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No mention of the indigenous burial rites in the region as being the root cause of the spread of Ebola. Too save you from all that reading: don't cook-and-eat with same household items that you cleaned a dead ebola patent with .. ref

So sick kids, and those with reduced immune systems are a perfectly acceptable throw away group in your mind?

Not sure where you got your numbers, but WHO says we still have 145,000 deaths per year from Measles worldwide, and they estimate it would be 4x more without vaccination.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

Just using your number of 2 PPM for the USA (matches with estimates of 400-500 deaths per year pre-vaccine with a 190M population found elsewhere), that is still no small matter. School shootings account for only 1/10 that number per year. Terrorist deaths per year since 2000 in the USA average less than that (yes, one year exceeded that by 8x). So I find your 2 PPM comment to be pretty darn callous.

http://www.who.int/water_sanit...

the WHO median number for the actual and unreported cases that was used in the baseline calculations of their forecasts last week were 2x the reported numbers in their WHO Ebola Response Roadmap publication that the news has been reporting the numbers from. The worst case scenario forecasts were based on a 3x the reported numbers. you can look at all the data and latest updates to the road map here: http://apps.who.int/iris/brows...

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

FFS, are you so daft that you cannot even look up something as simple as ebola and animals? All we need to do to start our own epidemic is to infect some animals. Can you ensure that would nevrr be possible to happen? I mean use you freaking brain. You cannot, this chik on a bike cannot, and the tests for ebola are not completely accurate when symptoms aren't showing. You also cannot control when symptomsvwill manifest and you are contageous either.

WHO estimates 20k will be infected with ebola and around 2/3 may die dues to it. Yet it is all over the news. meanwhile WHO states 1.5 million died from heart disease in 2012
makes you wonder who is trying to cover up what these days

And where is the MH370 plane?

KI

Let me disabuse you of this notion:

http://www.who.int/features/20...

http://www.ibtimes.com/ebola-o...

And, a money quote from the CNN article below:

"While the United States and several other wealthy countries have been happy to pledge funds, only Cuba and a few nongovernmental organizations are offering what is most needed: medical professionals in the field," the New York Times opined in an editorial.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/21/...

But, USA USA USA USA

right.

From the WHO site;

Sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat are typical signs and symptoms. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.

The closest thing the doctor has before he quarantined himself was "feeling a bit fatigued". I doubt very much if he was infectious before his fever hit.

One thing that seems very relevant, but never discussed: Why comes first, symptoms, or contagiousness?

If a person isn't contagious until well after showing symptoms, I can kind of see the current lax screening as being reasonable.

But otherwise, it seems inexcusable.

The incubation period, or the time interval from infection to onset of symptoms, is from 2 to 21 days. The patients become contagious once they begin to show symptoms. They are not contagious during the incubation period.

source

And here are the World Health Organization's regularly updated situation reports:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/

Growth rate is down to 87%, that's from 100% last month and 133% the month before.

At 87% population growth rate, it would consume the world in about 3 years...

More recent version of the WHO report (which confirms no new cases in Nigeria since 8 September).

How do you know it was stopped in Nigeria? Because the Nigerian government, who have a strong incentive to protect their billions of dollars in trade with the rest of the world say they stopped it?

No. We know it because US health authorities and the WHO reported it.

In any case... carry on... tell me why I'm inferior to you.

Because you rely on words like "fucktards" to make your point?

Because your point as a whole demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern epidemics are best handled? And the fundamental argument is for a course of action that is diametrically opposed to what any health official anywhere is suggesting we do? The fact that you accomplish this point through name calling is just the cosmetic problems with your argument. Name one health official who is advocating your approach. Meanwhile the general medical professional consensus is that's the best way to make a bad situation worse. And increase the odds of an ebola filled future for the world.

Symptoms of Ebola virus disease

The incubation period, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms is 2 to 21 days. Humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms. First symptoms are the sudden onset of fever fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, symptoms of impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding (e.g. oozing from the gums, blood in the stools). Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes.

