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you need raw yolks, and one of three raw commercial eggs has salmonella.

I'm not sure what country you're living in? In the U.S., only one in 20,000 eggs contains salmonella. http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/salmonella_enteritidis/

Even the top levels of the US government recommend being prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse. I mean, this is the same group of folks that wants you to get a flu shot.

And just where do you think zombies come from, hmm? You don't really think its from hell being full now, do you?

Cadavers Destroying Civilization ?

Even the top levels of the US government recommend being prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse. I mean, this is the same group of folks that wants you to get a flu shot.

And just where do you think zombies come from, hmm? You don't really think its from hell being full now, do you?

And they said I was crazy preparing my zombie apocalypse survival kit.

Hardly. Even the top levels of the US government recommend being prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse. I mean, this is the same group of folks that wants you to get a flu shot.

Which is almost a non-issue any more.

In the US, we have no real numbers on gun control and suicide rates, homicide rates

Completely FALSE. See Table 2. Given you start out with a blatant lie, I didn't bother to read the rest of your post.

Of the gun deaths in the USA, 2/3 are suicide, and a bit less than 1/3 are with illegal guns?

Do you have some sort of reference for that?

The actual percentage (for 2011) is that 61% are suicides (see Table 2 - page 19 of 52). This same table shows that 51.6% of the suicides in the United States involve the use of firearms.

As far as suicide (which I think is irrelevant to the gun control discussion as I believe it is the right of anyone to take their own life just as it is their right to refuse medical care or to have an early term abortion), guns can be a convenient tool but are certainly not essential. Almost 1/2 the suicides in the US don't involve a firearm. Japan, a country with virtually no private gun ownership/access, has a suicide rate 1.8 times that of the United States.

Here is a citation for you: the recent CDC report that the media has been trying to sweep under the rug. It states that binge drinking and overdrinking, among just women and girls, contributes to the deaths of 23,000 in a year. But you know, guns are super evil. Or howabout this from the CDC site: There are approximately 80,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States. You citation needed types piss me off. Stop being so fucking lazy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia [wikipedia.org]

Look at the causes. Hypercapnia is not caused by atmospheric CO2. Even if the AGW guys are right, you're still off by orders of magnitude before that even became a problem.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/124389.html [cdc.gov]

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/10028156.html. Oh no! Better get rid of all that atmospheric ozone as well! CO2 composes ~400ppm of the atmosphere. That fact sheet lists toxicity at 40000ppm. Scare-mongering much?

People who suffered smoke inhalation often have lifelong breathing problems for example.

Yeah - but not because they've ingested CO2. It's usually due to lung damage from the particulates they inhaled.

Furthermore - everything that produces CO2 also produces CO - cars in fact produce MOSTLY CO - which is much more toxic

Yeah - and when's the last time you heard someone complain about carbon monoxide emissions? Not lately I'll, because everyone's fixated on CO2.

If we reduce the oxygen levels in the atmosphere by just 1% the results would already be catastrophic for ourselves...How likely is this ? Well let's do the math. CO2 is one carbon atom and 2 oxygen atoms. That scales up directly - so if we burn one ton of coal, we reduce the atmospheric oxygen by 2 tonnes and increase the atmospheric CO2 by 3 tonnes. That's an exponential equation - if it was a software program it would be running at O(n^3) - which is bloody insane !

There's around 1.2 quadrillion metric tonnes of oxygen in the atmosphere. At the current rate, that'd take around a few thousand years to make a 1% difference in atmospheric oxygen. Not that that's relevant, because we'll run out of crap to burn long before that point. And it's not an exponential rate, it's geometric. It has a constant ratio of 1:2.

Yes, because I'm that fucking stupid.

Well, what you said was that fucking stupid, and there are plenty of people who have said that or something similar. Even with your addendum, it's still stupid. Outlaw any emission of fossil-fuel derived CO2? Civilization would shut down. Maybe in a couple of decades if we ramped up nuke production. Maybe in a century when we've had time to increase the efficiency of our renewable technologies and developed decent storage technology. But in the near future? If it were enforced worldwide, that would cause more damage than AGW is predicted to.

>Except, again, CO2 doesn't cause respiratory illness.

