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OK prick, since you want to play the "argument from authority fallacy", how about:

The American Society for Nutrition
The American Medical Associaton
Tom Sanders, Prof. Emeritus of Nutrition and Dietetics, King's College

P.S. I notice you didn't refute a single point the paleo guy made. Qualifications aside, Lustig has an axe to grind, and he cherry-picks his data shamelessly.

I'm not sure, what do you think? [re: mortality rate]

Well, from my best googling, it seems as if with treatment the mortality rate for children with measles ranges around 2%. Without treatment, ~20%. The rate seems similar with other infections such as rubella. Smallpox had about a 30% fatality rate.

For the 1918 h1n1 flu, this page: http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-technology-1/Biotechnology-Company-Provided-Advance-Warning-of-Mexican-H1N1--26quot-3BSwine-Flu-26quot-3B-Virus-Outbreak-11719-3/

claims 2-10% mortality.

Given that in the midst (or before) a pandemic we can't know the mortality rate, we can only look at past events. Your prevailing attitude seems to be that the flu isn't a big deal. Most years this is true. One only needs to look back over the 75 years to see how normal strains of flu can instantly become major killers.

Given that you have not come up with a single reason to not get vaccinated other than the fact that you don't want to, what's the downside?

Again, without numbers this is an arbitrary claim

What, you're claiming that the flu CAN'T become an epidemic? Just look at 1918. Or 1968. Etc. If doctors and epidemiologists could predict with 100% accuracy which strains or diseases were going to become major killers years in advance, we'd be a lot better off! Unfortunately, all we have is guesses.

...most parts of China, even in the cities, don't have drinkable water coming into the house.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Drinking-water-in-America-not-all-that-safe-3A-says-report-10757-1/

While no more than a third of US households have unsafe drinking water.

You would think plagues and other horrible diseases should be eradicated not preserved to experiment with later. Take small pox it was supposed to be eradicated but they just won't let it die . But curing diseases would be a bad business model and lead to their eventual unemployment.

Smallpox was a virus that could only infect humans. With most humans immunized, it has nowhere else to go and it disappeared. Yersinia pestis can't be eradicated. It's a bacterium that is endemic among rodents. You would have to exterminate rodents from the wild in most of Eurasia and North America and still not completely eradicate it.

You would think plagues and other horrible diseases should be eradicated not preserved to experiment with later. Take small pox it was supposed to be eradicated but they just won't let it die . But curing diseases would be a bad business model and lead to their eventual unemployment.

And yet in countries with publicly funded health care the government doesn't do that. It's almost as if your comment is just plain bullshit.

I know I am really just completely crazy huh Government would never ever go to far.

There have been a couple of breaks in that area. IIRC, there were some preserved tissue samples, and about two years ago, they dug up someone who was buried in permafrost who died from it, so they have a pretty good idea what the 1918 flu looked like at this point. They also tested it on macaque monkeys and got a cytokine storm. (Source: BBC) Also, a few months ago, they took some antibodies from still-living survivors and injected the antibodies into mice. Scientists were surprised to find that the antibodies were still effective even after nearly a century. (Source: bio-medicine.org) The scientist described them as some of the most potent antibodies ever isolated.

So yeah, they have a pretty good idea what the 1918 flu was, and the CDC says that this strain doesn't have the genes that made the 1918 strain particularly potent, at least for now. There's always a risk that it could acquire that gene from people or animals infected with H5N1, as that's presumably still running around somewhere, but I'd imagine the odds of that are about the same as the odds of the seasonal flu doing so. In short, this is probably a Shakespearean pandemic---full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That said, I sure would like to know why there were so many fatalities in Mexico (and among young, presumably healthy adults at that). That's more than just a little disconcerting.

There was just recently a case in which the FDA quit accepting applications for approvals from a company. That company was found to be tainting studies, and was the only source of data for the drugs they wanted approved. See bio-medicine.org's coverage of that news item.

If you have multiple sources and most of them are reputable, are you better or worse off than having one source with a unique incentive to put their own drug in the best possible light?

Don't forget the study showing that older parents are more likely to produce offspring with autism. Oh, and fertility treatments seem to be linked as well.

So increased detection, better understanding of the disease, people having children later in life, and increased use of fertility treatments would all seem to have some effect.

Sorry, http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Non-Hormonal-Male-Contraceptive-Based-on-Sperm-Block-Underway-10020-1/ for the first page.

