Poliovirus may be spreading in London; virus detected in sewage for months:
A vaccine-derived version of poliovirus has repeatedly surfaced in London sewage over the past several months, suggesting there may be a cryptic or hidden spread among some unvaccinated people, UK health officials announced Wednesday. No polio cases have been reported so far, nor any identified cases of paralysis. But sewage sampling in one London treatment plant has repeatedly detected closely related vaccine-derived polioviruses between February and May. This suggests "it is likely there has been some spread between closely-linked individuals in North and East London and that they are now shedding the type 2 poliovirus strain in their feces," the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said.
Though the current situation raises alarm, the agency notes that it's otherwise common to see a small number of vaccine-like polioviruses pop up in sewage from time to time, usually from people who have recently been vaccinated out of the country. This is because many countries use oral polio vaccines that include weakened (attenuated) polioviruses, which can still replicate in the intestines and thus be present in stool. They can also spread to others via poor hygiene and sanitation (i.e., unwashed hands and food or water contaminated by sewage), which can become concerning amid poor vaccination rates.
Briefly, there are two types of polio vaccines: the attenuated oral vaccines and inactivated vaccines. Many high-income countries that are considered polio-free—including the UK and the US—use the inactivated vaccines, which do not have viruses capable of replicating or spreading. These vaccines are highly effective at preventing paralytic polio, but they do not produce high levels of local immune responses in the gut. So, if a vaccinated person encounters wild poliovirus, the virus may still be able to replicate in their gut and spread. In areas affected by wild polio outbreaks, this means that the virus can continue spreading.
Oral polio vaccines, on the other hand, can not only prevent paralytic polio, they can also produce strong local immune responses in the gut that block the virus from replicating there, thus disrupting its spread. These vaccines can also be more than five times cheaper than the inactivated kind. For all of these reasons, oral polio vaccines are the predominant vaccines used in the long, drawn-out battle to eradicate wild polio. Currently, wild polio is still found in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Malawi and Mozambique have recently reported single cases.
Related Stories
1st Polio Case Reported in US in Nearly a Decade Detected in New York State
1st polio case reported in US in nearly a decade detected in New York state:
The first case of polio reported in the U.S. in nearly a decade was detected in New York state, health officials said Thursday.
The case is in a resident of Rockland County, the state health department said.
State health officials said sequencing determined that the newly detected case is an instance of vaccine-derived polio. The oral polio vaccine contains a weakened version of the polio virus that can be excreted in stool and transmitted.
That vaccine has not been administered in the U.S. since 2000, suggesting that the virus may have originated somewhere outside the U.S., health officials said.
The Rockland County polio patient is a young adult whose symptoms began a month ago, according to public health officials in Rockland County. The person is no longer contagious but has suffered some paralysis. It is unknown whether that will be permanent.
The infected person contracted polio through exposure to someone who was inoculated with the oral vaccine. The patient did not travel outside of the country, so the exposure was here,
US officially added to WHO's list of poliovirus outbreak countries:
The United States, one of the world's richest and most developed countries, has met the World Health Organization's criteria to be listed as a country with circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday.
The US now joins the ranks of around 30 other polio outbreak countries, largely low- and middle-income, including Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, and Yemen. Notably, the list includes just two other high-income countries—the United Kingdom and Israel—which have detected the circulation of a poliovirus strain genetically linked to the one spreading in the US.
[...] Inclusion on the WHO's polio outbreak list is a new low point for the US. On the one hand, it reinforces a key global public health message in the campaign to fully eradicate that virus, which is that "any form of poliovirus anywhere is a threat to children everywhere." But it mainly spotlights the dangerous foothold that anti-vaccine sentiments have gained in the country over the past several decades.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @04:28AM (2 children)
No shit, Johnson was the mayor and the PM in the limey land now.