It does how-ever trigger attacks in those who have congenital respiratory illnesses or caught it from another cause - attacks cost money to heal.

>Any source to back this up? The conventional wisdom appears to say otherwise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/124389.html

There is some growing evidence that CO2 has long term effects and exposure can cause illnesses over time. People who suffered smoke inhalation often have lifelong breathing problems for example.
Furthermore - everything that produces CO2 also produces CO - cars in fact produce MOSTLY CO - which is much more toxic (CO1 is unstable and converts into CO2 in the atmosphere over time - and thus has the same AGW problem)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_poisoning

Now let's really bake your noodle - just to clarify the impact. There is no DOUBT that organisms (and much simpler and stupider ones than us) can affect the atmosphere through their activities. Until plants evolved the earth had only about 5% oxygen in the atmosphere, plants pushed it to it's current level of about 21% - and killed every other living creature on the planet, an entire new type of animal had to evolve to live in this new atmosphere - and then those animals (which are our ancestors) were dependent on it.
If we reduce the oxygen levels in the atmosphere by just 1% the results would already be catastrophic for ourselves.

How likely is this ? Well let's do the math. CO2 is one carbon atom and 2 oxygen atoms. That scales up directly - so if we burn one ton of coal, we reduce the atmospheric oxygen by 2 tonnes and increase the atmospheric CO2 by 3 tonnes.

That's an exponential equation - if it was a software program it would be running at O(n^3) - which is bloody insane !
>I'd be happy with this too, as long as the money that used to go to subsidizing energy companies was instead refunded to tax-payers as a tax cut - otherwise you'd just be bumping up the cost of energy for households, and letting the politicians add a bucket of money to their slush fund.

What they do with the money is not really relevant to my prediction that in a truly free energy market - renewables would win, in our un-free market they need help - but the advantage may be that they will win much sooner if they get that help. That's not a bad thing (it may have bad side effects, I don't dispute that but again - they are not relevant to my point).
So if you want the subsidies refunded - sure. Of course being more of a leftist, I would argue they could better spend that money aleviating hunger, topping up welfare and pension plans and such - which IS refunding it to the citizens, but instead of just giving it back - spending it on those who need it most (the entire POINT of a progressive tax system).

>You consider CO2 to be a pollutant, and you want to make all pollution "outright illegal". You do realise this would outlaw breathing, right?

Yes, because I'm that fucking stupid. Such a law would apply only to non-organic processes. Animals are evolved to emit a certain amount of CO2 - which is always less than the amount of oxygen they breathed in, in the first place (because we don't burn ALL the oxygen we breath) - nature has had millions of years to adapt to breathing animals and the systems of weather can cope quite well with it. I don't give much creedence to the extremists who think overpopulation means we breath too much now - there are billions more incects than humans on the planet who breathe out far more CO2 every day than all the mammals combined. There is some evidence to support that our farming has increased OTHER biological gasses like methane but even that would be much more manageable without industrial pollution.
A human being in his entire lifetime breathes out less CO2 than coal power-plant emits in a day.

I think that about sums it up. There is no rational reason for XYZ at all in a domestic setting except for their own sake.

That is insane reasoning for banning people from owning something "just 'cuz"

2010 U.S. accidental death stats
Mortality
All unintentional injury deaths
Number of deaths: 120,859
Deaths per 100,000 population: 39.1
Cause of death rank: 5
Unintentional fall deaths
Number of deaths: 26,009
Deaths per 100,000 population: 8.4
Motor vehicle traffic deaths
Number of deaths: 33,687
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.9
Unintentional poisoning deaths
Number of deaths: 33,041
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.7

The NSC says around 600-700 died from falling on the job, you know, gainfully employed, contributing to the economy types. The other uh 25,000 ish may have been elderly falling and breaking stuff. I guess I could write them off entirely if you WANTED, they were going to die eventually anyway right? Errr... uhhh...
You STILL have twice as many people dying from falls than rifles. But.. we'd have to scrub that 323 number for old people not able to work to compare to the ~600 falling deaths one, and you know.. that just might be quite a few of those loonies whipping out hunting rifles as opposed to handguns.