Nobody can confirm it, because it's bullshit.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

The incubation period, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms is 2 to 21 days. Humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms. First symptoms are the sudden onset of fever fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, symptoms of impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding (e.g. oozing from the gums, blood in the stools). Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes.

Incubation happens for a few days to a few weeks; until symptoms develop (i.e., incubation period ends, and you start feeling symptoms of the illness), you are not infecting others. You CAN however infect people for a few weeks after symptoms have disappeared, because the virus will still appear in body fluids (including semen) for nearly 2 months after the infection passes.

yes it is passed on by touching someones sweat.

http://www.afro.who.int/en/clu...

In the meantime, you have people that try to "get away" because they either don't realize they're already infected or are simply in denial. Said person just has to cross a certain threshold and now it's in a whole other region.

Which is exactly what happened with the ECOWAS diplomat who fled from Lagos to Port Harcourt, and the last time I counted had killed 16 people, as well as shutting down our access to one country worth of oilfield professionals

I've read that the semen of Ebola survivors can transmit Ebola for months after their clinical recovery.

You're way into [ citation needed ] territory there.

People remain infectious as long as their blood and body fluids, including semen and breast milk, contain the virus. Men who have recovered from the disease can still transmit the virus through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery from illness.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/artic...
https://simple.wikipedia.org/w...

Seems to indicate that the bat species can be a host, but doesn't show the symptoms. Studies have also shown antibodies to previous strains of ebola in the areas where the matching outbreaks occurred.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Ebola is 100% transmissable to humans, as is. And no, the disease is not hard to catch. As a matter of fact it's as easy to catch as the common cold. http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

The fatality rate has been reported to be around 60% for this strain, though that might only be for those that get some amount of medical care. Not sure.

No, "The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks."

Regarding the current outbreak in West Africa: Early WHO reports suggested an overall case fatality rate (CFR) estimate of 53%,[10] considerably lower than an average of the rates reported from previous outbreaks,[11] but on 23 September, they released a revised overall CFR estimate of 70% derived using data from patients with definitive clinical outcomes.[12]

Now, that 70% figure is based on those that have come forward for diagnosis and treatment. They predict that the number of actual infections may be two and a half times higher and change the fatality percentage by an indeterminate amount (it could easily be 90%).

Don't quote wonky stats to this crowd.

I feel medical publishing needs to move away from the current paradigm even more than the open-access journals that have been discussed so widely. The company that made this advance, Agios doesn't seem to be a typical "big pharma" company: They are running lean on market cap (350 million in outstanding shares) and big dreams. Imagine a world with a hundred more companies like this could be creating equally innovative solutions. Then realize that the biggest drug company has a market cap that could be funding over 500 Agios's.

Given advertising costs that number is a little deceptive. Nevertheless we are talking about human trials in the US, an enormously expensive process. It's popular to be conservative about medicine, especially in the US and there's a good reason for that but there's a line between looking for more likely results and wasting money on almost exclusive focus on incremental improvements. We've crossed that line.

Medicine is science and science is moving faster all the time. As a society we need to keep up by focusing capital on smaller, more agile companies, not only to prevent the tragedy of unaddressed new problems but to move the state of the art forward as fast as possible. There are lives to be saved.

despite the fact flu is a much more common (and less "scary") disease.

Flu is killing 200.000 to 500.000 people globally every year.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

Dying the flu generally requires complicating conditions. Most people survive it just fine. Ebola is scary because most people don't survive it.

despite the fact flu is a much more common (and less "scary") disease.

Flu is killing 200.000 to 500.000 people globally every year.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

Influenza occurs globally with an annual attack rate estimated at 5% - 10% in adults and 20% - 30% in children.
Illnesses can result in hospitalization and death mainly among high-risk groups (the very young, elderly or chronically ill).
Worldwide, these annual epidemics are estimated to result in about 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness, and about 250 000 to 500 000 deaths.

It's just not that sexy to make a movie about it with Morgan Freeman, Dustin Hoffman and a monkey.
Plus people ignorant of distinction between common cold and influenza don't perceive it as a threat.
Which is a further reason why there is no movie with a monkey about it.

