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but you do that in United States of America.
it's only very rarely that people have such dangerous infectious diseases though.
http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/

a bit like the military will not interfere with your guns unless you have some really hard core munitions. your regular hospital knows if you have hiv though... listing that to everyone might not be so smart(just wait until they make having aids a sexual offence).

And we do, which is why we quarantine dangerous infectious disease carriers, to limit their rights and freedoms, in order that they don't harm others.

Where, pray tell, are our HIV colonies located? What about the hepatitis colonies? Where is the influenza ward in the hospital? (yes, the flu is deadly dangerous)

Oh, right. What you said is pretty much make-believe except for possibly some rare esoteric infections that few people acquire.

As long as we're going to live in the police state, is there any chance we could stop drunk driving? More people die daily from alcohol related accidents than died in that school shooting. This was not in the news recently. Weird, huh?

Shockingly enough, in countries where there are strict gun laws, there appear to be less shootings by criminals than int he U.S.

While non-gun petty and violent crime have risen as the number of firearms in private hands has decreased.

This is the simple fact opponents of gun control simply cannot deal with.

Less guns mean less gun violence.

And a fact that proponents of gun control in the U.S. ignore is that drunk driving kills more people each year than firearms, by about 15%, and vehicle crashes in general kill 4,000 times as many as guns..

In 2010, 8,874, people were killed by firearms.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes
http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

In 2009, 35,900,00 people were killed by automobiles.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

Yet I don't see the Dianne Feinstein's of the world on a mad rush to ban alcohol, or ban automobiles. If the push to ban guns was about deaths of citizens, young children, then we'd have banned cars long ago, or passed laws to make it much harder for people who just don't have the coordination and brain power to drive a car safely, etc, etc, and we'd have banned alcohol outright, again (with the same results).

Pull the blinders off people. Stop drinking the Kool-aid. The push to ban guns is about political ideology of the left, not saving lives. Always has been, always will be. Mass shootings like this are simply a timely opportunity to push their ideological agenda again, hoping the outrage will put enough wind in their legislative sails to pass something.

The 2nd amendment to the U.S. constitution guarantess us the right to bear arms. And it puts no limitations on the types of arms.

There is no guarantee in the constitution of a right to own or drive an automobile, or consume alcohol.

Seems to me if the concern were truly for dead children, as is being claimed here, then we'd surely embark on passing legislation to once again ban alcohol, and if we really want to cut down on deaths, ban automobiles.

Those seem to be the only two options,

They're not; the option I choose is "I hate school shootings but am extremely uncomfortable with the government removing the right of citizens to arm, and think the negatives outweigh the positives especially in light of how rare of an issue school shootings are."

Really, you would have a stronger case to make about homicide in general, since that is far far far more common than school shooting deaths.

So passing a law against guns in violation of the Amendment is bad, but if the Amendment wasn't there, then that objection would be gone. So logically the solution is to repeal the 2nd Amendment.

That is my first and foremost objection, so yes that objection would be gone. Yes, youre darn tooting that passing a law in violation of an amendment is very much "bad", especially since it keeps being tried. I do have other reasons why Im not so hot on the "lets repeal second amendment" idea tho.

Also, cars are seen as a necessity. Banning them will be much much worse than the dead children we get from using them....Compare and contrast that with guns.

This was where I got my assumption that you wanted to ban guns; if I misunderstood my apologies, but the intent seemed to be that a gun ban was of a different nature than a hypothetical car ban.

If, as you say 90% of americans support a gun ban then the issue is moot; it can be put to a popular vote where if my memory serves a 75% popular vote will overturn the 2nd amendment. I think though that that will not happen in my lifetime.

My assertion that the threat is small is based on the fact that there are literally about 10000 things that are about 100 times more likely to kill you than a school shooting. For perspective... (after looking up stats it looks like the actual number is about 25 per year)
~2.5million total deaths per year in United states, which makes the ~25 deaths per year from school shootings 0.001% of the nations mortality rate
~10,000 children deaths (under 14) per year in the US (2009), and there were ~10 pre-highschool deaths per year, which is 0.1% among children (under 14).
~53000 "child" deaths (under 19) per year in the US (2007). All fire-arm, non-suicide, deaths total ~2200. Thats about 4%, which is higher than I like, but its also a lot lower than a lot of other causes. Non-firearm homocide is another 1100 for reference.

All this to say, if we could prevent 4% of child deaths without any downside, yea Im all for that. But to repeal an amendment is a major thing, and to remove the ability for someone to defend themselves in their own home using the weaponry of the day-- which is an incredibly long-standing right recognized by societies-- seems a really drastic move IMO, and not one that I take so lightly. I also do not much like the idea of the government being the sole arbiter of force; perhaps again it is my american upbringing but I have a deep-seated distrust of any person or group who has too much power and not enough restraint.