2011 U. S. FBI Murder stats
323 Murders with a rifle

Hell, 8585 were murdered with guns in total... look at the above numbers again. Not trying to say murder is OK alright people? It's just that ignoring mortality statistics and then narrowing your laser like focus on one specific type of murder weapon as if it's worse than other kinds, is pretty silly.

It's already been pointed out that the reason why the United States has "high" infant mortality is that we count ALL live births as a live birth.

Not according to the CDC.

It turns out that many European countries do count all live births as "a live birth". And that many/most of those are still at the top.

To quote the summary of of the CDC's findings:

Key findings Data from the United States' Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set and the European Perinatal Health Report

Infant mortality rates for preterm (less than 37 weeks of gestation) infants are lower in the United States than in most European countries; however, infant mortality rates for infants born at 37 weeks of gestation or more are higher in the United States than in most European countries.

One in 8 births in the United States were born preterm, compared with 1 in 18 births in Ireland and Finland.

If the United States had Sweden's distribution of births by gestational age, nearly 8,000 infant deaths would be averted each year and the U.S. infant mortality rate would be one-third lower.

The main cause of the United States' high infant mortality rate when compared with Europe is the very high percentage of preterm births in the United States.

So something is clearly not quite right with the youngest Americans compared to their European counterparts.

There are roughly the same number of road deaths as gun deaths in the USA each year.

Annual motor vehicle traffic deaths: 33,687

Murders committed using a firearm, 2011: 67.7% * 14,612 = 9,892

Lowest estimate of number of defensive firearms uses per year: 108,000

Highest estimate of number of defensive firearms uses per year: 2,500,000

I was writing "almost nobody carries a concealed gun" but I guess I'd accidentally deleted it. And I'm all for trampling minorities' rights if these rights actively endanger the rest of us.

"Uh, not sure where that came from, but I don't think that gun is contagious."

Well, it is (think about it). CDC also studies things like slipping injuries and deaths ( http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Falls/fallcost.html ). Yet somehow firearm studies got banned.

The point of these laws is to reduce the probability that an unmotivated person turns into a criminal.

Is there any evidence that they would have such an effect in the United States? Not really.

Before congress banned gun-violence epidemiology, it looked like a gun was 40 times more likely to be used on a household member than on an invader.

It appears that you're referring to the widely-debunked Kellerman study which was flawed in a major way: it compared (situations where a firearm in the home is used to kill a resident for any reason, including suicide) vs. (situations where a firearm in the home is used to kill an intruder). Self-defense scenarios where the attacker is killed are, by far, the least-common outcome of armed self-defense -- it's much more common for the attacker to either be injured and/or flee.

Would it be nice to have better, more recent studies? Sure, but referencing the Kellerman study does little to support your point.

Small restrictions, with minimal impact on legitimate gun use, can reduce gun violence.

Can they? The 1994-2004 ban restricted a whole bunch of common firearms and limited magazines to 10 rounds. There didn't seem to be much of any effect on crime. State-level restrictions on certain types of guns hasn't had much of an effect. Even the CDC did a study about 10 years ago and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes."

In theory, limiting magazine capacity could reduce the effectiveness of mass shooters. In reality, there's no evidence to show that such a restriction is effective.

If we are going to ban things that kill, lets start at the top of the list, not at the bottom.

Leading Causes of Death

Also more people die from car accidents than from guns, should we also ban cars?
On average in 2009, 93 people were killed on the roadways of the U.S. each day.

Here's a weird one, why do whites commit suicide at a much higher rate than other races?

sad to see a statistic so tragic. among the age group 25-34, suicide is the second highest cause of death (cdc, 2010 [ http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_All_Deaths_By_Age_Group_2010-a.pdf ]). All i can say is this is a tragedy in the specific, and its a tragedy in the general. Build communities where you can, and if you stand up for your beliefs try and make bonds that will help you through troubled times when the shit hits the fan as a result. our best and brightest should be here to fix the problems left behind by the poor choices of others, because if the best and brightest arent...who is going to? please stand by activists if you agree with them, and if you have suicidal thoughts (related to, or unrelated to activism), seek better bonds with others or medical help if necessary

The linked article says:

At six per 100,000, the rate of violent deaths is higher in the U.S. than in any other country in the world, and the majority of those deaths involve firearms.