Or get bitten by. The hypothesised reservoir is fruit bats, but other primates can be infected by filoviruses, and pigs have also been found to carry them asymptomatically. Source: the WHO fact sheet on Ebola virus disease.

Is this real enough for you?

http://www.who.int/trade/gloss...

Your logic is undeniable, however in the face of facts, it falls flat on its face.

http://www.who.int/trade/gloss...

In the face of a 30% profit margin, I'd say they're charging what the market of fear-of-death will bear, not what is just or right.

The incubation period, or the time interval from infection to onset of symptoms, is from 2 to 21 days. The patients become contagious once they begin to show symptoms. They are not contagious during the incubation period.

Not these days. You can be infected without symptoms for almost a fucking month, and the damn things remains viable for two! Hell, even if you survive, it's still in you and can still be transmitted via fluid exchange for a week.

You go ahead and trust that the mortality rate will stop it. We'll see how well that works out...

230,000 were killed by the Banquiao hydroelectric dam disaster.

Not quite. 20,000 were killed in the immediate flooding. The rest were killed in the epidemics, famines, etc that followed.

Even if the worst nuclear accident in history happened EVERY YEAR, it would still be safer than hydroelectric.

If you're going to claim indirect deaths as you did above, then I'm going to claim indirect deaths too.

http://www.who.int/ionizing_ra...

Chernobyl didn't kill that many people directly/immediately, but it has impacted the health of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. It will continue to do so, for generations. Nuclear disasters never go away.

Where X is 10-100 times larger than Y: Increasing the cancer risks for X people isn't 'better' than immediately wiping Y people off the map.

Stop bullshitting. Type 2 diabetes has 1 root cause - sedentary lifestyle resulting in fat, unfit (yes, those are 2 different things) individuals with Type 2 diabetes. * An overweight person has significantly lower chance of type 2 diabetes if they are not sedentary. And no, that does not mean "walking around the block". If you can't run a 10 minute mile, you are unfit.

fatter regardless of your activity

No, that is impossible. If you have enough activity, it is impossible for you to be fat. You can blame things on "other things", like obesogens (mostly plastics), and fructose (guess what - don't eat it!), but the bottom line is obesity is caused by eating too much. If you sit on a couch, and while watching TV you need to eat something, that will make you fat because you eat out of habit. Fix your habits!

* http://www.who.int/diabetes/fa...

The number of people with diabetes is increasing due to population growth, aging, urbanization, and increasing prevalence of obesity and physical inactivity.

Are you fucking kidding me?
"Nuclear is a stopgap" and "not poisoning the world for future generations"?

You know how many people have died over the past 60-odd years from radiation poisoning? Direct deaths, including incidents like assassinations and laboratory accidents? 10,000, maybe? Nope. 5000? Nigga we ain't even close yet. 1000? Keep going. 500? Hahaha, get real buddy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Over 60 years of nuclear power and widespread use of radioactive material and there are less than 400 (estimate 200-300) deaths from direct radiation exposure. You can bump it up to ~10,000-20,000 when you include estimates on cancer related deaths. But you know what? If we're going to count cancer related deaths for nuclear, then how about we count pollution related deaths for coal, oil and gas?

Think you can guess? Maybe 100,000 per year?
Try 7 million: http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

Even if you went batshit crazy with estimating nuclear's impact - with crazy greenpeace numbers like a million deaths that they pull out of their collective asses. You still come NOWHERE NEAR coal, oil or gas. In fact, by metrics like amount of power produced per death, Nuclear is the safest we have available. Nothing else beats it, including Solar, Wind and Hydro.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/...
http://motherboard.vice.com/en...

Enough with your bullshit FUD. There is nothing wrong with, and there has never been anything wrong with Nuclear. All the facts are stacked against you and all you've brought against it are lies and bullshit fearmongering to convince people who are ignorant of what the nuclear statistics actually look like. I'm fucking sick and tired of you anti-nuclear liars. All you do is help ensure we keep guzzling oil, coal and gas. I don't think the oil industries could've gotten better shills if they paid for them.