Sources... (not all for same year, ranging from 1999-2011; did the best I could in ~10 minutes)
http://www.childdeathreview.org/nationalchildmortalitydata.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?loct=2&by=a&order=a&ind=22&dtm=286&tf=38

9 kids died in this country from malnutrition (taken from the US yearly average of 1 in 100,000 deaths per year) that day. While this shooting is a tragedy, it's just media glamorizing it that's making headlines.

Agreed. The real problem is handguns and handgun violence.
All firearm deaths in 2011:
Number of deaths: 31,347
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.2
(from the cdc website here: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm)

The CDC (i.e., the US government) lists the US homicide rate as 55/million, which would make it 6th on that list. Furthermore, that list seems to exclude just about all countries in North/South America and Africa, many of which have the highest murder rates in the world. And why is the murder rate for Turkey listed as twice that of the highest country in the wikipedia list? This doesn't even come close to passing the smell test.

Had there been perfect response by armed teachers at every event this year, at most 37 deaths would have been prevented, though that's the upper bound of somehow stopping them before they even start. I don't care to speculate on how many accidents would be added by having firearms in classrooms. There *will* be moments of carelessness.

Your macho fantasy world isn't the true world.

Had there been perfect response by armed teachers at every event this year, at most 37 deaths would have been prevented, though that's the upper bound of somehow stopping them before they even start. I don't care to speculate on how many accidents would be added by having firearms in classrooms. There *will* be moments of carelessness.

Your macho fantasy world isn't the true world.

Because kids also die in car accidents and from hunger, we shouldn't be bothered to do anything about gun violence? That is illogical.

No. Your wrong. Because of facts:

Death to children in 2005:
Unintentional Motor Vehicle Traffic 560
Homicide Firearm 44
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/injury/facts.htm

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children of every age
from 2 to 14 years old
In the United States, an average of 6 children 0-14 years old were killed and 694
were injured every day in motor vehicle crashes during 2003.
Source: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809762.pdf

And fact: You're not going to make any meaningful reform to gun laws... at all. period. No matter how bad you want it, no matter how many times you yell "It's for the children!" it's not going to happen. How much energy do you want to expend on a hopeless cause when you could be doing something about those 560 deaths that we can all agree on and all do something about? You are a liberal, clearly... you will never convince a gun rights person to agree with you on guns and they make up 50% of the population. Not only that, but gun violence is an order of magnitude less deadly to children than cars. And if you propose automobile safety laws that would actually address those deaths, those same gun rights advocates would be marching with you. Fix what you can fix... leave the impossible for last.

Please explain how the so-called "fiscal cliff," related to taxes and spending, has anything to do with school security, gun violence, or mental health care.

Because last week you were probably arguing with your friends about what we should do about the economy. And now you're not... why is that? Why did we forget about the biggest story of the modern era? The story that will probably save or kill more children via it's effect on the economy and poverty than anything in modern history? Because a school shooting happened... and the politicians all pointed to it, and pushed the fiscal problem behind a curtain. And now you're falling for it. They're using those kids deaths, to bring up issues, like gun control, that they know will not go anywhere, but will distract you from the real issues in the world.

Meant to include the link for accidental deaths for the stats above: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/acc-inj.htm

That link also contains data about traffic deaths - 11.2 per 100,000. Still much higher than gun deaths. So cars are far deadlier than guns.

Over a hundred people die from firearms every day in America. Roughly about 1/3 accidents, 1/3 suicides, and 1/3 deliberate homicides.

Here's the statistic for 2009. They average out to 85.88 deaths per day for firearms in combining those categories. The figure for accidental deaths was not accessable without sifting through the sorce tables, but of that 31,347 deaths homicides made up 11,493 of them (source) and suicides 18,735 (source).

Do you have something to back up your "over a hundred every day" claim?

Over a hundred people die from firearms every day in America. Roughly about 1/3 accidents, 1/3 suicides, and 1/3 deliberate homicides.

Here's the statistic for 2009. They average out to 85.88 deaths per day for firearms in combining those categories. The figure for accidental deaths was not accessable without sifting through the sorce tables, but of that 31,347 deaths homicides made up 11,493 of them (source) and suicides 18,735 (source).

Do you have something to back up your "over a hundred every day" claim?

Over a hundred people die from firearms every day in America. Roughly about 1/3 accidents, 1/3 suicides, and 1/3 deliberate homicides.

Here's the statistic for 2009. They average out to 85.88 deaths per day for firearms in combining those categories. The figure for accidental deaths was not accessable without sifting through the sorce tables, but of that 31,347 deaths homicides made up 11,493 of them (source) and suicides 18,735 (source).