This is an age-adjusted violent death rate for 2008. Without reading the report, it is hard to know how "violent" is defined. For comparison, the CDC says that in 2009, the age-adjusted firearm death rate was 10.1 per 100,000 people. The breakdown of firearm deaths per 100,000 people is as follows:

    - unintentional 0.2
    - suicide 5.9
    - homicide 3.8
    - undetermined 0.1
    - legal intervention/war 0.1

Source: Tables 18 and 19 of http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf

Your calculation says that in a population of 100,000 people, we expect (implicitly, in one year) 794 people to die. Of those who died, 6 of 794 people died violently and lived to 15. For argument's sake, you assume all 6 died due to firearms. Then, there are 788 people who died but not violently, and each of these people lived to 80. The average you calculated yields the "mean age of those who died". Is that how life expectancy is calculated? It seems like the ages of the other 99,206 people who did not die would also be relevant. Suppose, for example, that they were all 100 years old and still living strong.

This sounds like handwaving. There's plenty of information on dealing with the alleged infant mortality definition difference. See:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm#higher

Adjusting for the difference, the US still ends up behind.

Yes the US still is near the bottom.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm#higher

It is included under accidental deaths. The line about 'excludes unintentional injuries' refers to secondary injuries incurred by taking actions under the influence of drugs (for instance, driving under the influence). A discussion of the breakdown of accidental poisoning is here, and indicates clearly how it does include most of drug induced deaths (the exception is if the drug leads to long term conditions that then results in a death, but that's a lot more iffy as to how that should be counted):
http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/poisoning/poisoning-factsheet.htm

You can also note that 'drug induced deaths' is separate from the totals in the full causes of death breakdowns, and observe that it is not listed as a leading cause of death in http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_All_Deaths_By_Age_Group_2010-a.pdf .

It is included under accidental deaths. The line about 'excludes unintentional injuries' refers to secondary injuries incurred by taking actions under the influence of drugs (for instance, driving under the influence). A discussion of the breakdown of accidental poisoning is here, and indicates clearly how it does include most of drug induced deaths (the exception is if the drug leads to long term conditions that then results in a death, but that's a lot more iffy as to how that should be counted):
http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/poisoning/poisoning-factsheet.htm

You can also note that 'drug induced deaths' is separate from the totals in the full causes of death breakdowns, and observe that it is not listed as a leading cause of death in http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_All_Deaths_By_Age_Group_2010-a.pdf .

Let's take access to health insurance as a proxy. It has nothing to do with support for government health care, but it's interesting anyway.

Just glancing at it, the locus of poor insurance in the South seems to be centered in Texas, whereas the poor life expectancies seem to be centered further east of the Mississippi.

It's not exactly fine-grained data, and it's not exactly science to be glancing at maps like this. It's Slashdot-level social science, which rates a good solid 2 or 3 on a scale of 100 for science. Based on that, I'm more on your side, where I already was anyway. I just hate to agree with anything based on a 0.25 baked argument. At the very least, 0.5 baked please.

bollox.

European stats are compiled by Eurostat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurostat

Well, you could always just do the research and find out that different European countries really do report infant mortality statistics differently.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm

Honestly, to think they would use different definitions for each country. Why, you must be american.

I disagree. I think that properly researching and formulating more accurate opinions based on that research can be done by anyone, not just Americans.

In your own home, with your parents present you are allowed to drink with their permission. However I've never known anyone who drank even primarily in such a fashion, let alone exclusively.
By far the most common form of alcohol consumption as a teenager in the US is binge drinking at a party: http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm

That isn't true. The WHO makes their best guess which strains will be most prevalent for that year. Sometimes they do well. Sometimes they don't. They did pretty good this year, the strain hitting the Northeast US (H3N2) was predicted, it's just a really nasty one. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/vaccine-selection.htm

According to wikipedia:
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—affecting primarily the microscopic air sacs known as alveoli.[1][2] It is usually caused by infection with viruses or bacteria and less commonly other microorganisms, certain drugs and other conditions such as autoimmune diseases.[1][3]

Influenza, commonly known as the 'flu' , is an infectious disease of birds and mammals caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae, the influenza viruses.