I believe you are misreading "Routine EPI vaccines financed by government (%) 2012" as indicating the population percentile that receives these vaccines. Instead, the statistics you've referenced are for the percentile of vaccination costs the Mexican government covered for the pool of individuals who actually received the vaccinations. This is also known as "how to push a particular social agenda using statistics while avoiding evaluation of its efficacy."

In 2013, the DTP1 (first dose) vaccination rate in Mexico was 90%, and the DTP3 (third dose) rate was 86%. In the same year, the DTP1 vaccination rate in the United States was 98%, and the DTP3 rate was 94%. It is also worth noting that to be maximally effective, three primary DTP (aka DPT) doses must be administered, per CDC guidance on DTP vaccination. Could you please clarify your specific role as a medical professional?

I believe you are misreading "Routine EPI vaccines financed by government (%) 2012" as indicating the population percentile that receives these vaccines. Instead, the statistics you've referenced are for the percentile of vaccination costs the Mexican government covered for the pool of individuals who actually received the vaccinations. This is also known as "how to push a particular social agenda using statistics while avoiding evaluation of its efficacy."

In 2013, the DTP1 (first dose) vaccination rate in Mexico was 90%, and the DTP3 (third dose) rate was 86%. In the same year, the DTP1 vaccination rate in the United States was 98%, and the DTP3 rate was 94%. It is also worth noting that to be maximally effective, three primary DTP (aka DPT) doses must be administered, per CDC guidance on DTP vaccination. Could you please clarify your specific role as a medical professional?

You're lying. To be maximally effective, three primary DTP (aka DPT) doses must be administered, per CDC guidance on DTP vaccination. In 2013, the DTP1 (first dose) vaccination rate in Mexico was 90%, and the DTP3 (third dose) rate was 86%. In the same year, the DTP1 vaccination rate in the United States was 98%, and the DTP3 rate was 94%. Also, one presumes that for a variety of reasons, previously non-vaccinated illegal immigrants aren't going to rush to get their DTP shots once they're in the United States. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't see statistics like these.

Why are you lying?

You're lying. To be maximally effective, three primary DTP (aka DPT) doses must be administered, per CDC guidance on DTP vaccination. In 2013, the DTP1 (first dose) vaccination rate in Mexico was 90%, and the DTP3 (third dose) rate was 86%. In the same year, the DTP1 vaccination rate in the United States was 98%, and the DTP3 rate was 94%. Also, one presumes that for a variety of reasons, previously non-vaccinated illegal immigrants aren't going to rush to get their DTP shots once they're in the United States. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't see statistics like these.

Why are you lying?

You're lying. To be maximally effective, three primary DTP (aka DPT) doses must be administered, per CDC guidance on DTP vaccination. In 2013, the DTP1 (first dose) vaccination rate in Mexico was 90%, and the DTP3 (third dose) rate was 86%. In the same year, the DTP1 vaccination rate in the United States was 98%, and the DTP3 rate was 94%. Also, one presumes that for a variety of reasons, previously non-vaccinated illegal immigrants aren't going to rush to get their DTP shots once they're in the United States. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't see statistics like these.

Why are you lying? If your intent is not to deceive, and instead you are merely grossly misinformed, perhaps you should visit the link in your sig again for a bit of personal reflection.

You're lying. To be maximally effective, three primary DTP (aka DPT) doses must be administered, per CDC guidance on DTP vaccination. In 2013, the DTP1 (first dose) vaccination rate in Mexico was 90%, and the DTP3 (third dose) rate was 86%. In the same year, the DTP1 vaccination rate in the United States was 98%, and the DTP3 rate was 94%. Also, one presumes that for a variety of reasons, previously non-vaccinated illegal immigrants aren't going to rush to get their DTP shots once they're in the United States. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't see statistics like these.

Why are you lying? If your intent is not to deceive, and instead you are merely grossly misinformed, perhaps you should visit the link in your sig again for a bit of personal reflection.

