Slashdot Mirror

1. Measles notifications and deaths in England and Wales, 1940-2008

2. Annual measles notifications and vaccine coverage, England and Wales 1950-2009

3. Confirmed cases of Measles, Mumps and Rubella 1996-2012

#2 is the most interesting, in conjunction with #1. #2 clearly shows the decline in vaccine coverage starting in 1998, the year Wakefield's paper came out in the Lancet. Coverage dropped from 1998 to about 2002, then started climbing again before plateauing in 2004 at a level approximately equal to the coverage rate in 1990. However, #1 shows that the number of reported cases of measles from 2004-2008 was markedly less than in the 1990 time-frame. That's strange. If the coverage level is the same, why would there be 2-3x fewer cases in 2004-2008 when compared to 1990?

1. Measles notifications and deaths in England and Wales, 1940-2008

2. Annual measles notifications and vaccine coverage, England and Wales 1950-2009

3. Confirmed cases of Measles, Mumps and Rubella 1996-2012

#2 is the most interesting, in conjunction with #1. #2 clearly shows the decline in vaccine coverage starting in 1998, the year Wakefield's paper came out in the Lancet. Coverage dropped from 1998 to about 2002, then started climbing again before plateauing in 2004 at a level approximately equal to the coverage rate in 1990. However, #1 shows that the number of reported cases of measles from 2004-2008 was markedly less than in the 1990 time-frame. That's strange. If the coverage level is the same, why would there be 2-3x fewer cases in 2004-2008 when compared to 1990?

1. Measles notifications and deaths in England and Wales, 1940-2008

2. Annual measles notifications and vaccine coverage, England and Wales 1950-2009

3. Confirmed cases of Measles, Mumps and Rubella 1996-2012

#2 is the most interesting, in conjunction with #1. #2 clearly shows the decline in vaccine coverage starting in 1998, the year Wakefield's paper came out in the Lancet. Coverage dropped from 1998 to about 2002, then started climbing again before plateauing in 2004 at a level approximately equal to the coverage rate in 1990. However, #1 shows that the number of reported cases of measles from 2004-2008 was markedly less than in the 1990 time-frame. That's strange. If the coverage level is the same, why would there be 2-3x fewer cases in 2004-2008 when compared to 1990?

Could you please crawl back into your sanctimonious moralising box and take a copy of "The Checklist Manifesto" with you. When you've understood a bit of the theory of safety management, you could crawl back out and apologise to the families of the many thousands of patients who have died or been seriously hurt as a result of HCAIs.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/InfectiousDiseases/InfectionsAZ/HCAI/EpidemiologicalDataHCAI/hcaimandatorysurveillanceresults/

Yes, at first it does indeed sound odd. I tend to doubt they are measuring the same thing. The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation thinks the typical range of annual dose is:

inhalation (radon): 0.2-10 mSv
"external terrestrial": 0.3-1
ingestion: 0.2-1
cosmic radiation 0.3-1
total natural: 1-13

Public Health England thinks the "UK average annual radiation dose" is 2.7 mSv/y, just as you say. That probably corresponds to the "total natural" figure in the UNSCEAR tabulation. Presumably the measurement used in the Japan regulation corresponds to the delta above the "external natural" UNSCEAR tabulation, which is a different measurement.

That is my guess, anyway. BTW, the limit in the US is the same 1 mSv/y "from industrial ionizing radiation" as Japan used to be before Fukushima. After Fukushima, Japan changed their limit from 1 to 20. You be the judge on whether that change just "happened" to be justified after all kinds of figurative alarms suddenly went off based on the old limit, and also on whether either the 1 or 20 limit is a fair one, but they are the officially regulated limits.

Sure about that? They're getting 1/3 of a mSv per month, so about 4 per year. one chest CT scan is about two dozen or so as a rough rule of thumb. Closer to a CT scan per six years.

Well, this reference gives:

Table 13: Typical doses from CT in the UK (2003 review):

    * 9.9 for "Chest, abdomen & pelvis [CT] (lymphoma staging or follow up)"
    * 6.3 for "Chest [CT] (detection of malignancy): 0-1 y old [child]"
    * 5.8 for "Chest [CT] (lung cancer: known, suspected or metastases)"
    * 3.9 for "Chest [CT] (detection of malignancy): 10 y old [child]"
    * 3.6 for "Chest [CT] (detection of malignancy): 5 y old [child]"
    * 1.2 for "Chest, abdomen, & pelvis [CT]: Hi-resolution (diffuse lung disease)"

so I would say the exposure to 4 mSv per year is well within the range for a single chest CT scan.