If pneumonia is primarily caused by influenza, then it really doesn't make too much sense to differentiate how many died of the flu vs. how many died of pneumonia caused by the flu.

I don't know. I'm not a doctor or a scientist. The CDC seems to think flu shots are pretty effective at preventing flu:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5502a1.htm

"60% or more. depending an a variety of factors."

Not quite, here's some quotes from the CDC
"How well the flu vaccine works (or its ability to prevent influenza illness) can range widely from season to season and also can vary depending on who is being vaccinated."
"Preliminary data for the 2010-2011 influenza season indicate that influenza vaccine effectiveness was about 60% for all age groups combined, and that almost all influenza viruses isolated from study participants were well-matched to the vaccine strains (Unpublished CDC data)"

I don't know about your interpretation of those statements but mine says that, at least among all age groups, 60% is probably about the best case scenario for the influenza vaccine. It sounds like on some years it can be quite a bit less. There is also the question of what their definition of "effective" is (no symptoms, mild symptoms, communicability, etc)
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm

While the CDC does not keep a tab of deaths overall from the flu, it estimates that 24,000 Americans die each year.

Why doesn't the CDC keep tabs on overall deaths from the flu?
You can make policy without hard numbers, but you will never know if the policy is effective.

Huh.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm ...

Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692 ...

Bacterial infections are the #1 cause of pneumonia in the US. So how many of those were from the flu, and how many were from non-flu pneumonia?

The decision for what strains to use is not up to the pharmaceutical companies. It's up to each government to decide what to use in vaccines licensed in that country, based on recommendations from a group of the five World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centers for Reference and Research on Influenza. One of which is the CDC in the U.S.

In the U.S., the decision is then made by the FDA based on the CDC/WHO recommendations.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/virusqa.htm

While the CDC does not keep a tab of deaths overall from the flu, it estimates that 24,000 Americans die each year.

Why doesn't the CDC keep tabs on overall deaths from the flu?
You can make policy without hard numbers, but you will never know if the policy is effective.

Huh.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
...

Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
...

I'm confused WRT

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

I was just looking there this morning and thought to myself, how nice it is that the peak is already over, and the flu season has begun its decline.

I do see that its "normal" that a "bad year" has about 10 times the deaths as a "good year". So about twice as bad as last year (a "good" year) it doesn't look like its the end of the world yet.

I did look at some historical records and the higher the peaks seem to go with earlier peaks, this peak being somewhere in between would imply its a moderately bad year.

Not quite 1918 yet, or ?

Random pontificating aside, divorce rates have fallen steadily for the past decade.

"Well, one of those clinical outcomes of vaccination is getting the disease itself."
er, no. The Clinical outcome is to provoke an immune response.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/flushot.htm#cantheflu
~~~
Can the flu shot give me the flu?
No, a flu shot cannot cause flu illness. The viruses contained in flu shots are inactivated (killed), which means they cannot cause infection. Flu vaccine manufacturers kill the viruses used in the flu shot during the process of making vaccine, and batches of flu vaccine are tested to make sure they are safe. In randomized, blinded studies, where some people got flu shots and others got saltwater shots, the only differences in symptoms was increased soreness in the arm and redness at the injection site among people who got the flu shot. There were no differences in terms of body aches, fever, cough, runny nose or sore throat.
More information about these studies is available at:
Carolyn Bridges et al. (2000). Effectiveness and cost-benefit of influenza vaccination of healthy working adults: A randomized controlled trial .
Kristin Nichol et al. (1995). The effectiveness of vaccination against influenza in healthy working adults. New England Journal of Medicine. 333(14): 889-893.
Why do some people not feel well after getting the flu shot?
The most common side effect of the flu vaccine in adults is soreness at the spot where the shot was given, which usually lasts less than two days. The soreness is often caused by a person’s immune system making protective antibodies to the killed viruses in the vaccine. These antibodies are what allow the body to fight against flu. The needle stick may also cause some soreness at the injection site. According to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), rare symptoms include fever, muscle pain, and feelings of discomfort or weakness. If these problems occur, they are very uncommon and usually begin soon after the shot and last 1-2 days.
What about people who get a seasonal flu vaccine and still get sick with flu-like symptoms?
There are several reasons why someone might get flu-like symptoms even after they have been vaccinated against the flu.
People may be exposed to an influenza virus shortly before getting vaccinated or during the two-week period that it takes the body to gain protection after getting vaccinated. This exposure may result in a person becoming ill with flu before the vaccine begins to protect them.
People may become ill from other (non-flu) viruses that circulate during the flu season, which can also cause flu-like symptoms (such as rhinovirus).
A person may be exposed to an influenza virus that is not included in the seasonal flu vaccine. There are many different influenza viruses that circulate every year. The flu shot protects against the 3 viruses that research suggests will be most common.
Unfortunately, some people can get infected with an influenza vaccine virus despite getting vaccinated. Protection provided by influenza vaccination can vary widely, based in part on health and age factors of the person getting vaccinated. In general, the flu vaccine works best among young healthy adults and older children. Some older people and people with certain chronic illnesses may develop less immunity after vaccination. However, even among people who tend to respond less well to vaccination, the flu vaccine can still help prevent influenza. Vaccination is particularly important for people at high risk of serious flu-related complications and for close contacts of high-risk people. For more information about the effectiveness of the flu vaccine, see How Well Does the Seasonal Flu Vaccine Work?
~~~

