Think Local, Act Local

Monday, April 27, 2020

"Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other." -- Edmund Burke

If you’re reading this, I assume you’ve already been recruited into one of the several armed motorcycle gangs that scours the city’s ruins for canned food. I know finding a generator to recharge your laptop isn’t easy so I’ll keep this short. Oh, wait. That’s the first paragraph of the post I’m writing for June. Where’s my end of April post? Oh, here. Let’s start over. ...
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Testing, Testing Part 2

Can you feel it, now that spring has come? That it's time to live in the scattered sun.

Waiting for the sun. Waiting for the sun. Waiting for the sun. Waiting for the sun.

This is the strangest life I've ever known. -- Waiting for the Sun, The Doors

[I’m writing this on Friday, April 17. Everything in this post might be false in a few days, and conditions might be different in places oth...
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Largest Study Ever Finds No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism

The rash on the skin of a measles patient. Photo credit: CDC/Dr. Heinz F. Eichenwald

“A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.” -- C. H. Spurgeon

In 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, published a study in The Lancet reporting on 12 (remember that number) children with developmental delay, 8 of whom were diagnosed with autism within 4 weeks of receiving the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. The study proposed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Other researchers were unable to reproduce ...
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Last Year’s Flu Season Was Worst in Decades

“Oh, a storm is threat'ning My very life today If I don't get some shelter Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away”

Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones

By any measure, last year’s flu season (2017-2018) was very bad. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report last month estimating that influenza killed about 80,000 people in the US last season. That’s the highest number since 1976. How much worse is that than u...
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In Healthy Older Patients Aspirin Doesn’t Help

Aspirin tablets. Photo credit: Ragesoss / Wikimedia Commons
Before we delve into this month’s news about aspirin, let’s briefly review what we think we know. Aspirin is life-saving therapy during a heart attack. In patients who have had a stroke or a heart attack in the past, daily low dose aspirin can prevent a second stroke or heart attack. Ditto in patients who have had bypass surgery or angioplasty or those who have chronic angina (chest pain caused by narrowing of coronary arteries), daily low dose aspirin prevents heart attacks in them too. ...
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