Do you have something to back up your "over a hundred every day" claim?

Except that the WASH-1400 report, pubished in 1975, stated specifically that the containments of the BWR reactors (the Mark I containment was the only BWR containment back then) were not equipped to deal with a meltdown and would emit orders of magnitudes more radioactive material than PWR containments, such as Three Mile Island.

And that was just a report summerizing previously known facts - including tsunamis being a clear and present danger to nuclear power plants (although, at the time, not the in the US).

Furthermore, the area is not uninhabitable, but closed off by police. According to the BEIR VII report on the effects of low level radiation, it is expected that a long-term dose of 1000mSv would add 2-4% to the expected cancer mortality of the population of 24% on average for the US. (about 22% for Japan) A dose of 1000mSv can only be expected in the most contaminated areas (on the order of 40mSv/a as of last year) assuming total neglegt of any decontamination efforts. (Please bear in mind that half of this is the result of Cs-134, with a half-life of only 2 years.)

Even within the US there are larger differences than those. The 10th highest mortality rate for the US is in Delaware at about 26%. The 10th lowest is South Dakota with about 22.5%. (Source1 )

Unless there are any moves to rapidly evacuate the population of Delaware and the other 9 states having even higher cancer mortality, I would suggest that "uninhabitable" is a misnomer.

Except that the WASH-1400 report, pubished in 1975, stated specifically that the containments of the BWR reactors (the Mark I containment was the only BWR containment back then) were not equipped to deal with a meltdown and would emit orders of magnitudes more radioactive material than PWR containments, such as Three Mile Island.

And that was just a report summerizing previously known facts - including tsunamis being a clear and present danger to nuclear power plants (although, at the time, not the in the US).

Furthermore, the area is not uninhabitable, but closed off by police. According to the BEIR VII report on the effects of low level radiation, it is expected that a long-term dose of 1000mSv would add 2-4% to the expected cancer mortality of the population of 24% on average for the US. (about 22% for Japan) A dose of 1000mSv can only be expected in the most contaminated areas (on the order of 40mSv/a as of last year) assuming total neglegt of any decontamination efforts. (Please bear in mind that half of this is the result of Cs-134, with a half-life of only 2 years.)

Even within the US there are larger differences than those. The 10th highest mortality rate for the US is in Delaware at about 26%. The 10th lowest is South Dakota with about 22.5%. (Source1 )

Unless there are any moves to rapidly evacuate the population of Delaware and the other 9 states having even higher cancer mortality, I would suggest that "uninhabitable" is a misnomer.

Citation

I cannot get to 100 day no matter what source I look at. I am not denying there is a problem in regards to homicides by any means, but even the CDC only shows 32,000 deaths by firearms which is lower than those by auto or even poisoning.

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

our country makes it too easy to become a nutcase.

this is a social problem. blaming what tool you use to act out is not helpful.

what would be helpful is finding out why so many americans are stressed out and going crazy on the population. I think we should look at why our society is freaking out. the tool the crazies use is NOT the issue!

we have a culture of anger. that's a place to start looking for solutions.

Americans consume the most antidepressant drugs in the world (1 in 10?) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm Are Americans really that depressed? It's clear that the side effects of taking these drugs are TERRIBLE. i.e. psychotic behavior to say the least. Someone's "condition" should be pretty severe for these drugs to even be considered, but MDs prescribe them like candy So, you've got 1 in 10 Americans on antidepressants (along with countless other prescription drugs) and you wonder why so many Americans are literally going crazy. It seems pretty obvious. Too bad so much money is made selling drugs. For this reason alone, nothing will ever be done about it. Not in America.

And what about my right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness? Do I not have the right to defend myself in the case where someone attacks me? Your position would deny me the most effective means to do that.

The fact is that murder (including mass murders like this one) is rare in the US. According to CDC statistics there are less than 12000 firearm homicides a year which includes those ruled justifiable, such as self defense or law enforcement-related ones). (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm) That's in a population of over 300 million people.

At the same time, you need to consider how many guns there are in the US. The most common estimate is 300 million, with 50-100 million of those being handguns (it's almost impossible to get precise numbers).

So let's do the math. Let's take the smallest estimate for handguns, 50 million. Let's also assume that each firearm homicide is committed with a different handgun (which, as we can plainly see, is not the case, but it skews the statistics in your favor). That means that in any given year, no more than 0.024% of handguns are ever used in a homicide. 99.976% of handguns are not used to kill anyone each year, and that's with skewing every statistic in your favor. If you take into account multiple homicides with the same gun, or the ones committed with rifles or shotguns, the percentage of guns involved in a homicide shrinks even more, (to 0.004%, assuming one gun per homicide).