I believe in "Oops" more than I believe in malice or math. Motive aside, you're right. Then again, female contraception doesn't always block the egg as much as make the uterus inhospitable for a zygote. Something that sufficiently impairs sperm after leaving the body from doing it's job would be as effective without actually blocking a million something swimmers. Still not effective against STDs, but that's a different topic.

Oh, found this. Looks similar (only skimmed) http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Non-Hormonal-Male-Contraceptive-Based-on-Sperm-Block-Underway-10020-2/

Similar techniques are being tried also to regrow damaged or missing cartilage.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070906104136.htm

It looks like the current trend is to use stem cells from within a patient's own body. That way there are no ethical issues and no worries about tissue rejection. Researchers are figuring out ways to extract stem cells from a patient's own blood.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news/Breakthrough-isolating-embryo-quality-stem-cells-from-blood-669-1/

steveha

I'm a vegetarian because I learned about how lax the standards that govern our food supply are.

Why would you think that plants are handled any better, especially when NAFTA opened the US and CAN to God-knows-what from Mexico and Central America?

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Grapes--Melons-Implicated-in-Outbreaks-1271-1/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2445747/Salmonella-outbreak-linked-to-single-chilli.html
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Vegetables-And-Fruits-Cause-More-US-Food-Illnesses--5831-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Bacterial-infestation-in-food-very-critical-21-5940-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Roma-tomatoes-the-culprits-for-salmonella-infection-7330-1/

I'm a vegetarian because I learned about how lax the standards that govern our food supply are.

Why would you think that plants are handled any better, especially when NAFTA opened the US and CAN to God-knows-what from Mexico and Central America?

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Grapes--Melons-Implicated-in-Outbreaks-1271-1/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2445747/Salmonella-outbreak-linked-to-single-chilli.html
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Vegetables-And-Fruits-Cause-More-US-Food-Illnesses--5831-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Bacterial-infestation-in-food-very-critical-21-5940-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Roma-tomatoes-the-culprits-for-salmonella-infection-7330-1/

I'm a vegetarian because I learned about how lax the standards that govern our food supply are.

Why would you think that plants are handled any better, especially when NAFTA opened the US and CAN to God-knows-what from Mexico and Central America?

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Grapes--Melons-Implicated-in-Outbreaks-1271-1/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2445747/Salmonella-outbreak-linked-to-single-chilli.html
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Vegetables-And-Fruits-Cause-More-US-Food-Illnesses--5831-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Bacterial-infestation-in-food-very-critical-21-5940-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Roma-tomatoes-the-culprits-for-salmonella-infection-7330-1/

I'm a vegetarian because I learned about how lax the standards that govern our food supply are.

Why would you think that plants are handled any better, especially when NAFTA opened the US and CAN to God-knows-what from Mexico and Central America?

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Grapes--Melons-Implicated-in-Outbreaks-1271-1/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2445747/Salmonella-outbreak-linked-to-single-chilli.html
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Vegetables-And-Fruits-Cause-More-US-Food-Illnesses--5831-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Bacterial-infestation-in-food-very-critical-21-5940-1/
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Roma-tomatoes-the-culprits-for-salmonella-infection-7330-1/

Well, you seem to have a medical condition, which changes things for you. Even still though, I would talk to your doctor about your avoidence of carbs. You do actually require them for proper brain function, and low carb diets are exteremely dangerous for your heart.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Heart-damage-a-consequence-of-Atkins-u2019-Die-5699-1/

I have no known conditions, and like I was saying, I don't think HFCS is soley to blame for the nations obesity problem. Our food tends to have much more fat the HFCS.. and said I pointed out earlier, fat is just a bit more than double in caloric intake.

they are used frequently by the military, and by professional card players

and all of drink coffee, and some of us smoke: concentration enhancers

there are even new calsses of drugs called "cognition enhancers"

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Unlikely-Drugs-Emerge-as-Cognition-Enhancers-16393-2/

and to make my point perfectly clear, i have no problem with people using these in card games, or in the military. i am not making a morallistic argument

what i am making is a logistical argument: people will be less interested in watching sports if it is less about human achievement and more about biochemistry

"I don't actually think that accepting drug enhancement in a sport would drop its ratings."

i drectly contradict you. in fact, i can show you a case study: professional wrestling. everyone knows that is not real sport. and it is in fact very funny to weatch roid heads smack each other around. however, no one takes it seriously, its not a real sport, everyone watching knows that

when athletes take drugs, it completely alters the fundamental psychology of what makes watching sports appealing in the first place

and so, any sports authority that wants to retain an audience, will be waging war on drug use forever