Please reference the following resources:

• Antibiotic misuse
• Antibiotic prescribing rates by country
• Study shows overuse of antibiotics
• Antibiotic use in livestock - Use by country
• Scientists: overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture endangers humans

• Antimicrobial resistance: global report on surveillance 2014

While these resources alone do not paint an absolute picture of the global problem of large scale antibiotic misuse, there is no question that the United States is indeed among the highest ranked nations and regions for these problems. As for the GP's second sentence regarding particularly nasty germs in hospitals versus hotels, his statement is overzealous at present, but the problem is rapidly worsening in the United States.

In light of this information, please explain why you believe the GP's statement to be speculative, wrong, stupid, "not nice at all" and wildly ignorant. Judging by your recent posting history, you appear to place higher value on your opinion of whether things sound "nice" and much less value on facts.

Except it's not BS. Conventional breeding *can* result in unintentional consequences.

http://grist.org/food/the-genetically-modified-food-debate-where-do-we-begin/

Dozens of scientific advisory panels have done this sort of brainstorming. The World Health Organization [PDF], for example, reached the fairly common conclusion that the problems in genetically engineered foods are fundamentally the same as the dangers that arise naturally in plant breeding. Each relies on mutations randomly mixing up the genome. Each sometimes provides unexpected outcomes — try to make corn disease-resistant, end up with too many toxins in the kernels. In both GM and conventional breeding, scientists rely on screening to weed out the bad cobs.

Are you sure?

WHO Nutrition study: Section on worldwide consumption of seafood

Their real question is whether the changes will cause a great die off in humans and animals. Some animals will undoubtedly thrive in the new environment but humans, probably not so much.

Considering the biggest killer of humans in the last 200 years has been governments, for some reason I don't think they can be trusted to "save" any of them. Give them enough power to control CO2 emissions, then their most likely course of action will be to quickly reduce the global population - because attrition would take too long.

Do you have a any citations that collaborate this claim, ranking it vs other causes? Looking at various statistics about leading causes of death, intentional deaths including war seem to be pretty far down the list.

I can't find any specific figures for ALL cases of killing by government, but there are some supporting figures on this web site on the statistics for Democide. It's by far #1 cause of unnatural death in the 20th century. Include wars (which is actually LESS a killer than governments killing their own people), and it easily surpasses everything else.

WHO's statistics on top 10 causes of death in the world in 2012 vs. 2000 sums up to about 30 million kills in 2012 (that is, per year). http://www.who.int/mediacentre.... And the list is going to get interesting if the anti-vaccine people continue on their path, diseases that wiped out huge numbers of people historically are now growing again.

See for alternatives,with a section on fever: http://www.amazon.com/Raise-He...
"Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, renowned pediatrician and author advises parents on home treatment and diagnosis of colds and flus, childhood illnesses, vision and hearing problems, allergies, and more. PLUS, a complete section on picking the right doctor for your child, step-by-step instructions for knowing when to call a doctor, and much more."

Dr. Sears on fevers:
http://www.askdrsears.com/topi...
"If your child of any age has one or more of the following symptoms, you should probably call your doctor right away: High fevers of 104 (40 Celcius) or higher that don't come down to 101 or 102 (38.3 to 38.9 Celcius) with the treatment measures below. ...."

Fevers are part of how the body activates parts of the immune response and also makes an environment less hospitable for disease.

I've also found this advice helpful:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/chil...
"Scientific research has demonstrated that humans have a powerful immune system, even stronger than other animals. Our bodies are self-repairing, self-defending organisms, which have the innate ability to defend themselves against microbes and prevent chronic illnesses. This can only happen if we give our bodies the correct raw materials."

Vitamin D deficiency and iodine deficiency are things to look into too. We take that regularly as pills and also dulse seaweed on popcorn -- I've read that iodine forms a protective layer at the edge of cells against some viruses. Elderberry and zinc may also help with a cold or flu; I just stocked upon some of those two as lozenges and other forms for the next time someone in my family gets a cold. See also:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/libra...
"Don't be alarmed if your cold symptoms last longer than you expect. On average, patients report that their common cold symptoms last one and a half to two weeks. In children, earaches tend to last anywhere from less than one day to 9 days, sore throat 2 to 7 days, cough up to 25 days, and the common cold 7 to 15 days.32 In time, the body will clear the virus on its own. Remember, over-the-counter medications merely mask symptoms, and may even impair healing. However, if you experience a sudden worsening of symptoms, especially including labored breathing, or a fever above 103 degrees for three days, then it is time to call the doctor."