Your argument would restrict the rights of 99.9+% of the people in order to protect against a tiny fraction of a percent who would abuse it. Contrast that with studies that have shown that guns are used for personal protection between 800,000 and 2.5 million times each year. Even at the low end of that range, it massively dwarfs the number of times guns are used to kill others.

And all of that doesn't even start to get into how impossible it would be to get rid of those 50-100 million handguns, let alone all 300 million (or more) guns in the US. In the best case scenario, you will only disarm those who will follow the law, while doing nothing about the criminals who are armed. (Do you really want that 0.024% to be the only civilians with guns?)

Quite simply, yours is an emotional reaction, not a logical one. When you look at the actual statistics, you can see that the right to keep and bear arms is a net positive, and it simply isn't workable to eliminate it.

CDC Death Statistics They make that distinction in the statistics.

So we really ought to be more concerned about lightning and box cutters than about school shootings.

FTFY. There's something like 11,000+ homicide gun deaths a year. Not in 20 years, each year.

Guns amplify the problem like no other tool in existence does.

So yeah easy access and possession of guns IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

Gun homicides in the US ~ 9000/year (2010).
AIDS deaths a year, 17,000/year
2009 vehicle accident deaths 33,808/year.
Smoking releated deaths 440,000/year.
Cardiovascular diseases kill 2,140 a day or ~800,000/year.

Sure looks like guns make the lions share of the killing.

Since guns are orders of magnitude more likely to kill you or our family rather than any intruder

Do you have stats for that?

I'm not sure what you count as an intruder, but lets count Burglury and Robberies for this back of the envelope check. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl10.xls tells us that there were 860 murders during those crimes. Two orders of magnitudes would mean that we'd need there to be 86000 killings by guns (assuming that the populations are the same - which they aren't some people don't have guns in the home but can be robbed after all). But http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html only has 31,672 firearm deaths in 2010.

Of course some of those 860 murders might be robbers killing fellow robbers or police killing robbers or whatever. Then again some of those 31,672 deaths are not going to be of the household member of a gun owner.

Even if "orders of magnitude" is true, then the conclusion doesn't follow since guns are not kept just to kill intruders. They are also kept to stop an intruder without killing them (scaring them away, etc).

And of course stats on this are difficult, a significant number of people who keep a gun in the home lie about it when asked in surveys (which is the only way to really get the control data - you can get guns kept in houses being robbed from crime stats but not information about guns kept (or not kept) in houses that aren't robbed*). And people with high risk factors for getting shot tend to keep guns so controlling for other factors is hard - a gang member for example is more likely to be violent and more likely to keep a gun (and more likely to lie about keeping a gun in a survey).

So your complaint is YOUR doctor won't do you want them to do? Not that there isn't transparency and a process already set up that specifically addresses your concerns. Why don't you find another doctor?

As for few known side effects, that's bull. There are lots of reported side effects, however, some of them are unproven as every single person might react differently to a medication. Generally known side effects are listed by the CDC and rates of occurrence. Autism is not one of them.

1. The US reports infant mortality deaths differently than many other nations

Better brush up on your debunking skills. From the NCHS's report Behind Internation Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe:
a. The difference in reporting is not as you describe, and
b. "it appears unlikely that differences in reporting are the primary explanation for the United States’ relatively low international ranking".

2. The US deaths from gangs ... and deaths from drunk driving

are, as you say, not health metrics but social metrics BUT thank you for reminding me of yet more indications of the decline and fall of the American empire.

CDC to the rescue:

How serious is the disease?

Measles itself is unpleasant, but the complications are dangerous. Six to 20 percent of the people who get the disease will get an ear infection, diarrhea, or even pneumonia. One out of 1000 people with measles will develop inflammation of the brain, and about one out of 1000 will die.

Do I know for certain that vaccines cause absolutely no harm? No, and nor does anyone else.

Well, it is known that vaccines cause at least some harm..., but it's not even comparable to other things, such as...riding in cars, and most parents don't have a problem transporting their children by automobile.

Yes, but let's look at which ones are needed early and which ones are not. Hep B is not really needed early if mother is not infected.

Hep B is considered an "optional" vaccine for this very reason - there is a very low risk of contracting it. But, shit happens, so some people like to get it just in case (and some doctors recommend it), since your baby getting Hep B would be a nightmare, and there are virtually no side-effects.

If you get enough fat from vegetables, your body will make all the cholesterol that it needs. Human bodies do not need to eat cholesterol. We do need to eat fats, protein, salt and carbs. Excess cholesterol is associated with heart disease (check AHA), the leading killer in these United States and maybe soon the world.