Other studies have shown that the 1 to 2 day effect is a type of placebo effect.

The injectable vaccine used in the US civilian population is incapable of giving you influenza. It might make you feel bad, but it can't actually give you the disease. CDC if you don't trust me.

Sorry but according to article from the CDC here are the "Fundamental Elements to Prevent Influenza Transmission";

The core prevention strategies include:
administration of influenza vaccine
implementation of respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette
appropriate management of ill HCP
adherence to infection control precautions for all patient-care activities and aerosol-generating procedures
implementing environmental and engineering infection control measures.

The problem from the nurses here is almost a paradox. They believe that they will get the flu from taking the flu shot, but if they don't take the flu shot they will likely get the flu. They almost certainly won't get the flu from taking the shot and it will prevent them from getting the flu at all, but they believe they have a better chance of not getting the flu by being exposed to it during their job that is likely going to bring them into regular and close contact with flu-carriers.

Even on religious grounds, you can't go into work and intentionally put yourself into dangerous situations. OSHA is pretty good grounds for denying religious freedoms in the work place. I mean, even if the chance of dying from the flu in the US is pretty low, it still kills a quarter to half a million people worldwide every year. It's not something to take lightly.

People with flu can spread it to others up to about 6 feet away. Most experts think that flu viruses are spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs. Less often, a person might also get flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth or nose.

The real reason to be cautious (read: refuse) routine influenza vaccination is the risk of acquiring Guillain Barre syndrome. This disabling neurological disease has been linked with several batches of flu vaccines, in 1976 and possibly in 2009. In the 2009 analysis, the unadjusted risk ratio was 2.8-fold, but after statistical "adjustment" it fell to a less significant number. The sources for these are, respectively, the US CDC and the British Medical Journal. There is chatter in the lay press about absence of risk, but these sources are as reliable as one can get.

As a health care worker, I can tell you that all of the consent forms I have been offered with the vaccine mention this possibility (sometimes couched in terms that are not meaningful unless you already know), and that none of the hospital executives I have asked have been willing to indemnify the recipient against this risk.

The bottom line question is therefore: if the risk of acquiring this life-changing disease from routine vaccination is in fact not increased, and if mandatory vaccination of health care workers is in the public interest, why would an indemnification fund not be established to care for all vaccinated individuals who acquire Guillain Barre syndrome? Yes, there are spontaneous cases, but at least in the USA the government provides hemodialysis for everyone who acquires kidney failure. Given that precedent, the vaccination issue is easily resolved. Oh, wait, there is a budget deficit....

Based on the data, it appears that the mandatory flu vaccine has more to do with the business side of the hospital than with the patient care.

You mean based upon your data. The CDC reports that compliance with hand washing runs around 40%. So while it may be as effective as vaccination, its effectiveness is directly limited by compliance rates.

So if the hospital is concerned about flu transmission, particularly to the young, elderly and immunocompromised for whom flu could be fatal, what is the most effective way to reduce transmission?