Extended breastfeeding also helps reduce illness in young children if the mother is getting adequate nutrition and is in the same environment with the kid, since her immune system will scan the environment for threats and produce antibodies for the nursing child. WHO recommend nursing for up to two years or beyond, even if that is not the norm in the USA:
http://www.who.int/topics/brea...
"Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended up to 6 months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary foods up to two years of age or beyond."

When I was last in an urgent care facility for a physical injury, the guy ahead of me was there for the flu (he had diabetes and was worried about complications). I remember thinking of that when being asked to sit in the same chair he had sat in for paperwork, and probably handed the same pen he used, and of course breathing the same air in a confined space, etc.. I ended up with the flu, which made the recovery process longer and harder (although I might have gotten the flu elsewhere too, perhaps from my own family). Hospitals are full of a lot of worse stuff than the flu, too, so I guess I got lucky in that sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.

Why sabotage a plant if you can steal nuclear material and make a dirty bomb[?]

Because sabotage may be difficult to detect beforehand, and even more difficult to definitively prove as sabotage, apart from human error or mechanical failure, depending on the nature of the sabotage. I believe that a competent saboteur is probably more likely to both succeed and avoid detection/prosecution than would a radiological-material thief.

Further, the trade-offs involved in adding a radiological component to a conventional bomb aren't favorable; the investigation into the theft the radiological material makes detection/intervention prior to detonation more likely, and the primary benefits of a "dirty bomb" over a conventional bomb are higher cleanup costs and increasing panic amongst the targeted populace. Adding a radiological component has little effect on a bomb's lethality. This has been the conclusion of numerous reports and studies; here's the first one I found, prepared by the UN WHO (World Health Organization): Radiological Dispersion Device (Dirty Bomb) - WHO/RAD Information sheet (February 2003).

It's been proven that stealing material is relatively easy.

I agree that this is problematic; Wikipedia states:

"The International Atomic Energy Agency says there is 'a persistent problem with the illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials, thefts, losses and other unauthorized activities.' The IAEA Illicit Nuclear Trafficking Database notes 1,266 incidents reported by 99 countries over the last 12 years, including 18 incidents involving HEU or plutonium trafficking."

However, there's no indication as to what's being done with the stolen materials. One thing they're apparently not being used for is the construction and use of "dirty bombs," since there have been no such detonations in the past 12 years. These thefts could be being orchestrated by nation-states for use in their own nuclear programs, or in order to deny these materials to the nations from which they were stolen.

Making a conventional bomb that will contaminate a large area with the nuclear material strapped to it is also known to be easy. The only reason nuclear is part of this is because it's so incredibly poisonous and relatively easy to transport and use in a dirty bomb. There are few, if any materials that will make a DIY explosive so effective as this.

As I've said, "dirty bombs" offer little in the way of improved efficacy over conventional bombs. There are many enhancements that could be added, all of which are generally more effective and most of which are more easily procured or manufactured: shrapnel; anticoagulants (e.g., warfarin) for increasing mortality from otherwise-survivable wounds; poisons (e.g., ricin); chemical agents (sulfur/nitrogen mustard, chlorine, sarin); biological agents (anthrax); incendiaries (typically metallic or petroleum-based).

What is observed in the real world is that — aside from the use of shrapnel — hardly anyone that conducts bombings (beside regular military forces) bothers to incorporate any of these enhancements in the near-daily bombings that are occurring nowadays.

It is also worth considering that among military forces — certainly the most well-funded, prolific, experienced, and effective users of bombs — none incorporate radiological bombs in their arsenals. Both military and non-military bomb users seem to know something that "dirty bomb" scare-mongers do not.

Oh I see, your source of information is a blog. Forgive me if I believe the CDC and the WHO. Also your source doesn't understand medicine very well because even they said:

"We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease."