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

Except America actually spends more than Europeans on healthcare!

Read it and weep, fuckhead.

Yes, and on average Americans are also richer. On average they own more yachts. And on average they play more golf.

If you care about the majority of people, the total number spent on health care tells you as much as the total number spent on lawn care.

Except America actually spends more than Europeans on healthcare!

Read it and weep, fuckhead.

In terms of risk a lightning strike to the building is not going to be an issue on a diesel tank. Not to mention the way lighting strikes diesel is in a closed tank. The tank will liven up temporarily and hell any electronics inside like an integrated diesel pump will even survive just fine even in a direct strike. Similar principle to a faraday cage.

I was talking a direct strike and the original comment was on the roof, not on a floor inside the building. I've seen lightening rip a 10 inch seam in 1 inch steel plate. Of course you can check this yourself, just get a plasma cutter and go to town on a metal gas can with diesel in it. If a plasma cutter is too expensive, get a welder and start welding but turn the setting up as high as you can first. Better yet, don't do it and look at these.

http://www.ccohs.ca/otherhsinfo/alerts/alert107.txt

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/face/stateface/ca/07ca006.html

Now please don't tell me that a welder or plasma cutter has more power then a lightning bolt.

Also I'm not assuming anything. I work in the oil industry and I'm involved in process risk calculations of hazardous materials.

I so hope this is not true. You have demonstrated to me at least that you have no clue.

I'm glad you are being frank. Do one better and do some investigation.
We are talking 10's of thousands of deaths to millions.
And it's a different immune response for each strain.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

". Over a period of 30 years, between 1976 and 2006, estimates of flu-associated deaths in the United States range from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people. "

You klive in a world with decent herd immunity, so you haven't been exposed to how nasty it can be without herd immunity.
Sadly, a generation or two of people haven't experiences the shit hitting the fan, so they don't think vaccines are a 'big deal'.

Non vaccinated people are a vector for mutation. No vaccinated people can get it and just be a carrier. SO you are infecting other people and not even know it.

Vaccines are not 100%, so herd immunity protects those people.

I used to think like your post, decades ago. When I actual got influenza* and it's hell. The I looked into it.

Anyways, I highly recommend the 'quackcast' podcast by Mark Crislip. He goes into details about a number of medical issues. At least listen to the ones regard influenza.
http://moremark.squarespace.com/quackcast-home/
he is snarky and sarcastic.

*many thing attributed to the 'flu' but the common person aren't influenza. For examples 'stomach flu' actually makes no sense.

My Dad came down with Guillain-Barré a couple of years ago, so I've done a little research on it. Guillain-Barré is a auto-immune disorder where the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system causing progressive numbness and paralysis. It starts in the extremities and can progress to the lungs, causing asphyxiation. Fortunately, treatments do exist and are effective. Most people make a full recovery. Relapses can happen. My dad has not had any relapses but he has lost a little strength in his hands and I think he has lost a little mobility. His affliction with the disorder was not physically painful.

Guillain-Barré usually follows a minor intestinal tract infection, but can probably be triggered by any infection. Vaccinations, by design, look like an infection to the body. That's how they trick the immune system into producing antibodies. It makes sense that a vaccination could trigger the disorder.

According to the CDC, between 3000 and 6000 Americans develop Guillain-Barré every year. With a population of about 315 million people, that means the background rate for Guillain-Barré is roughly between 1 in 50,000 and 1 in 100,000 in the US. For an under 60 person, an additional 1 in 300,000 chance for developing the disease after a flu shot is pretty insignificant. For a person over 60, they have to weigh increasing their odds for Guillain-Barré by 50% to 100% against the flu, which, contrary to your implication, for an older person with an already potentially compromised immune system is no "lollipop". For persons over 65, the flu is a contributory agent in the neighborhood of 15,000 to 40,000 deaths every year.

In regards to yellow fever, there are about 200,000 new cases every year worldwide, and it kills about 15% of those who catch it. There is no treatment for it beyond treating the symptoms. Fortunately, this is not a disease endemic to the US and Americans are not typically immunized against it. The Yellow-Fever vaccine can trigger a host of neurological disorders, including Guillain-Barré, in about 1 in a million vaccine recipients. Most make a full recovery.

So, I don't know about you, but I'll take the vaccines.

Here's where I found my numbers.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5933a1.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm
http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Yellow-Fever-Vaccination.htm

My Dad came down with Guillain-Barré a couple of years ago, so I've done a little research on it. Guillain-Barré is a auto-immune disorder where the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system causing progressive numbness and paralysis. It starts in the extremities and can progress to the lungs, causing asphyxiation. Fortunately, treatments do exist and are effective. Most people make a full recovery. Relapses can happen. My dad has not had any relapses but he has lost a little strength in his hands and I think he has lost a little mobility. His affliction with the disorder was not physically painful.

