Read This First 170423, Heuristics 170928, Glossary Updated 171220, Mini Lessons 170827
1. Exploiting Uncertainty, 2. Mundane of Disaster, 3. Raw Water, 4. Weather bombs, 5. Politics and Medicine, 6. The Global Biowar, 7. Humans and MicroBioSphere, 8. Repeating Opioid History. <ADDED> 1. Anti-Vax Face, 2. Defacto Word Ban, 3. Nuclear Drill, 4. Ebola Corruption, 5. Cuban Sound Weapon, 6. Mosquito Control.
Other Topics: BioTrumpism, BioPolitics, Vaccine, Biosphere, Disaster, Humor, Climate Change, Anthropocene, Anthropogenic, Communication, Opioids, Status vs Health, Book, Nursing Homes, Flu, Social Media, Mediazation, Social Distancing, Technology for Health
-1. A seminal concept of Parademic is that in conditions of uncertainty people tend toward magical thinking, in uncertain and terrifying times people want more entertainment that allow them to escape reality, create their own reality. How America Lost Its Mind. People in the Reality Based Community 2 (Truthiness, video) believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. Each of us is on a spectrum somewhere between the poles of rational and irrational. We all have hunches we can’t prove and superstitions that make no sense. We are letting the subjective entirely override the objective; thinking and acting as if opinions and feelings are just as true as facts. Most of us haven’t realized how far reaching our strange new normal has become. The word mainstream has recently become a pejorative, shorthand for bias, lies, oppression by the elites. This phenomena is most easily discerned with the Dunning Kruger model [Chart].
-Quote: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always to certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts. – Bertrand Russell
-2. This will be fascinating to watch. Have no idea who anti-vax or pro vax will respond to this, neither do they. Not that long ago I could predict but something as yet unidentified has changed. Autism Rates Have Stabilized in U.S. Children. Rates of autism spectrum disorder among children in the U.S. remained stable from 2014 to 2016, according to new research. This is a change from previous studies that found steady increases over the past two decades. No Rise in Autism in US in Past Three Years. What if the motivation’s for spreading vaccine misinformation are disappearing, to include as a source of income -2.2‡VCP↓. Antivax can deny change in position, claim success. More likely as the ASD definition stabilizes and laws are enacted to enforce social responsibility that the current wave of antivax will continue to losing the developed world audience, necessitating exploiting the developing one. Paradoxically a rough flu season where the major circulating strain is dangerous, and not effectively covered by the available vaccine, may make antivax trust issues more unpopular, Flu Counts Jump as 46 States Report Widespread Activity. How California Got More Children Vaccinated after the Disneyland Measles Outbreak, -2.2‡VCP↓, What Anti-Vaccinators Are Saying Online about the Disneyland Measles Outbreak (2015). ¶ Let Freedom Ring. If there has been a theme over the past year, when it comes to public trust in vaccines, it has been the tension between individual freedoms and social cooperation, between choice and voice as an individual, or choice and voice in consideration of the broader community. Standing up for rights to freedom of expression, to choice, and to respect and dignity are all healthy characteristics of democratic societies. But, contrarian views become problematic for a technology like a vaccine, whose success – at least for many vaccines – depends on “the herd”. The success of vaccination depends on the public accepting the voice of experts and government – both of whom are facing waning trust in many countries around the world. The assumption that populations would accept – and continue to accept – more and more vaccines, just because they are good for personal and public health, needs a reality check. The ever changing political, cultural and emotional lives of people have different notions of what is good for them, and we need to listen. This does not mean agreeing with misinformation about vaccines that is circulating on the internet and social media -4, -5.1, -171231-2‡↓, but listening to the deeper, underlying sentiments – the feelings of alienation, the loss of personal contact and people’s sense of feeling “counted” rather than cared for. This individual vs societies rights is perhaps an underlying conflict about vaccines, but it does not explain global anti-vax where those who cannot be considered democratic in any sense oppose vaccines, usually because it is representation of what they desire to direct hate toward.