Youse limeys are fucked, and it's all your fault.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:00AM (1 child)
Brexit sent all the Polish plumbers home. How can there be Polio in the plumbing?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:16AM
True, how can you have polio when you have no plumbing?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:17AM (12 children)
Seems that the Brit focused stories are less interesting, to non-brits.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:23AM (2 children)
Except that its relevant because they keep emigrating from old blighty to her former colonies.
If only these Englanders would keep their diseases to themselves no one would care.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday June 24 2022, @05:36AM (1 child)
Thank goodness Brexit happened: now that the borders are closed tight, those hordes polio-ridden brits can't come into the EU anymore.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:43AM
Janrinok and Fat-Phil have already exfiltrated. And infested SoylentNews.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Friday June 24 2022, @06:11AM
Seeing that the USA is still asleep at the time that this story was released, we don't expect many comments from them yet.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday June 24 2022, @07:14AM (6 children)
Nah, they're just as good as teh US focused stories. As long as we out here can make fun of your problems, it doesn't really matter, UK, US, it's all good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @02:36PM (5 children)
Username checks out.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday June 25 2022, @02:53PM (4 children)
It used to be ironic.
The older I get, the more it aligns with reality. The more you realize that idealism isn't getting you anywhere, the more you wonder why you shouldn't just cash in on the stupidity of the world and abuse people. Apparently they want it that way. Else they wouldn't so eagerly work against their own best interest.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 25 2022, @03:11PM (2 children)
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Seriously good wisdom, and I need some of that, thanks.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday June 25 2022, @03:17PM (1 child)
The wisdom is rather "If you can abuse them, why be the only one who doesn't do it?"
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 25 2022, @03:33PM
Cynical me smiles, humanitarian me wishes more people would do good. Fight that tide of evil! The trick is to not be evil in your fighting evil, and it's often a discouraging endeavor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 25 2022, @04:06PM
yeah, i'm noticing this too. I try making an ethical business that makes products that respect people's rights and all they do is suck up to power and i go broke. Most people are willfully ignorant, sycophantic and cowardly slaves, that all think they're brave and free, of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @12:23PM
This is about London, what makes you thing even 'Brits' are interested in what happens there? (It's the right pond equivalent of your left pondian New York to most of us).
Anything about Londonistabistan is treated as Foreign news as the dump is fair full o 'furriners', cf. the probable cause of this outbreak-which-is-not-an-outbreak - oral polio vaccination in another country.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:39AM
Limeys gonna limey.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday June 24 2022, @07:16AM (72 children)
We were Polio free. We also were pretty much measles free. And pox free.
But you hysteric dimwits thought that vaccines cause autism. Well, if you'd rather deal with the diseases... the dumb kids need to touch the stove to know it hurts. Some even more than once.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @08:12AM (19 children)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-cia-fake-vaccination-campaign-endangers-us-all/ [scientificamerican.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday June 24 2022, @08:29AM (18 children)
Yup. Some secret police ops go out to do their dirty business under the disguise of vaccination, other spread lies about vaccinations to destroy their credibility so people refuse them... it's time we treat these things as what they are: A crime against humanity itself.
And it's time to hang some of the assholes doing it. Not the people spreading fake vaccines and misinformations. The assholes that order it. Like we did back in Nürnberg. It did have a pretty lasting effect for a while, from time to time we should repeat it.
It seems that this needs a booster from time to time, too.
(Score: 1, Troll) by PiMuNu on Friday June 24 2022, @10:50AM (13 children)
Presumably along similar lines we should hang all the folks producing crap medicine/bio papers as well. Red wine does/doesnt cause cancer does far more damage to the credibility of the pharmaceutical industry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Friday June 24 2022, @01:33PM (11 children)
FWIW, red wine probably does slightly encourage some forms of cancer while slightly suppressing some other forms. I don't *know* that this is true, but resveratrol is supposed to have some slight anti-cancer effect, while alcohol is supposed to have some slight effect encouraging it. Neither effect is very strong, but there are probably people in a borderline state that could be shoved one way or the other.