Proper hand hygiene should, of course, be in place in a hospital. But, despite years and years of effort, it still presents a problem. While that is the case, requiring a vaccination seems pretty reasonable for anyone who is patient facing and who does not have a documented medical condition that would make them an unsuitable candidate for the flu vaccine.

Since pretty nearly everyone responding has agreed that flu shots are clearly void of any potential whatsoever for adverse health effects, I thought maybe it might make sense to find out what the CDC thinks about this subject.

"Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative ... Since seasonal influenza vaccine is produced in large quantities for annual immunization campaigns, some of the vaccine is produced in multi-dose vials, and contains thimerosal to safeguard against possible contamination of the vial once it is opened ... Since 2001, no new vaccine licensed by FDA for use in children has contained thimerosal as a preservative."

So, can we dispense with the idea that ALL objection to vaccination is based on luddism / unreasoning superstition? Hey, it's only a suggestion, but it seems to me that a reasoned evaluation of the pros and possible cons of shooting substances containing mercury compounds into the bloodstream is not out of bounds. For me, I am inclined to the conclusion that the effectiveness of flu vaccines at the present state of the art are in NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES not worth a crap to the host individual, but that they may be worthwhile from a herd immunity perspective. This particular case is very much complicated by the fact that the personnel are working in close proximity to vulnerable patients whom they are sworn to protect. I think the employer in this particular case is in the right, although the science is not as clear-cut as I would like.

Finally, the CDC goes on to say "Data from several studies show the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines do not cause harm, and are only associated with minor local injection site reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site." Sounds to me like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth. They don't recommend the use of any thimerosal-bearing vaccines in children, yet they tell us thimerosal is "safe", as if safety is an all-or-nothing, either-or condition. But we know that harmful effects of mercury on the body are cumulative and are not entirely limited to children.

I have no particular evidence but here is my educated rambling. Yes if you are immunized you don't spread the virus as much as you might if you were not immunized and have the infection. You can be contagious for about 1 day without knowing you have the infection during that time you can spread it. According to the CDC http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm

Vaccinated or not, in a hospital setting, during flu season, the major source of the spread of the virus is from infected patients, not the nursing staff. The vaccine protects the nursing staff, but it doesn't kill the virus in their system immediately, it keeps it from taking hold. Also, the virus can be spread by touch and the vaccine does not work on the surface of the skin, clothing, stethoscopes, thermometers, etc.

I am in favor of the flu vaccine, however, its use is not preventative as in the polio vaccine (unless we want to immunize the entire population). The main benefit to the flu vaccine for hospital staff, is that it keeps the hospital staff healthy. There is no reliable evidence to show that it increases the likelihood that patients will be less likely to come down with the flu.

I have no particular evidence but here is my educated rambling. Yes if you are immunized you don't spread the virus as much as you might if you were not immunized and have the infection. You can be contagious for about 1 day without knowing you have the infection during that time you can spread it. According to the CDC http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm

Near the corner of Singleton and Westmoreland in west Dalllas. Google Earth shows some empty lots just south east of there, and that's where it was, even if it isn't a superfund site, it still spread lead. And northeast of that intersection is a large housing project (I'd be surprised if it isn't the largest in Dallas, given the Dallas Housing Authority is on that site. But I haven't been in that area in 10+ years, and went to school in that area 20+ years ago.

After typing all that, I decided it should be listed somewhere, so I took a 10 second check for lead smelters and found http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/pha.asp?docid=134&pg=1 indicating 13.6 sq mi of contamination. When I was last there, it was one of the poorest areas of Dallas.

From "Lead Poisoning Causes Crime?"

Blindingly obvious? As far as I know there are no national data series (other than crime statistics) related to societal levels of agressivity and impulsivity, but there are data on national trends in average IQs and ADHD. And those data cut against the lead/crime hypothesis. Take ADHD trends; even as blood lead levels have been dropping the diagnosed rate of ADHD has been rising steeply, up 66 percent in just the past 10 years. And despite the rise in ADHD, crime rates are still falling.