-Quote: Yet, in spite of (Man’s) spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together. – Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Lecture December 11, 1964, commonly confused with his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech December 10, 1964.
-2.1. UK Hospitals to Delay Non Urgent Surgeries amid Flu Crisis. Citing high levels of respiratory illness and extreme seasonal pressure on Britain's hospital system, the National Health Service in England is recommending putting off thousands of medical procedures to free up staff and beds to deal with emergency patients. We saw the same in Ebola. An unfortunate response to biodisaster is to focus on that and let everything else fall apart, because on inability to handle the surge of a disaster while handling the everyday mundane emergencies. HSE: Hospitals Will Not Turn People Away, as Flu Epidemic Threatens to Derail Health Service. Overwhelmed by Flu Cases, Some ERs Turn Ambulances Away.
-2.2. Nursing Homes Should Require Flu Shots for All Staff and Patients, Most Older Adults Say. As flu season swings into high gear, a new poll suggests nursing homes and other long-term care facilities should be doing more to get their staff and patients vaccinated before it's too late. Nearly three quarters of people over age 50 surveyed in a new poll say all staff in such facilities should definitely be required to get the flu vaccine. More than 60 percent say that patients in such facilities should definitely get vaccinated too. What will happen with the concurrent Under Trump Rule, Nursing Home Residents May Not Be Able to Sue after Abuse, Trump Administration Scales Back Penalties for Nursing Homes; chances are the trend will remain consistent with other actions, but what the final consequences will be are still undetermined Trump Administration Aims to Open Nearly All US Offshore Waters to Drilling, Today in Trump’s Destruction of American Regulations and Safeguards. A Physician Homebuilder Tries to Upend the Nursing Home Industry – and Give Seniors Back Their Independence.
-‡. VCP News Archive: There is a Whole Cottage Industry of Doctors Helping Parents Skip Their Kids’ Vaccines, indicates that only .5% can support those who oppose the law for financial gain, the danger is not .5% but that it is unevenly spread with clusters which has always been the problem, -2↑ How California Got More Children Vaccinated after the Disneyland Measles Outbreak. How Countries Around the World Try to Encourage Vaccination illustrates how clusters of ant-vax result in outbreaks. How to Think About Vaccines. ¶ France Is the Most Anti-Vaccine Country in the World (2016), 40 percent of French citizens believe vaccines are unsafe. France Looks to Curb its Growing Anti-Vaccination Movement with a New Lawin , but details on how it will be enforced remain unclear. France Makes 11 Child Vaccines Compulsory: No Vaccines, No School, seeking to stamp out growing nationwide skepticism towards vaccines. Unfortunately during a time of increasing distrust of government this will probably backfire, Why Do the French Hate Their Politicians So Much. There is a correlation between anti-government and anti-vax but the cause or motivation is still not clear. It is also useful to keep in mind that France has a history of anti-vax sentiments Vaxxing Voltaire Sticks It to the French, when he lived in England in the 1720s, he wrote the following essay praising the English adoption of inoculation against smallpox and chides the French for refusing to do so. Sabotage #Document Hurdles to Herd Immunity: Distrust of Government and Vaccine Refusal. It would also be interesting to explore how the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is portrayed in the French press with the recent Dengue vaccine troubles, Sanofi: The Failure of Dengvaxia, Revealing "More Global" Difficulties (original French version), <ADDED 171224-171217-1.1>1, 171217-1.1. Sanofi Updates Information on Dengue Vaccine. Experts Call for Use of Sanofi’s Dengue Vaccine to Be Halted in Most Cases. Philippines Fines Sanofi, Suspends Clearance for Dengvaxia.