Guillain-Barré usually follows a minor intestinal tract infection, but can probably be triggered by any infection. Vaccinations, by design, look like an infection to the body. That's how they trick the immune system into producing antibodies. It makes sense that a vaccination could trigger the disorder.

According to the CDC, between 3000 and 6000 Americans develop Guillain-Barré every year. With a population of about 315 million people, that means the background rate for Guillain-Barré is roughly between 1 in 50,000 and 1 in 100,000 in the US. For an under 60 person, an additional 1 in 300,000 chance for developing the disease after a flu shot is pretty insignificant. For a person over 60, they have to weigh increasing their odds for Guillain-Barré by 50% to 100% against the flu, which, contrary to your implication, for an older person with an already potentially compromised immune system is no "lollipop". For persons over 65, the flu is a contributory agent in the neighborhood of 15,000 to 40,000 deaths every year.

In regards to yellow fever, there are about 200,000 new cases every year worldwide, and it kills about 15% of those who catch it. There is no treatment for it beyond treating the symptoms. Fortunately, this is not a disease endemic to the US and Americans are not typically immunized against it. The Yellow-Fever vaccine can trigger a host of neurological disorders, including Guillain-Barré, in about 1 in a million vaccine recipients. Most make a full recovery.

So, I don't know about you, but I'll take the vaccines.

Here's where I found my numbers.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5933a1.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm
http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Yellow-Fever-Vaccination.htm

The point of my post was entirely to identify a negative and inflammatory statement embedded in the lead article. I don't like remarks like that; I find they stifle original thought and are generally counter-productive. However, by the negative and inflammatory remarks found in your reply, you appear to disagree. You are welcome to. You should know however, that the "put-other-people-down because their opinion differs from mine" kind of attitude will win you no followers except the blind. Personally, I want to converse with people who can think, and will expend the energy to fashion well-informed opinions for themselves. I really don't want to have to hold your hand, or lead you to water you don't want to drink. Who mentioned autism? Not me. So why are your ranting about it? Before you spend more energy trying to argue this or other points that I did not make, follow this bouncing ball: SOME vaccines CAN have dangerous side-effects, including death, by the CDC's OWN admission: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm That is my entire point. If you would like to argue that, please argue with the CDC. Thank-you. And if you want to argue that the side-effects are always minor compared to what they prevent, please note that Guillain-Barré Syndrome has been caused by the flu vaccine, and the Yellow Fever vaccine, and it's no joke. Personally, I'd rather risk the flu than a vaccination that could give me GBS. But hey, as long as you have -all- the facts, you personally are welcome to take that risk. And I personally should be free to inform others that the risk exists, and that people who rate vaccinations in the "less-than-perfect" category are not "anti-science," and are not evil. So thanks for ranting so as to to be an example to others of the dangers of spewing predefined opinions and giving me yet another chance to re-iterate how potentially destructive it is to have such a closed mind, especially about vaccinations, which as of October, 2012, can still be a dangerous thing: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-24/italy-bans-novartis-flu-vaccines-citing-side-effects

While at the hospital, I asked a nurse if she had seen Guillain-Barré syndrome from the Yellow Fever vaccine. She said that this was the first time she had seen it from the Yellow Fever vaccine but they see regularly caused by the Flu vaccine.

I am cautious with other vaccine also--weighing the benefit against the know effects of Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Knowing the about, I would say that BMO is ignorant of the science of vaccines and his comments are only his opinions. Autism is not the only affliction to be concerned with.

The parent is probably classic anti-vaccine logic. The flu itself causes Guillain-Barr&#233 at a much, much greater rate than the vaccine. An extra 1 in 100000 people who got the swine flu shot in 1976 developed Guillain-Barr&#233. And since no real direct mechanism can be found, that still might be correlation and not causation.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/guillainbarre.htm

In modern US more that 200 thousand women are sexually assaulted each year http://www.rainn.org/statistics

No, read it again. It indicates about 200 thousand PEOPLE are sexually assaulted each year.

About 100% of assaulters are men.

Factually false.

If we want to combat sexist prejudiced stereotype bullshit in society, we need combat all of it. And that includes the sexist notion that any man is "lucky" to have sex. The sexist notion that men cannot or do not refuse consent to sex. The sexist notion that men are not raped, and fucked-up definitions of "rape" which categorically deny the possibility of a man being raped (except by another man).