There are lots of things that aren't all that one-sided, but people tend to want to see them that way.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by PiMuNu on Friday June 24 2022, @01:50PM (10 children)
Okay, my reply was code for "most medical journal papers are wrong" which has been well documented in the literature.
[rant]
I have to confess, I have not read any articles on whether red wine causes cancer recently - *BUT* as a physical scientist, whenever I do read (population) studies from medical journals, I find obscure references to subtraction of systematic effects such as bias from economic background. The papers never quote a systematic error, and usually have p-values of about 1 sigma. Thus they are all junk science, or enough of them are junk science that the whole field is discredited.
Yes I am writing off an entire field as being junk science. My anecdotal evidence is well supported by detailed literature studies.
So when the medical research industry wring their hands about folks ignoring medical professionals advising them to get vaccines, or advising them to get this treatment or that treatment, that industry should first look in the mirror. It's not good enough to blame some politician or whatever. The lack of credibility starts with the scientists.
[/rant]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday June 24 2022, @02:42PM (6 children)
What do you perceive to be the scientists' motivation? (Money, power, fame / bragging rights, laziness, pressure from above, ??)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 24 2022, @04:39PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Saturday June 25 2022, @07:54AM (4 children)
It's nothing about motivation. Medical science is just sloppy, by training, by habit.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 25 2022, @08:05AM (2 children)
When you say "medical science" are you referring to treatment, or research? Or...?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday June 25 2022, @08:51AM (1 child)
I am referring to research. Specifically I don't like the population studies (we looked at this sample of the population and that sample of the population, it turns out this sample were more likely to get cancer and also drank more red wine, therefore...)
However there is documented evidence suggesting that the rot goes down into the more lab-based stuff (we put some gunk in these petri dishes and some gunk in those petri dishes, these petri dishes were more likely to get cancer, therefore...)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 25 2022, @03:29PM
My mom was a biochemist and did some significant research at a major research center. The way she always talked about it seemed like she / they were very careful, accurate, thorough, etc., but I never really learned details of her work, results, etc. One of her college friends went on to win a Nobel in immunology.
You make very good points. I don't do a lot of statistics work, but sometimes I apply the concepts. We learned a bit in EE uni. I'm (very) big on "correlation is not causation" and have been so - long before the phrase got popular.
My hunch is the problem stems from many factors: (destructive) cost-cutting, ignorant management (who should employ biostatisticians like you), rush to beat the competition, desire for recognition and maybe fame, and just some good old fashioned eureka! - driven human ambition.
I'm not sure if you're really a biostatician, but you're much needed in that world, so if you're not, my hope is you'll find your way in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 25 2022, @11:29AM
Human nature is just sloppy, by training, by habit. What's your point?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 24 2022, @03:24PM
J.J. Abrams summed up my feelings on the current medical establishment nicely:
"You got numb tongue? That happens sometimes, I can fix that!"
I come down more on the Kirk side of that conversation: "Get away from me!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP0_tIuc2Rg [youtube.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @03:57PM
Are you sure about your physicality?
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Saturday June 25 2022, @08:00AM
ps: I should also add they never quote how big the systematic subtraction is.
If one subtracts a 10 % systematic from a 50 % effect (i.e. 50 % more people got better, our systematic indicates 10 % of that effect is because the people in X sample were rich), I believe the result. If one subtracts a 50 % systematic from a 10 % effect, it is not believable (i.e. 60 % more people got better, our systematic analysis indicates 50 % of that effect is because the people in X sample were rich). Never quoted so reader cannot tell.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday June 25 2022, @09:10AM
If they get disproved and the author keeps peddling his bullshit (like, say, in the whole "vaccines cause autism" bullshit), yeah, good idea.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday June 24 2022, @02:03PM (1 child)
"And it's time to hang some of the assholes doing it. Not the people spreading fake vaccines and misinformations. The assholes that order it. Like we did back in Nürnberg. It did have a pretty lasting effect for a while, from time to time we should repeat it."