-3. Perhaps the natural movement has gone too far. Why People Are Drinking Raw Water (But Probably Shouldn't). Raw Water Is a New Health Trend. But Is it Safe. The water system in the U.S. isn’t perfect. There are aging pipes and infrastructure issues, and lead contamination like that in Flint, Mich, <ADDED 171217-170528-5.2>5‡, <ADDED 171203-170205-5.1>8. But it has greatly improved public health over the past century. After the U.S. introduced filtration, chlorination and sanitation practices for public drinking water, the burden of water borne illnesses such as cholera and typhoid fever plummeted almost to zero. Having a central treatment process of our drinking water and then distributing it out to the individual homes and businesses is a tremendous asset that we, as a country, take for granted. Drinking untreated water, and the pathogens that can lurk within it, could expose Americans to disease outbreaks once again. When water isn’t treated, it can contain chemicals and germs that can make us sick or cause disease outbreaks. nything you can think of can be in untreated water, ranging from agricultural runoff and naturally occurring chemicals to bacteria and viruses. Meet Raw Water, Ludicrously Priced Unfiltered Water with Random Bacteria, with pricing as high as $6 per gallon, company claims health benefits without data. Food Safety Expert Warns Latest Bizarre Silicon Valley $60 'Raw Water' Trend Could Quickly Turn Deadly. Forget Raw Water, There’s a Safer off Grid Alternative to the Dangerous Craze Sweeping Silicon Valley. Usually irrational cures occur in the presence of a biodisaster – famine, disease, drought. What however is the motivation for this. Perhaps taste or avoiding an imagined health risk or status derived from being able to afford and taste the difference. Unfiltered Fervor: The Rush to Get Off the Water Grid. The Raw Water Trend Sounds like a Bad Idea (Because of Cholera). It has a vaguely mild sweetness, a nice smooth mouth feel, nothing that overwhelms the flavor profile. Raw water devotees are embracing the trend to avoid exposure to chemicals like fluoride and chlorine, in order to maximize their health. Fashionable Food: A Latent Class Analysis of Social Status in Food Purchases. Why the Raw Water Movement Is So Obnoxious. It doesn’t just reveal Silicon Valley’s idiocy and love of capitalism. It exposes their disinterest in everyone else. What Is Water Memory. Why this Homeopathy Claim Doesn't Hold Water. Raw Water: the Latest Dangerous Natural Health Fad. ¶ These Millennials Have a Tech Solution to Your Health Problems.
-4. #Linguistics. It is not unusual to use scary words to attract interest or chance to exploit, such as epidemic for a non disease situation, like opioids -8↓. Social Media Explodes over the Real Weather Term Bomb -2↑, -5.1, -171231-2‡↓. Bombogenesis is the technical term. Bomb cyclone is a shortened version of it, better for social media. The actual impacts aren’t going to be a bomb at all. There’s nothing exploding or detonating. Bomb cyclones draw air from polar regions after they leave. In this case, it means extra cold Arctic air because of where the polar vortex is. Worldwide, about 40 to 50 “bomb cyclones” brew each year, but most are over open ocean and nobody but weather geeks notice. When meteorologist use the term bomb they know what it means, but it gets a little hyped up. Energy Markets, Not Coal Bailouts, Will Keep the East Coast Warm this Week. The Bomb Cyclone Isn't a Winter Hurricane — Just a Bad Storm with Good Branding. While the Eastern U.S. Freezes, It's Too Warm in Alaska. -160515-4↓. ¶ There are also unexpected health hazards, What to Do If You Come Across a Frozen Iguana.
-5. #Book. Medical Schools Shouldn’t Divorce Education from Politics. Many medical schools don’t encourage political thought in their students, far less nurture it. That’s a shame because it squanders an opportunity to equip future thought leaders to deal with serious concerns facing the U.S. population, many of which have their tentacles in politics. In Experiencing Politics: A Legislator's Stories of Government and Health Care, a memoir about his 12 year stint in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Harvard’s John McDonough offers an accessible argument about why health care – and medicine by extension – is an inherently political issue. Politics is the way that civilized societies are supposed to decide how limited resources should be distributed. It makes sense, then, to say that health care is a political issue.