Yes, there are places that are above average background radiation by the same amount, but that still doesn't mean that routine chest CT scans every year would be regarded as risk-justified without damn good reason.

According to the HPA, 0.03 microSv. Pretty low, compared to the flight. http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/Radiation/UnderstandingRadiation/UnderstandingRadiationTopics/BodyScanners/

Your latter kind are the kind which cause skin damage...

And yes, I know how to recognise a fluorescent bulb - thanks :D

Thought you were being ironic with the 'You're imagining things'. That's presumably the mindset of those who invented the damn things "I can't see it so it's not there".

Uranium is basically harmless, radiation-wise (any radioactive material that has been around since the Earth formed is not meaningfully radioactive).

Ask the people of Cornwall in the UK (and some parts of the US, I can't remember which) about Radon. Here's a handy map:
http://www.hpa.org.uk/webw/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1197636998945?p=1158934607683
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon#Radon_concentration_guidelines

How the danger of Radon building up in houses to the general public was discovered:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_and_radon_in_the_environment#Radon_in_houses

I caught measles as a child (we used to call it german measles.. when did the german bit get dropped?), so am immune.

The German bit didn't get dropped. They are two separate diseases. German Measles is properly called Rubella. Regular Measles.

I caught measles as a child (we used to call it german measles.. when did the german bit get dropped?), so am immune.

The German bit didn't get dropped. They are two separate diseases. German Measles is properly called Rubella. Regular Measles.

Here's a link to a recent (Oct 2005)UK Govt report entitled "Definition, Epidemiology and Management of Electrical Sensitivity"

http://www.hpa.org.uk/radiation/publications/hpa_r pd_reports/2005/hpa_rpd_010.pdf

Broadly this concludes that while there is no conclusive evidence for electrical sensitivity, it leaves open the possibility that it does exist.

I believe it's fairly well established experimentally that cell chemistry is affected by radio spectrum EMF, but the argument appears to be that this effect does not scale up in large organisms.

Personally, if talking on a regular cell phone while driving is 1 on the 'safety scale' and just driving is 10 on that scale, I'd put using a hands free setup at 2. But that's just my opinion. Much like yours, not based on any actual facts.

Except that it is. See this report, for example. From the executive summary:

The evidence suggested that the negative effects of phone use while driving were similar whether the phone was hand-held or hands-free. [...] The Board notes that the UK legislation on the use of phones in motor vehicles, making it illegal to use any hand-held phone, is tailored to the practicality of enforcement. The evidence remains, however, that the use of mobile phones in moving vehicles, both hand-held and hands-free, can significantly increase the risk of an accident.

Or consider the reports behind this BBC article:

Tests by scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory said drivers on mobiles had slower reaction times and stopping times than those under the influence of alcohol. [...] And it said hands-free kits were almost as dangerous as hand-held phones.

Those were just a couple of links from the first page on Google, BTW.

It's easy to assume that the physical problems are the major contributory factor to road safety, and this is the problem with false-security legislation such as that recently introduced in the UK. However, the reality acknowledged by several proper studies says otherwise. It's easy to go into denial about this counter-intuitive result, particularly if you're a driver who does use a mobile phone on the road trying to justify your actions, but the results are about as clear as you ever get: driving while using a mobile phone is comparable to driving while drunk, and using a hands-free kit does not make much of a difference.

The UK Government has estimated that an outbreak on British soil would result in 50,000 (minimum) deaths[PDF]. So it's big, but, not that big: approximately 0.1% of the population. This is equivalent to just under 50% of the UK's annual smoking-attributed deaths.

His analysis certainly is crap, given that he only knows a little bit of physics and tries to describe his symptoms using "dielectric stress." Still, if he was uniformly afflicted by EM (as in, working with his computer is difficult and painful), then perhaps he could be suffering from electrosensitivity. Some countries (like Russia) recognize it as an official affliction, while others, like the UK http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpa/news/articles/press_rele ases/2005/051103_electrical_sensitivity.htm, are only investigating.