Indeed this has become my thinking on this too well past time for them to start dying en masse, I am fine with the spreaders of the mis-information dying too. Along with the parasite corporations, your product kills someone your company gets the death penalty applied both corporate and personal for the leaders of the corporation. I have become rather militant on this in my old age...
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @03:13PM
Stroke that cock.... cum for me, daddy! Let the bodies hit the floor!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 24 2022, @03:27PM (1 child)
TIATA - Transparency Is Always The Answer.
Secret police are the antithesis of transparency. Secretive organizations are only secretive because their actions would outrage some, if not most, of the population.
The newer art of secrecy is astroturfing with false or misleading information, it's almost as bad and has secrecy at its roots.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday June 25 2022, @02:51PM
That's not new, Pravda worked like that since its inception. Mix propaganda with some glimpses of reality so people would swallow the propaganda along the lines of "they told the truth concerning A, so let's believe that crap they tell about B".
It works. Tell people what they want to believe, add a few genuine bits of information that don't affect or hurt you, and you can tell them whatever bullshit you want them to believe.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @08:34AM (3 children)
TFA -> "suggesting there may be a cryptic or hidden spread among some unvaccinated people"
because vaccines work as a matter of faith.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35488227/ [nih.gov]
You deserve everything that's coming.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Opportunist on Friday June 24 2022, @09:09AM (2 children)
No, they work more as a matter of fact. Did you read the document you linked?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:57PM (1 child)
The cure for vaccine induced polio is more vaccine. The cure for credit default is more money created at debt. As I said you deserve what's coming.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday June 26 2022, @01:34PM
Please stay unvaccinated. It would surely help to clean the gene pool.
Erhm... what I mean is that this way, people will sure pay good money for your "pure" sperm, women will finally want to fuck you.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Friday June 24 2022, @10:14AM (12 children)
What is wrong with you? There is nothing to gloat over about people getting horrible infectious diseases, even if they are self-inflicted. Being stupid is not a moral failing, and neither is growing stubborn in the face of abusive opposition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @10:26AM
But they're Pommies, aka God's chosen people.
It's hilarious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @10:27AM
Survival and infectious diseases are utterly amoral.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday June 24 2022, @12:47PM (6 children)
I tried teaching.
I tried compasion.
The only thing left at this point is contempt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @04:01PM
It won't hurt to try the only thing that is right in such situations: indifference.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Saturday June 25 2022, @05:52AM (3 children)
Then you can at least help by not making it harder on the rest of us by converting the misinformed into zealots. You can be contemptuous without expressing it in a manner that is toxic and self-defeating.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday June 25 2022, @09:12AM (2 children)
At this point, I'm quite happy with them simply and plainly dying.
I can teach people who don't know something. Ignorance can be resolved. You do not know something, you go to someone who does know, you learn, then you know too.
Willful ignorance and deliberately not wanting to learn cannot be solved. It's best to just let them perish and get out of the way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 25 2022, @04:09PM (1 child)
noone is dying from *lack* of vaccines, you retarded fuck.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday June 26 2022, @01:32PM
So you're still firmly in the "covid is a hoax and measles are caused by bad thoughts" camp?
I'm pretty sure you also think the reason the Smallpox epidemics stopped when vaccines became available are just due to "better hygiene", yes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 25 2022, @09:03PM
You should sell t-shirts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Friday June 24 2022, @01:37PM (1 child)
IIUC, the version of polio circulating is essentially harmless. The danger is that it's only a few mutations away from the harmful version, so we don't want it in circulation. But when/where the harmful version is circulation, the tradeoff works the other direction.
So wash your hands after you use the john.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @10:46PM
> So wash your hands after you use the john.