-5.1. Beyond Banned Words: The CDC, Trump’s Anti-Science, and Anthropological Outrage. The illusion of distinct media -2, -4↑, -171231-2‡↓, and medical arenas is sustained by the content of stories – like the one on banned words – which projects journalists as boundary workers whose watchdog role enables them to expose illegal crossings. Such stories emerged from a broader process of biomediatization. Carried out in laboratories, clinics, public health offices, and living rooms as much as newsrooms, biomediatization involves the coproduction of medical subjects and objects through collaborations that entangle what are envisioned as distinct professional ideologies and practices. One example is marketers and media consultants for biotech and pharmaceutical corporations do not simply issue press releases when new products are announced but rather collaborate with scientists and clinicians from the start in constructing a new disease, identifying target molecules, designing and carrying out clinical trials, recruiting medical writers, placing articles in professional journals, and building dialogues between biotech journalists and scientists throughout the process. Thus, new drugs and devices are mediatized from the start. Public Health Politicised: A Response to the Politics of CDC Language and Implications for Global Health, Wellbeing and Inequalities. Verbal hygiene has been employed as a strategy to render CDC outputs more palatable to Republicans responsible for making budgetary decisions. Yet the suggestion that the CDC should revise (or conceal) its language is serious because it would cultivate a public health infrastructure that is embedded in social values that infringe on human rights. Moreover, it would legitimise the damaging actions that have already been implemented across the US and specifically by the Trump administration in the context of women’s health and welfare at the global level.
-6. Parademic is not just behavior to avoid being harmed by a biodisaster, but includes behavior of those who are sick or otherwise harmed, which in turn leads to people who try to avoid being exposed or contaminated by people and places who are infected or otherwise toxic, such as social distancing, or the more extreme moral panic, quarantine for no cause and stigma. It's Not Just A Cold, It's Sickness Behavior. Feeling grumpy and antisocial because you've got a cold. That's not just a random side effect. It's your body saying, "Hey, slow down and rest so you can get better". Australian Flu: Spread Prompts Handshake Ban in Northern Ireland Churches. Having received medical advice concerning the increasing risk and impact of Australian flu, the diocese of Down and Connor has decided to reactivate … precautionary measures originally established by the diocese in response to the swine flu epidemic in 2009. All parishioners are reminded of good hygiene practice as recommended by the public health authority. Parishioners are encouraged to use disinfecting hand gels and hand wash soaps to minimise risk of infection. If anyone exhibits flu like symptoms, they should stay at home during this illness and advise their GP. The customary sign of peace handshake exchanged during mass is suspended until the risk of infection is significantly reduced. Other provisions will be made for those who suffer from a coeliac condition, such as separate chalices (for those who may have medical reactions to the Eucharist) . Provision should be made for all ministers to use alcohol gel or wash their hands in warm soapy water before mass and after the distribution of holy communion to minimise risk of infection. [Photo].
-7. Humans are not that important. Coincidental Killers. We assume that microbes evolved to attack humans when actually we are just civilian casualties in a much older war. We might think of antibiotics as modern inventions, but they’re actually weapons that bacteria have been using against each other for aeons. We fear lions and tigers and bears; bacteria have to contend with phage viruses, nematode worms, and predatory amoebas. We’re not central actors in the dramas that affect our lives. We are just passers by. No, Kelly Brogan, Germs Are Not Trying to Kill Us. And Yes, They Are Real.
-8. Inside the Story of America’s 19th Century Opiate Addiction. Doctors then, as now -4↑, over prescribed the painkiller to patients in need, and then, as now, government policy had a distinct bias. In the 1870s physicians used morphine as a new fangled wonder drug. Injected with a hypodermic syringe, the medication relieved pain, asthma, headaches, alcoholics’ delirium tremens, gastrointestinal diseases and menstrual cramps. Doctors were really impressed by the speedy results they got. It’s almost as if someone had handed them a magic wand. By 1895, morphine and opium powders, like OxyContin and other prescription opioids today, had led to an addiction epidemic that affected roughly 1 in 200 Americans. Before 1900, the typical opiate addict in America was an upper or middle class white woman. Today, doctors are relearning lessons their predecessors learned more than a lifetime ago. #Book Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America.