Lets look at a very recent survey done by the United States Center For Disease Control. It defines "Rape" as attempted or competed forcible penetration of the victim as well as drug/alcohol facilitated completed penetration of the victim. It reports lifetime "rape" rates at about 18.3% of all women and about 1.4% of all men. However this report has a brand new section, a category that has been implicitly excluded for pretty much all previous rape research. It's a category called "made to penetrate". I will remind you that "made to penetrate" does is EXCLUDED from the definition of "rape". The report gives a lifetime rate of 4.8% of all men "made to penetrate".

And lets be clear on what "made to penetrate" means. I was recently reading a message board which had nothing to do with sexuality where, out of the blue, someone commented on the stereotype that men cannot be rape victims, and posted a request for men to share their stories if they had ever been raped. A completely generic non-sex-related community with a fairly random sampling of male readers. Unsurprisingly most of the replies were anonymous. They included reports including a man raped at gunpoint, a man walking on campus in the dark being tasered by an unknown woman then handcuffed to a tree raped and tasered again to the rapist could remove the handcuffs and run off, multiple reports of men discovering their drink had been drugged and being unable to fight off their attacker, multiple reports of men being threatened with being accused of rape themselves if they did not submit - including a case where a man walked into his bedroom to find a naked woman demanding sex and when he resisted she deliberately scratched his neck and hands and threatening to claim he tried to rape her. The reports just went on and on. Those are just what I recall offhand.

Not a single one of those incidents qualifies as "rape" in the CDC survey, not a single one of them constitutes "rape" under virtually any rape survey ever done. They fall under the brand new category "made to penetrate"..... because somehow forcible penis-in-vagina sex is not rape when a woman does it. All men are sex-obsessed animals without the ability or right to decline sex. Because any man who gets raped is "lucky" he got to have sex.

And one notable fact is that not a single one of them reported their rape to the police. The rate of women reporting rape is abysmally low, but it doesn't remotely compare to the effectively ZERO rate of men reporting rape. The social stigma, victim blaming, shaming, and rape-denialism against women is an abomination, but it is as bad or worse for any man attempting to report being raped. Not a single one of the male rape victims reported it to the police.... but there was one case of a male rape victim who tried calling a rape-support hotline. And you know what happened? The person who answered the phone (presumably female) CALLED HIM A LIAR and told him to stop making prank calls. Seriously, how fucked up is that? A fucking RAPE SUPPORT LINE calling a rape victim a liar, saying no you weren't raped and stop fucking calling. Solely because the victim was male. Pure unadulterated sexist ideology and prejudi

This is the most recent report I could find from the CDC and their numbers support the 790,000 claim, to a first approximation.

And what do you expect Congress to do about people that can't drive worth shit?

Not much. On the other hand, there is heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and many other diseases which all kill far more people each year than were killed in 9/11, and which could probably all be reduced for far less money than we spent fighting the war on terror. Even suicide (over 36,000 deaths) could probably be greatly reduced with a little more money into our mental health system.

Actually according to http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/law/transmission.htm the riskiest activity is receptive anal sex which has a risk of 50 in 10,000. If you're not catching the risks are significantly lower.

Funny, according to this http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf the initial mortality report for 2011 does not support your claims of death increases. In fact it states that Infant mortality dropped in 2011 vs 2010. In fact the total infant death count for 2011 was 23,910 versus 24,586 for 2010. Where is this additional 14k more than average found again, it wasn't among infants.

"For all of those wondering about America's massive interstate highway network, it costs some serious cash. Running roads across the nation is expensive - to the tune of $50 billion dollars a year. This covers the cost to maintain the network, build it, and pay all of the staff. The problem is, corruption has reared its ugly head. The network itself has had its share of problems, with people dying as a result. There is also the problem that many of America's poor make so little money they can't afford to ride it. The sad fact is that so much money is being spent, no one can even keep count."

The 106,000 deaths is only a tiny percentage (0.06%) of the 170,000,000 Americans on prescription medications (rough mental estimate of 48%), and it's inflated.

WOW!

That's incredible! Essentially, half of Americans are sick?

(I've tried and failed to find a similar statistic for another country.)

He can't. He's quoting a website verbatim.

However, the title of the JAMA article is "Is US Health Really the Best in the World?", and it's available here, though apart from the statement (accompanied by another citation that I'm not ambitious enough to track down) of the number of deaths, it says little else relevant to this story.

However, I used to work with those adverse effect records, and citing them directly is incredibly misleading. The 106,000 deaths is only a tiny percentage (0.06%) of the 170,000,000 Americans on prescription medications (rough mental estimate of 48%), and it's inflated. The way adverse effects are recorded, any drug that could possibly be the cause of death is recorded as having definitely caused it. If an epilepsy drug causes a side effect, and the patient takes acetaminophen for it but overdoses and dies, the epilepsy drug is considered to be at fault, because the death was a result of its adverse effect.