And don't slurp from public fountains, where there is a chance of your lips/skin contacting surfaces that others may have contacted or drooled on. That's how a good friend beieves he caught polio as a kid, pre-vaccine. He's ~80 now, still limps same as ever--one leg stopped growing from polio. Shields over drinking fountains were not installed in his school, although this book suggests these were being recommended in the 1930s,
https://books.google.com/books?id=kTZrJeA9aucC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=origin+of+splash+guard+on+drinking+fountains&source=bl&ots=x0JXVNJE2f&sig=ACfU3U1sF98QFI6qvJo5SvH3MKhU4AtL6Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjT6LL9k8f4AhVfpokEHVKqCwUQ6AF6BAhCEAM#v=onepage&q=origin%20of%20splash%20guard%20on%20drinking%20fountains&f=false [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:18AM
"Being stupid is not a moral failing." Yes, it is. Too stupid to take vaccines. Then die.
(Score: 0, Troll) by NPC-131072 on Friday June 24 2022, @11:00AM
Hello Fren,
I bet "hysteric dimwits" [thedailybeast.com] never heard of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus. [who.int]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @11:00AM (17 children)
TFA: "A vaccine-derived version of poliovirus has repeatedly surfaced in London sewage over the past several months"
There is literally NO PLACE WORSE for your canned rant, than here and now. Are you blind, or braindead, or a bot?
This specific vaccine is literally causing a new epidemic of the disease. Has been for years already.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/02/vaccine-derived-polio-spreads-in-africa-after-defeat-of-wild-virus [theguardian.com]
Now what has been happening in the third world, started in the first world as well. What goes around, comes around. Viruses coming home to roost.
Apply your rant to your own dimwit self, go and put some knowledge of biology in your brain (if you have one), and do keep silent until you do.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday June 24 2022, @12:50PM (5 children)
Yes, we were stupid enough to assume that people would accept a vaccine if it was free and protecting them from a deadly disease. We honestly didn't expect people to insist in their god-given right to be stupid.
Oh well. Considering the only people dying are the stubborn ones, I guess we should call this a win-win situation. A considerable portion of the population is vaccinated and survives, the idiot rest croaks. I'm ok with that.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday June 24 2022, @05:18PM (1 child)
The only draw back with the Darwin Principle is it takes (usually) more than one generation.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday June 24 2022, @07:31PM
True, but the next generation just might be smart enough to learn from the mistakes of their ancestors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:51PM (1 child)
You should really consider reading the article you're commenting on at some point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 25 2022, @03:13AM
Maybe you should understand what [wikipedia.org] the hell you're talking about.
To anyone who is not a psychopath, it should be obvious that the answer is more vaccination and better vaccines, such as the injection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @06:57PM
So, you are a bot posting canned bullshit. Understood.
To the bot handler: petition your superiors to change the script. This one is beyond stupid, to spam it on a techie site of all places.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday June 24 2022, @02:59PM (10 children)
There's nothing new about endemic polio. That is, wish the vaccine never was and you get even more polio detectable in the sewer only people aren't protected from getting the paralytic form.
But this is why once countries mostly get it under control and can afford to, they switch to the killed virus vaccine from the weakened virus vaccine.
Personally I remember getting the oral vaccine on a sugar cube.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @07:25PM (9 children)
Polio, as such, is a "hygiene disease"; see, it is the less dangerous the younger the infected is, so it works as its own vaccine if children come in contact with it early (rather similar with chickenpox in this regard, BTW, even while the viruses are unrelated).
Given that it is a regular enterovirus (not even a special one; a lot of enteroviruses have the same flaccid paralysis as a potential neurological complication), a sterile child-rearing environment, after it came into fashion, broke down the "natural vaccination" cycle, and adults and near-adults coming in their first contact with enteroviruses, got into a much greater danger (only about 5% still, but that is scary enough in a citywide epidemic).
A live polio vaccine, therefore, does nothing unnatural, instead fixing an unintended consequence of modern city life - IF it is given to a child early enough. BUT, even it can be a danger if misused, or badly made; AND the absolute idiots still claiming polio can be "eradicated", need be put into madhouses where they belong.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/ [nih.gov]
https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2019/oct/23/oral-polio-vaccine-causing-paralysis-in-kids-study-2051670.html [newindianexpress.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday June 24 2022, @08:07PM (8 children)
So how do you explain the fact that polio in any form is much less common in the U.S. than it was before the vaccine existed?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @08:32PM (7 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio-like_syndrome [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis [wikipedia.org]
Statistics can defeat every problem. On paper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @09:27PM (2 children)
Neither of those are Polio.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @09:44PM (1 child)
Precisely.