In addition, even as exposure to tetra-ethyl lead rose, average American IQ scores have been increasing at the rate of about 3 points per decade for nearly a century, up about 22 points since 1932 [PDF]. This increase is the well-known Flynn Effect, named after the New Zealand researcher, James Flynn, who first identified the steady rise in average IQ scores. Note that average IQ scores have been increasing ever since tetra-ethyl lead was first added to gasoline in the mid-1920s.

yet none of them has found any serious and life threatening illnesses caused by weed smoking/eating compared to alcohol, alcohol mixed with Tylenol, pharma drugs, side effects of chemical leeching out of every day plastics or even walking down the road and breaking a leg. YET they try and try and try and....

How about some food allergies http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db10.htm Peanuts can be deadly too..

Antibiotic resistance is probably one of the worst things we're facing down in the coming century or so,

This is true, and finding MRSA in the wild brings this much closer be becoming a far more universal problem.

The playing field is vastly different than in the pre-penicillin days when the only hope of finding a "cure" was an exhaustive search to find a compound that would kill the bugs. The very name MRSA stems from resistance to penicillin type drugs. Now with rapid DNA sequencing we can not only identify MRSA much faster, but we _should_ also be able to find additional ways to kill it, including some physical means against which there is no way of developing resistance.

I suspect the way forward will be in designer drugs rather than the happening upon something that works being found on moldy toast.

DNA sequencing has also shown that there is many more than one form of MRSA.

Lots of inanimate objects, from cliffs to discarded banana peels, are risks. Why do people say such silly things when the topic of guns comes up?

Guns are specifically made to be dangerous. If properly stored (i.e. unloaded to make them as safe as possible and locked up so they're not accessible) the danger is significantly mitigated (just like picking up that banana peel and tossing it in the garbage). If kept strictly under the control of a trained, careful person, the danger is controlled (like having a ranger at the cliff to shoo away idiots).

People with serious communicable diseases ARE controlled, as much as is practical: http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/AboutLawsRegulationsQuarantineIsolation.html

I've never heard of or seen learner plates before. I'm genuinely curious where you live that they have those, since it's an interesting idea, though a bit excessive, I think.

As for risk, how does owning a gun put anyone at "significant risk" compared to any of the other risks you regularly tolerate? A gun is only a source of risk if there is ill intent or negligence involved. But if you're concerned with ill intent, the chemicals in our garages and kitchens are more readily available, cheaper, more dangerous, and easier to procure, not to mention that our cars can do a lot of damage too if we want. If you're worried about negligence, why not have smokers register? There are almost 45x more deaths caused by secondhand smoke (49,000/year in the US, not to mention that 17% of fire-related deaths in residences in the US are caused by smoking) than accidental/unknown intent gun deaths in the US each year (about 1100 in 2011). If risk is your concern, there are FAR greater risks we regularly face that do not require that we give up our right to privacy, so I'm not sure why you think guns in the hands of properly registered owners put you at significant risk.

And if you believe that the intended use of the items impacts how private they should be allowed to be (i.e. cars and chemicals are fine, since they're intended for good uses, while guns are bad, since they're inherently destructive), that argument falls apart in light of the fact that I'm explicitly given the right to own them, as well as given the right to privacy, which would override any "want to know" that you have. But if you're still not swayed, what about cigarettes? They're only intended for smoking, which is an inherently destructive action that is directly responsible for about 20% of US deaths every year (roughly 443,000) according to the CDC link I provided earlier. That stands in stark contrast to the roughly 31,000 intentional deaths caused by guns in the US in 2011. Again, why not have smokers register?

Besides which, even in your example with the learner's permit and the learner plates (which I think is an excessive and unnecessary practice), I would assume those plates go away once the training period has ended. At least in all the places I've lived, before a gun owner can be licensed to carry they must go through a training period, so even based on your analogy there should be no need for gun owners to continue to sacrifice their privacy after they're properly licensed. And if the gun owner merely keeps the gun at home, rather than concealed carrying, that doesn't give you a right to know about it, any more than you have a right to know about the car that the parents next door bought and keep in the garage for their kid who doesn't yet have his permit.

Your "want to know" does not give you any sort of right to know what I have or what I do in my own home. I don't own any guns, but your comment strikes me as a lot of FUD. I prefer sticking to facts.