all those babies I guess, we spend a trillion dollars a year on healthcare but just can't bother to do a simple test for plasma vitamin C to check their results.

                      Or you can use those results along with common sense and extrapolate from every single illness ever checked..

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:34PM (2 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:34PM (#946064)

                      involves 10 people

                      Actually they mention a previous study by the same authors of 10 children, this study included an additional 17 children and also cites Otani 1936 which reported on 81 cases.

                      total treatment levels far below what you are claiming is beneficial

                      I claim the beneficial levels are just below whatever causes osmotic diarrhea (which can be used as a crude estimate of your body's needs). In general this will be lower in children though just because there is less total tissue involved.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:39PM (1 child)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:39PM (#946069)

                        Lol, I knew it. You didn't even read it before citing it.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 20 2020, @07:45PM (14 children)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday January 20 2020, @07:45PM (#945932)

        Where are all these super-diseases coming from? "Refugees," or from China?

        Where I live the diseases are coming from people like this. [wikipedia.org]
        He is indirectly responsible for the deaths of 81 people in Samoa so far.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:28PM (13 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:28PM (#945947)

          hmm...

          Despite high vaccination coverage worldwide, the number of pertussis cases is increasing2–4.

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6864091/ [nih.gov]

          Does that make you think at all? Any ideas come to mind?

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @08:43PM (12 children)

            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @08:43PM (#945954) Journal

            It does, actually.

            The article you're citing in turn attributes that conclusion to another paper, one whose primary focus was identifying infection disease death in children under 5. It doesn't actually make a clear-cut case that pertussis cases were rising, which is odd. In fact it further muddies the issue by suggesting that in the places they conclude had large numbers of children dying from pertussis, the same countries lacked sufficient resources to do adequate medical autopsies and the causes of death had to be extrapolated from very low sample sizes, and listed cause of death such as "lung infection"

            The underlying robustness of the data isn't necessarily adequate to justify treating as a certain assumption for the introduction of your paper. But given that the public health field often has to contend with incomplete information and incorrect diagnoses as par for course, it's probably still valid to precede with researching causes.

            The lack of granularity in the underlying data, though, makes determining a genuine epidemiology impossible, and forces us to treat the disease as non-specifically endemic in some places. I'm pretty sure that's not what you wanted me to think, which was probably something silly and simplistic like vaccines not working at all.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:49PM (11 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:49PM (#945960)

              Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by Bordetella pertussis. Despite widespread vaccination, its incidence has been rising alarmingly

              https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648915/ [nih.gov]

              • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @08:56PM (10 children)

                by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @08:56PM (#945965) Journal

                Did you know that even though you linked two papers, they both cite the SAME FUCKING PAPER [nih.gov] as the basis for that statement, and that paper has a methodology section and you can fucking read it(sci hub may be required)?

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:03PM (9 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:03PM (#945970)

                  I can't believe you are trying to argue this and lecturing others on epidemiology.

                  https://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/surv-reporting/cases-by-year.html [cdc.gov]

                  The only one denying a rise in cases is you, it is a totally non-controversial claim.

                  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @09:20PM (8 children)

                    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @09:20PM (#945981) Journal

                    I... what? Did you link that thinking it would just say you're right? The 5 year trend is way way way down on that dataset, and the ten year trend is steady.

                    And it's localized to the US, not not worldwide where the unclear data is.

                    It certainly doesn't do anything to say the vaccine doesn't work, especially given that you can see the clear delineation of before 1948 when it was made part of the standard vaccine schedule and after. I don't understand why you're arguing beyond the desire to argue.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:28PM (7 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:28PM (#945989)

                      Ok, I guess an increase from 1-2k cases per year in the 1970s to regularly over 10k cases per year isn't a rise according to you.

                      • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @09:37PM (6 children)

                        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @09:37PM (#945999) Journal

                        What's it called when you select a subset of the data arbitrarily so that you can identify a trend that suits your narrative? It's like... you're going up to some kind of berry tree, and plucking just the fruit you like. Something analogous to that.

                        1. What relationship do you actually want to show?
                        2. How does the whole of the data show that relationship?

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:46PM (5 children)

                          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:46PM (#946007)

                          Lol, ok. You are literally the only person in the world who has looked at that data and not come to the conclusion that incidence of whopping cough is rising. You disagree with 100% if published papers, the CDC, and the FDA.

                          Literally the most obvious thing in the world is invisible to you because you are so blinded with... I don't know what. The profound stupidity of your stats classes?

                          • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @10:23PM (4 children)

                            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @10:23PM (#946029) Journal

                            Not the conclusion I actually came to, but I can appreciate how you concluded that's my intended meaning from the wording I used.

                            Let me restate my position more clearly: It's hard, given that data to make any meaningful distinctions as to the cause of apparent increases in pertussis cases, as critical supporting data, such as which particular cases are actually pertussis versus other conditions, cannot be inferred. Vector analysis is essentially impossible.

                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:15PM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:15PM (#946058)

                              So once again you were arguing against your own strawman. It is really difficult to communicate with someone who does this.

                            • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 21 2020, @01:00AM

                              by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday January 21 2020, @01:00AM (#946096)

                              That is the new A/C we seem to have picked up.

                              I'm pretty sure he's a flat-earther, although he won't actually come right out and say it, just like he's dancing around in anti-vaxx town with you.

                            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:04AM (1 child)

                              by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:04AM (#946138) Homepage

                              What I see from that chart is a precipitous drop in cases when first generation vaccines arrived, another drop when better vaccines came along and coverage improved to near 100%, then stability until the antivax craze gave it a boost, probably directly proportional to the number of unvaccinated kids.

                              Tho it still says nothing about how much incidence may be new varieties... which are more likely to arise when the bacterium has a larger gene pool to draw from; which is to say, more unvaccinated kids incubating it.

                              We used to think lepto had mutated, explaining some of the vaccine breaks in livestock. Now we realize it's cuz there were more species of lepto than we thought, and it's more likely to jump species than we thought.

                              --
                              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:43PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:43PM (#945955)

      it's "caught on huge", b/c the big gov loving slaves in Australia all did what they were told, and now they have a bunch of vaccine injured babies and they are getting wise. I can only hope one day they will roll through towns exterminating everyone who was pushing vaccines.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @08:59PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @08:59PM (#945967) Journal

        "vaccine injured babies" is one of those fucking euphemisms from the absolute dregs of internet belief disorder.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:16PM (#945926)

    It's the usual bullshit, we already know massive doses of vitamin c suppress the symptoms to a non dangerous level.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1562195/ [nih.gov]

    Let me know when they start checking the blood vitamin c levels. Hint: they refuse to because then everyone who is ill would be getting craploads of vitamin c and not need 99% of the stuff they sell.