Encephalopathy is not Autism nor linked to Autism. In a very desperate attempt to make any link, the author of the blog is basically making shit up.

Dyssentry usually isn't fatal. Usually.

According to WHO, about 760,000 children die every year from diarrhea caused by food or water borne pathogens. In light of that, I think it is silly to say that sanitation and health inspections are unnecessary.

There is not in any way "consensus" that "GMOs are safe"

Again the facts say otherwise.

The consensus is that they are safe.
American Medical Association
National Academy of Sciences
World Health Organization
Chief Scientific Advisor to the European Commission
Department of Agriculture
Food and Drug Administration
Environmental Protection Agency

Scientific consensus is that GMOs are safe.

It's actually unusual to see serious injuries in major car crashes

You mean except for the 1.24 million deaths annually on roads? Or the 20-40,000 people who die each year in car crashes in the US alone? Interesting definition of unusual you have there.

Pretty poor attempt at sarcasm, given it only reveals your ignorance to the number of radiation and cancer deaths from Chernobyl. Nuclear power is indeed one of the fatally polluting energy generation methods.

Bull.

The numbers around chernobyl are thrown around with much hysteria, but lets look at some actual facts. WHO estimates the estimated death toll for Chernobyl might hit 4000, and noted:

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

If we do a bit of calculation based on the Bq radiation estimates from Wikipedia, the hardest hit region of the hardest hit country (Belarus) could have gotten radiation around 1480+ Bq of Cs-137 over an area of 2000 km^2. According to a Bq-to-Sv calculator, if we do 1cm distance from a 1480Bq Cs-137 source times 8765 hours (per year), you end up with a rate of Living in this 45km x 45km area would net you a whopping 9 mSv / year.

Fatal doses tend to be ~4.5 Sv. Worrysome annual dosages tend to be around 50mSv. 9mSv is like getting a CT scan once a year-- and this is if you're in the worst hit 2000km^2 of the worst hit country. In reality, the extra dosage you would have gotten from Chernobyl is just not that high.

Now compare Nuclear with hydroelectric which has killed hundreds of thousands of people in single incidents, or coal which year after year has mining accidents on its record (not to mention the pollution), and it looks pretty good. Not as good safety-wise as perhaps wind / solar, but its also a heck of a lot cheaper and a LOT more scalable.

There are potential issues and things to worry about with nuclear. Safety is not one,

Is there data available on how many people got measles in the bay area outbreak? How many were vaccinated, etc?

3 cases requiring hospitalization, 14 cases total, not all of them traceable to the same patient zero U.C. Berkeley student; 5 more cases traceable to recent travelers returning from the Philippines.

Generally stats are not published until after the quarter is over, and then it requires some time for the reporting window to close.

U.S. Immunization rates for measles by age 1 is 92%, according to WHO: http://gamapserver.who.int/gho...

I typically would not expect them to publish stats on vaccination failures to non-medical professionals, so no idea if any of the 14 cases so far were persons who were vaccinated. According to PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... published in 1996, the apparent failure rate is http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... published in 2004.

It also appears that about 70% of the people actually contracting measles are accounted for as vaccine failures, if this NIH report from 1987 is to be believed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

The numbers are within an order of magnitude of what you'd expect for a 92% vaccination rate, with a 10% failure rate (leaving the unvaccinated 8% to account for the other 30% of cases, since one would expect them to be predominantly rurally and regionally isolated at about that a 2.8x rate compared to "vaccinated, but failed").

Of course, failure rates vary by vaccine, as this 1988 Lancet article points out comparing the Edmonston-Zagreb vaccine to the Schwartz vaccine in 4-6 month year olds: http://www.thelancet.com/journ...

So we can guess that out of the 14 total cases, we can guess ~10 are vaccine failures, and ~4 are non-vaccinated, with about a 4% margin of error allowing a 9/5 split instead.

Like I said, they really do not like to publish numbers like this, and in a small sample like this, there are HIPPA considerations to publishing such data, since it would violate medical privacy for those who were vaccinated, but in whom the disease occurred anyway.