0) Rename the disease into something else.
1) Claim eradication of the disease.
2) Reduce general educational level in biology to below zero, to keep such claims unchallenged.
3) Profit!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @04:24AM
You're crazy.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday June 24 2022, @10:49PM (3 children)
Both links make it explicit that the cause is not polio. You should at least read links before you attempt to use them to support your position.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @10:58PM (2 children)
Reading is not your strong suit, definitely. The projection is totally hilarious.
Now spelling it out a second time, specifically for you, my dear Sir Dense.
0) Rename the disease into something else.
1) Claim eradication of the disease.
2) Reduce general educational level in biology to below zero, to keep such claims unchallenged.
3) Profit!!!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday June 25 2022, @12:50AM (1 child)
AH! I see.
If you stop drinking furniture polish now, some brain function may yet return.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 25 2022, @09:38AM
Your intelligence shines out of your arse, as always. Pity you believe your use of those two hemispheres is thinking, but being born without a brain understandably left you with no choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @02:50PM
We were free of many things...then we decided to let people in with fake health (and other) documents.
Apropos the polio, what part of reactivated vaccine strain from oral vaccines didn't you get?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 24 2022, @03:20PM (14 children)
Yep, it was a hot iron on an ironing board when I was four - lost some right index fingerprint to it, scar still visible 50 years later.
On the other hand, the "smart" kids all know what's good for them: when the Hitlerjugend or Bund Deutscher Mädel call, you sign up right away, enthusiastically. Learn the songs and the signs, and display them proudly for all to see. Persecute those who resist, mercilessly. Questioning authority only hurts the individual. Groups that question authority, like the AFL-CIO are to be avoided at all costs.
That's the way to a Brave New World.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday June 25 2022, @02:48PM (13 children)
Your tinfoil hat got a bit tight there?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday June 25 2022, @07:00PM (12 children)
Why worry about radio frequency brain control when basic peer pressure is so effective?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday June 26 2022, @11:44AM (11 children)
What peer pressure exactly now?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 26 2022, @01:16PM (10 children)
All kinds, from kids on the playground through Fox News and Fascist movements.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday June 26 2022, @01:29PM (9 children)
Pressure to do what?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:30PM (8 children)
Join, be like us, do what we do.
Also: hate, hurt, sometimes kill those who resist.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday June 27 2022, @06:50AM (7 children)
Who are you talking about? Quite frankly, I'm lost here.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 27 2022, @11:39AM (6 children)
Tinfoil hat too tight?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday June 27 2022, @02:11PM (5 children)
Apparently I am missing one, because I don't know who the bugbear du jour is.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 27 2022, @02:37PM (4 children)
Conformists, specifically those who aren't "dumb enough" to burn their finger on the stove to find out for themselves that it hurts.
There are plenty of "smart people" in this world who willingly emulate and follow the advice of "their betters" whether that's people with more wealth, power, or charm than themselves. What these "smart people" are doing is what their perceived "betters" are telling them to do, and these "betters" often as not are more interested in helping themselves than helping others.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday June 28 2022, @06:18AM (3 children)
True, but some of us just weigh the alternatives and then do what's best for us. The main problem I have with a lot of these "truthers" is that they are unable to do that. Their train of logic just runs "I don't trust A, so I won't do what A does, instead I'll do what B says because it's the opposite of A. For the same reason I don't do what A said: Fuck all".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 28 2022, @02:10PM (2 children)
The trick is always in the weighing of the alternatives. As you say: some shortcut the weighing process and just go black and white based on "us and them" - 100% follow us, when us is not prescribing, then 100% oppose them. It's efficient, no thinking and little research required, but it's extremely vulnerable to manipulation and the manipulators have little or no motivation to protect their followers, much less the world in general.
