picking up previous topic, IMO, Kurosawa's greatest films : "Dark Angel", "Rashomon", "7 Samurai", "Yojimbo" "High & Low" & "Ran". All these are availabe on dvd, so, if you haven't seen any of them, rent them post haste.

In re to your OP, have been taking flu shots for
many years & haven't mutated into a monster YET-----------

Happy New Year's to you !

When our favorite "chicken little" poster Miss TJloonytunes was predicting martial law in response to the pandemic? rofl

I have never had a flu shot, I also have not actually had the flu since childhood.

That said I don't buy into the hysteria about vaccines. I can't count the number of dieseases that have been wiped out through through vaccines. The amount of good that has been done so completey overshadows any negatives to being vaccinated. I still don't plan on getting a flu shot though.

After getting the vaccine, numerous people died from Guillan-Barre syndrome, if memory serves me correctly, a degenerative muscle disorder similar to "Lou Gherig Disease" ( ALS ).

In re to Mein, the '32 version of "Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde" is a classic, IMHO & the best of the many filmed versions of the Stevenson tale.

I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything that Mein won't believe.

Of course, to Mein, getting a yearly flu shot IS a conspiracy. After all, if you got a flu shot once in your life, it should work for the rest of your life!

I'm guessing that's your logic Mein, since you don't believe that the flu virus can evolve on an annual basis.

TB and Small pox have killed more people probably than any war man has ever waged. In the 19th century, santariums were built to house and treat people with TB, where they died by the tens of thousands. I am very glad to live in a time where science has progressed far enough to keep me safe and alive from these diseases.

Doctors might also deny the correlation between increased vacinations and UFO sightings. Guess why they deny such a correlation? None exists.

Psychology has advanced more in the last 20 years than it did 100 years prior. The simple reality is that we are better able to detect autism. That is why autism rates are skyrocketing Mein. When you were a kid, you weren't diagnosed with it unless you sat in a corner and rocked back and forth all day.

Back when I was growing up, which wasn't so long ago, I was said to be a quiet kid. Today I would have been dignosed with Asberger's, a disorder that's in the autism spectrum.

I'd dare say, that if you were to travel to some obscure Amazon location, then you'd probably find autism there too. You'd also find people infested with lice and ringworms.

And I'd wager there's far more evidence that pesticides are more to blame for Alzheimer's than vaccines are.

Learning a new skill every 6 months is the best way to prevent developing Alzheimer's.

Statistics to a certain extent say anything you'd like.

For example -- okay, taking a vaccine doubles your risk of alzheimers; but smoking decreases that risk. (Really!) But maybe that's because people who get vaccinated and therefore don't die from certain illnesses actually live long enough to get alzheimer's whereas people who smoke like trains may die before they are old enough to get alzheimers.

Yes -- autism has gone through the roof. But exposure to mercury by the average joe was higher back 50 years ago than today. It's unlikely there is a causal link.

Note well: I am NOT saying vaccines are an across-the-board "Good Idea(tm)." There are proven potential damages from vaccines that in many cases can outweigh their benefits.

All that I am saying is that I do NOT buy the attempts to link vaccines to autism and alzheimers.

You will also find that chidlren's exposure to TV increased over the same time as autism increased, children got less physical exercise, and -- perhaps most importantly -- the age of parents at the birth of their offspring has increased dramatically over the past 50 years.

Of course, we now have replaced things like arsenic in insecticides with hormonal disrupters and the like and are eating lots of GMO corn and feeding women soy, which is poison for their bodies.

To me, Mein, I do not buy this linkage between vaccines and autism; but am willing to admit that something seriously negative (or many somethings negative) have occurred in our environment that cause this problem.

I can't keep track of them. It seems everytime I turn the TV, there is another disease, ailment I never heard promoting some drug.

GO Cardinal!

Then why aren't the sick and old dropping dead every flu season?They're the same thing.Yes, it is a coincidence, especially given that there are well documented cases of the disorder dating back to the mid 18th century. Of course, the 30's was an ancient time in the field of psychology. Behavioralism was mainstream, and lobotomies were considered cutting edge technology.Like I said, autism rates skyrocketed because of better detection methods. It's no surprise that such a thing happened in the 70's, when modern Psychology was born. This also happens to be the decade when the DSM decided to stop listing homosexuality as a mental disorder. Might I suggest you google "Measle outbreak", if you think it's snake oil.Diagnoses I'm sure your average layman would find puzzling and mysterious if you had never studied abnormal psychology. We're in complete agreement there. I'm sure you'll tell us now how you're in favor of a non-profit single payer health care system.Of course, catching measles alone can cause fevers high enough to cause brain damage, pneumonia, as well as corneal ulceration and scarring, along with a 30% fatality rate among health-compromised persons, but 67 bucks is a lot of money to spend on your kids.I agree that Time is a shit magazine, but I wanted to mention that study since you brought up Alzheimers.

-- Modified on 1/4/2011 5:02:38 AM

They don't work? Googled "measles outbreak" yet?Where's the evidence for this? If you have any, subject it for peer review. By the way, on average influenza kills 41,000 Americans every year. The young, old, and the already ill are particularly at risk. We're going back to to 1903 for your medical evidence? Wow. Did it occur to you Mein, that record keeping was a bit shoddy back then, and that doctors didn't see a very diverse number of patients?

Oh, by the way, Abigail Adams, the daughter of Founder John Adams, died of breast cancer. She died in 1813, at a time when vaccines weren't available.You'll also find damn few medical records. They were vaccinated against cowpox, not smallpox. By the way, the way they "vaccinated" these people were by cutting their arm with a knife and rubbing puss into the wound from someone who had cowpox. Maybe you shouldn't use medical evidence that predates the widespread understanding of the Germ Theory of Disease. Just saying...And if you found that people who eat healthy organic whole foods and exercise regularly are 80% more likely to develop Alzheimer's would you dine on Oreos for the rest of your life? Coorelation does not equal causation. People who don't die early of influenza are more likely to live longer, when Alzheimer's can develop.Assuming this is true, then it would not be caused by the vaccine, but rather it would be caused by a malfunctioning immune system. Where in the hell is the evidence for that? Give me data instead of hearsay.  

Let me say this: Medical advancements, such as vaccines, have wiped out some of the worse diseases ever faced by man. Polio is now so rare that it's damn near unheard of in the Western world. That's not the case in parts of Africa and Asia where vaccines aren't available. Smallpox, which has killed people dating as far back as 1500 BC, and wiped out at least 500 million people, including nearly killing off entire races like Native Americans, has now been eradicated. We have CURED smallpox by using vaccinations. It's rare that diseases can be entirely cured, but thanks to modern medicine, nobody will ever have to deal with the horrors of this disease.

-- Modified on 1/4/2011 12:00:00 PM

I will admit that, as a scientist, I have to some extent been indoctrinated with current scientific beliefs; and in every era, we discover many beliefs of the prior era were incorrect. Therefore, I am very aware of limitations of knowledge as well as biases I might have.

However, I have read medical literature from WELL before the existence of vaccines; and cancers DID exist.

They spelled it chancre back then, but it was the same situation.

Actually, some of that older literature recognized some ailments that aren't recognized today which has started me on some very productive research. But I digress.

Let's not forget, too, that the definition of autism for purposes of diagnosis has broadened; as well as the number of people trained to recognize it.

I'm sorry Mein, very often you and I are on the same page, but in this case we disagree.

I WILL grant you that vaccines can be dangerous; but I see no correlations to cancers and autism.

This sort of logic is kind of like my argument that water causes cancer. I know it must, because every cancer patient has drank water at some point. (*grin*)