The reason for this odd system of inflated numbers is that its purpose. The system was designed to inform doctors and researchers of what could happen as a result of a drug's use, including any previously-unknown interactions. By recording that an epilepsy drug, when taken with acetaminophen, could cause overdose symptoms, researchers could be pointed to an interaction between the two medications.

For direct deaths, the percentage (original research, no source) is closer to 0.001%, and the majority of these (to the point where I couldn't really differentiate "all") were where the prescription triggered an allergic reaction that wasn't already known (or at least recorded in the doctors' notes).

Oh no, not thousands of people! I mean if every one of them endangered just 400 people each then you're talking about endangering hundreds of thousands of people per year!

Forget the fact that zero people have died as the result of green lasers. At worst case assuming everyone endangered dies from exposure, this problem is as big as tobacco contributing to the deaths of 443,000 Americans per year.

When cigarettes are banned then we can talk about banning lasers.

And no it's not different because of "choice to smoke". You choose to fly knowing the risks just as you choose to smoke.

Here are the recommendations from the CDC and the New Mexico Department of Health; notice the the NMH article specifically calls out tobacco smoke residue on surfaces, seats, and in carpet being sufficient to trigger an asthma attack.

http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/triggers.html
http://nmhealth.org/eheb/documents/Cartipsnosmoking%5B1%5D.pdf

• American Cancer Society
• CDC
• Surgeon General's Office
• Zhu et al. "Secondhandsmoke stimulates tumor angiogenesis and growth" Cancer Cell (2003)

Here is the CDC page, http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/bikeinjuries.html [cdc.gov] although the data is a little old. 500,000 injuries, 700 deaths 59% children

So you are claiming there are only 10 million bike rides a year in the US? There are 15 million bikes sold in year (http://nbda.com/articles/industry-overview-2011-pg34.htm) but each one is ridden less than once before the owner gives up entirely or buys another bike? And of course that's assuming every single injury is a head injury.

Oh wait you are only counting non-helmet wearing rides. So that still isn't anywhere near a useful statistic since it doesn't break down the injuries by helmet status or say how many rides a year there are. or what percentage of those rides are without a helmet.

Even if the rate of injury is relatively low, is it still not worth protecting against when the solution is so simple?

It depends on the cost of the solution, as always. The article describes some potential costs I'm not going to bother regurgitating them since that has nothing to do with the point. I'm not actually interested in whether a helmet is a great idea or not. All I'm interested in is you 5% figure and where it comes from.

Put differently, the chance of a baseball player actually getting hit in the groin with a baseball is pretty low, but they all were cups just in case. If it is that important to protect the family jewels, should protecting one's brain and head be of even greater importance? Just a thought.

Do you make your kids where a cup when they play baseball in the street with friends? When they are using a tennis ball? If they would not bother playing if they had to would you still do so? But anyway, it's irrelevant to the actual issue.

ps. there is a link from the cdc page to the bicyclinginfo.org that is full of statistics, including crash statistics. Some of the stats conflict with the CDC stats and the Children's Safety Network. All of them, though show that there are risks involved and fatalities do occur more than people would expect.

I looked as best I considering the other things I have to get done. And I can't find stats that give the numbers for the claim - over 5% of all bike rides without a helmet result in a head injury.

Best I can find (why I need to do the digging to support your claim I still don't understand) is: http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/m0036941/m0036941.asp. It says "Bicycles are owned by approximately 30% of the U.S. population, and 45% of bike owners ride at least occasionally " and "557,936 persons were treated in emergency departments for bicycle-related injuries" and " addition, approximately 33% of all bicycle-related emergency department visits and 67% of all bicycle-related hospital admissions (5,8) involve head injuries " and " For example, from 1984 through 1988, if a presumed helmet-use rate of 10% had been increased to 100% (i.e., universal helmet use), an average of 500 fatal and 151,400 nonfatal bicycle-related head injuries could have been prevented each year".

So that gives us a few numbers - mind you we are at the "presumed" level of confidence. 557396*1/3=185800 round it so 200000 head injuries at the "go to the emergency dept" level a year.. 263,000,000 * 0.3 * 0.45 = 35.5 million. 90% of that gives us 31,950,000 people who "ride at least occasionally" without a helmet. So for your 5% number if we take the best case (for it) that all head injuries involved non-helmet wearers then "occasionally" must mean riding your bike 0.125 times a year. And of course far lower than that since every kid who rides their bike once a day adds 3000 such occasional riders worth of such rides to the stats pool (and should sustain 18 head injuries a year themselves