There's little "guaranteed" information about anything available anywhere - but there is plenty of valuable information that does help make decisions better than random chance. That's the problem with following authority blindly, it can easily dictate choices worse for you than even random chance.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday June 28 2022, @07:08PM (1 child)
While true, there are simply some claims that are so batshit insane that I'd really want to see VERY good proof for it to even consider it possible. No matter the authority.
In other words, if Stephen Hawking said that at the center of a black hole there's a little green man pulling really, really hard at the fabric of the universe to create the insane gravity of the black hole, I'd listen. But I'd still want to see some really, REALLY good proof to not call him a crackpot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 28 2022, @07:34PM
I used to think I made "cutting edge weirdo medical devices" but then when that company - so ahead of its time, of course - had to lay off all staff, I went job hunting and came across TMS: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. I read their intro and thought: "wow, something almost as wacko as cryogenics" - plus: job is based in Pennsylvania, no desire to live in Pennsylvania and big desire to find gainful employment so: shortcut, no deeper research into this wack-job TMS stuff.
Two years later I found out: TMS is 100% legit, it really does cause major reversible changes in brain function through the use of magnetic pulses. But, their website really had me thinking it was more on the order of the magnetic shoe inserts to improve circulation...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @10:45AM
you get 3rd-world diseases.
(Score: 2) by https on Friday June 24 2022, @03:30PM (3 children)
A) Covid can fucking destroy a human immune system. CD8/CD3/NK levels drop lower than HIV patients, MHC's blocked form acting, naive T-cell depletion... all kinds of nasty stuff just off the top of my head, and I'm not even a board-certified immunologist paid to keep on top of these things. The word is out and google is cheap and not all articles are paywalled by Elsevier.
B) Pakistan is one of two countries in the world with occasional polio outbreaks. Give thanks to the CIA for being assholes (and regressvie imams piggybacking off of them) for that. Homework: ID the other country.
C) Enough people travel between England and Pakistan that English bigots have a reserved slur for people from there.
D) The western world got so used to polio not being a thing that nobody under 40 was vaccinated as a matter of routine, and probably not many under the age of 30 at all.
Put it together: you've got a fraction of the population rendered newly immune deficient, mixed in with a younger population that was never (or only sporadicly) vaxxed against polio, people travelling from places where polio is a thing... of course there's an outbreak.Just like monkeypox. It won't be the last, either.
MPX and polio' are not special cases. There are going to be a whole lot more serious outbreaks and pandemics of other diseases that were reasonably thought beaten into a corner.
Bonus homework question: predict which western country the other polio resevoir interacts with the most. Turkey, is my guess.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @05:47PM (2 children)
Wait, what? Who doesn't vaccinate for polio? In places where it's believed to be eradicated, we use the less effective (but no chance of vaccine-derived polio) injected vaccine. But in the US at least, we definitely vaccinate for polio (see: CDC recommended vaccination schedule for children [cdc.gov]). Well, except for anti-vaxxers, but that still means 80-90+% of people are vaccinated.
(Score: 2) by https on Friday June 24 2022, @09:16PM
Whoops! Yep, I got smallpox and polio confused, which rather reverses the order of my primary and secondary case examples. I'm gonna blame sleep dep even if it's just caffiene shortage.
The past couple of years, with doctors all around destroying the credibility of their profession, those who have wanted to remain uninfected have had to learn more about epidemiology and transmission modes that most WHO advisors, more about ventilation and filtration than most engineers, more about viral evolution and immunity than immunologists... and so on. What I've really gathered is that doctors in general don't give a flying fuck about learning more medicine once they've got the letters after their name.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Saturday June 25 2022, @06:13AM
That sounded too high, so I did a quick search and it seems to be 92.6% [cdc.gov] combined. It's also worth keeping in mind that some people cannot get vaccinated due to allergies and especially in the US and some people simply slip through the cracks.