-171231-2‡>1. The Antivaccine Movement on Facebook: Small World Networks, Conspiracy Theories, Moral Outrage, and Paranoia. One of the findings of the study was – surprise, surprise – that most antivaxers on Facebook are women. This is about as startling to anyone who’s perused antivaccine Facebook groups as the sun rising in the morning and setting at night. The reason is almost certainly very simple: Women still provide the vast majority of direct child care and make most of the decisions about the medical care of their children. A good analysis of what is superficial about this study. -2, -4, -5.1↑. Facebook Clarifies Site Not Intended to Be Users’ Primary Information Source.
-171217-9.3>2, <ADDED 171224>4. Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Words. Censorship is not just brute force black blocks of redacted text nestled amongst the more harmless words we might be allowed to read. That kind of blatant censorship can paradoxically produce more sophisticated, skeptical readers, as it’s clear and marked that some information is missing. Resistance against this coercive censorship can highlight it even further. But what happens when the censorship is furtive, flying under the radar as much as possible. When no one notices, or no one cares, it can be easier to manipulate the messaging as desired, even if the ideas themselves may not be banned. It just may make it harder to express them. Language censorship is not simply about the removal of ideas and concepts that are uncomfortable for a regime, but about using language to construct and frame a particular reality to persuade a populace. In this case the frame may become that there is nothing that can stop a biodisaster, or the cause is beyond human control and only a chosen few will survive.
-171119-2>3, <ADDED 171231>1. ∩ Illustration of combining unrelated information,* US Health Agency Schedules Briefing on Nuclear War Preparedness, and leave out other information, such as was scheduled months ago, before President Trump’s recent tweets about nuclear buttons and North Korea, to increase dread Nuclear War Would Be ‘Devastating,’ So the C.D.C. Wants to Get People Prepared. Hospitals Using Simulation to Prepare for North Korea Nuke Attack. Hospitals across the nation are preparing for possible nuclear warfare with North Korea. In order for physicians and trainees to be ready for such a catastrophic event, we caught up with the University of BS who brought together the nation’s best administrators and medical educators to design simulation scenarios mimicking the hardships of triaging mass casualties. The scenarios for this costly yet necessary session are: Scenario 1 Triaging with Efficiency. Scenario 2 Admission Decisions. Scenario 3 Communication. Scenario 4 Donning and Doffing. *Note that parademic weekly notes combines information in atypical ways, or may leave our pertinent information. The intent is not to deceive, but the possibility remains.
-171105-6.1>4. Ebola Survivors Sue Government of Sierra Leone over Missing Millions. Stewardship of $15m in foreign support for deadly outbreak under scrutiny as officials are accused of failing to honour promises. Essentially those who create the circumstances that facilitate the acceleration of a biodisaster then are able to capitalize on it when one or more happens, often times at little risk to themselves. 170806-10, 160925-2.1, 160710-2.1, 160313-7, #↓.
-170827-2.1>5, <ADDED 171022>6. Jeff Flake Says There's No Evidence Cuban Government Attacked American Diplomats. Flake, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member and a longtime leading advocate of detente with Cuba, met Friday with high ranking Cuban officials who oversee domestic security and works with foreign law enforcement agencies. The Cubans told Flake the FBI has told them that, after four trips to Cuba, its agents have found no evidence that mysterious illnesses suffered by U.S. diplomats were the result of attacks. Flake told The Associated Press on Saturday morning that classified briefings from U.S. officials have left him with no reason to doubt the Cuban account, although he declined to discuss the contents of those briefings.
-160515-↕4>6. [Cartoon] -4↑.
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